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Conference Icebreaker Workshop

It was an early start for us last Thursday. We had been asked to provide a cake making 'icebreaker' workshop at breakfast time. We were set up and ready to go by 8am and were very impressed by how bright eyed and ready for action our participants were. They were from all over the world and worked for big companies. The conference was about digital connectivity in the modern age. I taught the group how to create a variety of buttercream swirls including rose and classic. Once the group had masterminded the cake decorating basics we moved onto the fun competitive element. This was when they each had to completely ice and decorate a cake from scratch within a 1 minute time limit. This lead too much hilarity as the time pressure kicked in. The whole group then voted for their winning cupcake. The winner received a signed copy of my bestselling recipe book Eat Me!

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Cupcake Baking Class

We had a great time on Saturday's half day cupcake baking workshop. The cake making class was attended by four passionate bakers. Tina and Sophie were old friends who shared a passion for cake baking. Sophie treated Tina to the class as her birthday treat. They both work in theatre so were pleased to find a date that fitted in with their busy schedules. Tina will soon be off on tour with world famous celebrity Peppa Pig! The other two attendees were Irit who is a talented pianist and singer and Anam who works with children with special needs. They were all very focused which ensured they got fantastic results. Their cupcakes came out perfectly light and fluffy and they soon picked up the various cake decorating techniques. They loved doing the rose swirl and as it was a small class I was able to work individually with each of them. This ensured that they all managed to create perfect buttercream swirls. They loved getting their hands on our huge box of sprinkles and edible decorations. The glitter was an especially big hit. At the end of the 3hr session they had a great sense of achievement, each leaving the cake making class with a box of a dozen delicious cupcakes to enjoy with their friends and family.

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Gingerbread Decorating Workshop

Knowing that 'The Real' Father Christmas was going to be at Linleys I couldn't resist bringing my kids in to say hello. They were thrilled to meet him and even happier to receive a tasteful wooden present each. I was invited to host a gingerbread biscuit decorating workshop for their family day. As Linley's is a very elegant furniture store i wanted to do something stylish and design lead. Due to the quality (and cost!) of the sofa's next to us I decided to keep risk of icing and sprinkle spill to a minimum. We managed this through creating rice paper costumes for the elves and fairies. The kids loved cutting them out and colouring them in with edible food colouring pens. I then fixed them on by using the royal icing like glue. Father Christmas was thrilled with the the biscuit we made to look just like him. He also came and serenaded us with the accordion and some ancient Christmas songs. he told us he didn't know anything written after the 19th century! There was delicious cream topped hot chocolate to warm everyone up as they stepped inside the shop. All in all it was a fun event full of Christmas cheer!

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Great British Bake Off Worldwide- Conference Activity

Having always fancied myself appearing on 'The Great British Bake Off' (judge not contestant please!) I was very happy to be invited to by BBC Worldwide to present an element of 'The great Global Bake Off'. I was asked to host the 'Technical Challenge' for the producers of the GBBO equivalents worldwide. It was their conference activity and a great way to unwind after a busy day at the networking event. They were a creative bunch and when it came to cake making the were not happy to simply stick with what I asked them to do. So they went 'off piste' with their cake decorating and made some truly original cupcake masterpieces. I think the squid might have been my favourite. There were also some very characterful Santas (one of them looked like Billy Bot Thornton in 'Bad Santa'). And I rather liked the snowman wearing a cowboy hat.The activity proved to be a great ice breaking client event. And really helped with the team building on each table. There was some friendly competitiveness between the different countries. It was all in the spirit of fun. Especially as there was no official prize winner.  On stage with the sofa at my disposal I came over 'So Graham Norton' and couldn't resist inviting some of the creators of the most original cupcake content up to have a chat about the inspiration behind the way they decorated their cake creations. It was a real pleasure meeting such charming people and working with the BBC Worldwide team to help create a truly fantastic event.

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Biscuit Making at Bentalls Shopping Centre

When Carousel PR got in touch to ask if we could create an Alice in Wonderland themed biscuit decorating workshop we were only too happy to help.  The event was for Bentalls Shopping Centre in Kingston Upon Thames. They had thoughtfully provided it as an activity to keep the kids entertained whilst the parents were Christmas shopping. We made a variety of biscuits including; gingerbread men, rabbits, teapots, teacups, 'eat me' plaques and 'drink me' bottles. The kids were very creative and invented some characters that would need a whole other Alice adventure book to tell their stories! I'm really looking forward to returning on 16th December to fo it all over again....

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Blogger Event for Citizen M Hotel

It was really fun coming up with these Christmas themed cupcakes for a cake making blogger event we did for CitizenM hotel. As most of the girls were first time as far as cake decorating goes I had to keep the cake designs as simple as possible. The Xmas pudding cupcakes were the simplest but also the richest. They had an ice cream scoop of chocolate buttercream to create the 'Xmas pudding' effect. I would say that they were too rich to eat the whole lot but as they were made with real melted chocolate I'm sure some people managed it! The girls at the blogger event loved doing the Christmas cupcakes and were thrilled to take them home all packaged up. If you want to see how these were done then have a look at my YouTube videos- https://www.youtube.com/user/xanthemilton

Can we create something similar for your next team, client or networking event?   If so do get in touch- info@cookiegirl.co.uk

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Christmas Press Event

When Stylist Magazine approached me about creating a biscuit decorating workshop for their collaboration with Pinterest I was only too happy to help. As we do so many cake making events it's nice to get the chance to work on something a bit different. The theme was neon. I have to say that this was great news for me as I find traditional green and red can look a bit dull and traditional. I baked a classic vanilla biscuit dough. I then used a variety of 'Christmas Bauble' cutters to create interesting shapes. I have been wanting to experiment with cake lace for a while so I thought this was a great opportunity to work with it. I used Katie Sue designs and mixture in a variety of colours. I also made lots of cute little cherubs out of fondant icing. I went for lime green, yellow, pink & purple. This worked really well and created texture as well as looking good. The participants used scissors to cut out the premade lace fit onto the shapes and then piped on icing and added the cherubs and rose garlands. The group were thrilled with the end results and amazed by what they had achieved in the hour long workshop. Everyone got to take home 8 biscuit baubles to hang from their Christmas Tree. If they made it that far before being eaten!

We love it when companies ask us to create a unique workshop to fit their needs. We have done these for product launches and brand launches, blogger events and press days. Not only is it a fun way to entertain your employees, guests or clients, but it also leads to great social media activity as everyone is so excited to share their baking creations with friends and family. Whether it is a conference, client event, networking event or just an  opportunity to treat your staff to a fun filled workshop, our tailor made workshops will tick all the boxes. 

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Brand Activation For PlayStation

I had so much fun preparing for this cake making event. When I was asked if I could make edible lego bricks for this PlayStation bloggers event I jumped at the chance. Fondant icing is basically edible plastacine for grown ups. There is not a lot you can't do with it and there are a huge variety of molds available. I spent a few nights in front of the telly happily playing and creating a lot of bricks in different primary colours. As we thought that this brand launch would appeal mainly to boys we made sure there were plenty of football decorations and loads of blue icing. In fact we ended up with lots of girls and event more mums getting involved. The mums were particularly thrilled with the cake decorating as they didn't all want to spend the day playing computer games. As a result I met lot's of lovely new blogger mums whom I'm looking forward to checking out on social media.  It really was a great product launch, as well as the cake making and cupcake decorating, there was yummy food by Pear Drop catering, fun arts and crafts, colourful golf and PlayStation games obvs. I had an interesting chat with Ellie from Scummy Mummy's (who I am a big fan of) about my one and only gaming experience. It was many years ago when I got my daughter (now grown up) a copy of a game called Jak & Daxter. I become obsessed. I could barely leave the house until I'd completed all the levels. I vowed never to play again..... She is a gaming journo and it turned out she had helped come up with the name and written the journal for J & D! She then told me that the new 'Crash Bandicoot' game, being launched at the event was made by the same people. I looked across the room and even from a distance I could see that it had the same appealing visuals. I tore my eyes away and reminded myself of the vow I'd made many years earlier. The trouble with those PlayStation games is they are just so damn addictive! I really enjoyed making the edible PlayStation logos for the kids to colour in. My job is basically creating an environment for both adults and children to play. I think we all need more of that in our life! My little girls came for the last hour of the event and had a fab time going home with fabulous Tote bags that they'd decorated themselves. We all agreed it had been a really lovely event.

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Team Building Events

t was a great idea of Michelle's to surprise everyone with our cake making team building event. The responses we got when each participant walked into the room where varied and some of the expressions were priceless. The head of the engineering department looked pretty indignant when he realised he had to wear a cupcake apron. Initially he only wanted to use the blue buttercream icing. It didn't take him long to lose his preconceptions and throw himself into the task at hand. As you can see he ended up having a great time, embracing the pink icing, sprinkling glitter and even posing for a photo in his apron. There was a great since of camaraderie amongst the participants and a huge amount of laughter. This is a group of people who clearly enjoy each others company. They were also very attentive and concentrated on the piping techniques demonstrated. This meant they got some great results with their cake decorating. The 'speed cupcake decorating' element was really popular although some of the guys got rather carried away with the icing. They seemed to take the attitude that the more buttercream icing the better the cake would look.  They couldn't have been more wrong! In the end the prize of my bestselling recipe book was won by a very happy Michelle. Her cupcake was beautiful. Neatly piped with a great design and just enough buttercream! You can see why these cake making workshops work so well for networking and client events. They are such good ice breakers and bonding experiences. Everyone has fun whilst learning a new skill. And they get to take their cupcakes home with them. The funniest moment for me was when Theresa, the head of housekeeping, went to leave. She had put on her coat and bag when I pointed out that she was about to walk off wearing one of my aprons! You would think that she would be extra careful regarding this kind of behaviour what with the number of people that leave with towelling dressing gowns in their luggage!

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Expedia Team Event

When Expedia asked us to do this event we were only too happy to help. We get lots of requests for conference activities, team building and client events. This one was a bit different. Although all twelve of the attendees for our cake making, team bonding event worked in the same department, they weren't all in the same country. initially I found this surprising but seeing as Expedia are a worldwide travel company it did make sense. What's great is that they get together in one of the four different countries 4 times a year to do a team bonding event which is where we came in. Cake decorating is a great activity to do in order to get to know each other better. It's a really good ice breaker as there are so many opportunities to have a real laugh with each other. The speed cupcake decorating element is was very popular and led to mild hysterics as you can see! We really enjoyed hosting Expedia's fun filled cake decorating workshop and look forward to doing another with them. Perhaps tropical themed biscuit decorating would be appropriate....

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