Team building, Workshop, Events, conferences, Classes Xanthe Milton Team building, Workshop, Events, conferences, Classes Xanthe Milton

Workplace Events For Wellness

Did you know that cake decorating is a mindful activity?

All food preparation is a mindful activity and provides a chance to slow down and appreciate the many sensations that food creates.

Mindfulness is a state of being completely focused on the present moment, without dwelling on or reacting to your thoughts.

In a Cookie Girl workshop…

1. You will focus on the task in hand and disconnect from the every day rush.

2. You will feel the benefits of a break from your phone, and all technology.

3. Being creative, frees the mind of stressful thoughts and enhances well-being.

4. You will learn techniques of piping and other icing styles, to express your artistic self. 

5. You will experience a post activity lift to your mental wellbeing.

6. You will also experience the additional mood boost of showing and sharing your cakes that you take home to your loved ones.

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Mindful activities experienced on a regular basis  have been shown to:

1. Increase staff productivity.

2. Reduce sick days due to stress.

3. Give employees a sense of happiness in their jobs by increasing opportunities for ‘play’

4. Generally increase well-being created by the team bonding experience.

The best thing about our Cookie Girl workshops is that the mindful benefits are all part of a light-hearted and joyful treat for participants, provided by their company. 

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Fun Icebreakers for Meetings

This was a conference meeting of 100 medical professionals. The organisers asked me to do an inspirational speech in which I shared my story about how I became Cookie Girl.

I talked about how, having started by selling cookies, door to door, to people at work, I had progressed to being the market leader for corporate cupcake experiences. After this our cake decorating class took place.

I have been a professional cake decorator for over 20 years. This has enabled me to create cake decorating classes that are not only filled with fun, but are also a great opportunity to foster culture and community in the workplace.They are shown to improve team & client relationships, create lasting bonds and improve the mental health of employees.

We have lots of other work social event ideas, including decorating biscuits and bento cakes . We are also, always excited to bring your own unique ideas to life with our bespoke options.

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Cake Making, Classes, Events, Private Event, Workshop Xanthe Milton Cake Making, Classes, Events, Private Event, Workshop Xanthe Milton

Cake Making Class - Unicorn Cake

This Unicorn Bento Cake Class was so much fun to host:

The vanilla sponge cakes they baked in the cake baking lesson were just delicious.

We used a mould to make the horn, ears and eyelashes using sugarpaste. This meant it was easier to achieve a professional finish than if we’d rolled the horn by hand, which can inadvertently lead to a rather inappropriate end result! I was very impressed by how well the students did with all of them getting fantastic results in the cake class.

They did a great job using a palette knife to get a smooth finish with the delicious buttercream, and they created the swirling rainbow unicorn mane by piping buttercream swirls and roses - this gave them the opportunity to get lots of practice with their buttercream piping techniques. By the end of the 3.5hr cake making class they were amazed by what they had been able to create. They went home really excited to share their Unicorn Bento Cakes with their families.

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Husband & Wife Private Cake Class

Husband & Wife Private Cake decorating Classes london

Kelly’s husband Bill is a great baker. She thought it would be a perfect present to give him one of our gift certificate for a private lesson. And she decided to book a cake class for two so that they could attend together.

Bill was really keen to get his cake decorating skills to a high level so we worked through beginners, intermediate and advanced cupcake decorating techniques. I taught them both how to make cream cheese frosting which has a good ‘flow’ for piping rose swirls and classic swirls.

I also taught them how to make a firm buttercream frosting which is ideal for the advanced buttercream piping techniques. We use this to pipe ruffle swirls as well as individual petals one by one. I also explained that all the buttercream piping techniques could also be used on a full sized cake.

At the end of the 3hr cake making class they were thrilled with the end results and went home with two dozen beautiful cupcake creations to share with their friends and family.

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Recruitment Company - Indoor Team Building Activities

Accountancy Action Financial Recruitment Company:

They asked us to set up a cupcake decorating workshop for their regular client networking event.

It was such a fun evening. The cocktails flowed freely and the guests quickly relaxed into their cake making activity. Most of them worked in HR or Finance so don’t get much chance to be creative in their day to day roles.

They were amazed by how quickly they picked up the various buttercream swirls and loved the variety of sprinkles and edible decorations.

It was a great ice breaking activity and created a real bond between the participants. Many of whom had arrived as strangers and left as friends. All in all this cake making event was a great success.

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Unicorn Cake Class

Pamela got in touch to ask if I could teach a group baking workshop for her daughter Ava’s birthday. She was turning 8 and wanted to celebrate with her family. When I found out that unicorns were her favourite then I knew that the Unicorn Cake making class would be the thing to do. The group had no experience with baking or decorating cakes and were not sure that they were up to the challenge. By the end of the 2hr cake workshop they were amazed by the end results and went home very happy with their stunning, unicorn cake creations.

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Team Social Ideas London

A great time was had by all at CAA at their team bonding workshop.

We did a bit of a different cake making event on this occasion. They particularly wanted to get their hands on some fondant icing (or edible Play Doh, as I like to think of it) and create some Christmas themed cakes. They had a great time making, snow men, elves, Christmas trees and even Father Christmas.

But the winning cupcake was actually a beautiful and original snow leopard. The girl who made it was thrilled to take home her very own, personalised copy of my best selling recipe book! They were a great group who really put 100% into what they were doing and it seemed to be a lovely place to work. The group seemed really close, more like family than co-workers. And their boss seemed astonishingly young (unless it’s just a sign of me getting older!).

We really loved working with them and are looking forward to doing more events there in the future.

Our cake classes are really fun ice breakers for meetings so let us know if you have any meetings, conferences or training days we can help you with.

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Cake Decorating Classes in London

The ladies at Dodo’s cupcake decorating hen had the most fun. Her friends and family were an absolute blast laughing and joking and keeping me entertained. I should have known that they were going to be an ‘up for it’ crew when Dodo arrived wearing an extremely detailed naked lady all in one! Once we had got over the initial hilarity of that they knuckled down to learning all my expert cake piping tips. Before long they had mastered the art of cake decorating with buttercream swirls and even created some of there own experimental designs. One of the girls was so good I asked if she wanted to join the Cookie Girl team! At the end of the two hour cake making workshop they were absolutely thrilled with their cupcake creations. Dodo wasn’t sure where they were headed next (it was a magical mystery tour type of hen) but she was very excited to get home and share her little cupcake works of art with her husband to be.

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Dinosaur Cake Class

When Morgan asked me if I could give her a baking lesson to help her make her little boys birthday cake I was thrilled to help. I thought that my dinosaur cake was the perfect model for him. I pre baked the cakes (one 4pt pudding basin and one 2 pint pudding basin) with a vanilla sponge recipe. (Here’s one I made earlier: http://www.cookiegirl.co.uk/blog/2016/9/20/dinosaur-cake?rq=dinosaur%20cake) . We spent the first part of the cake class assembling the sponged together (securing them with wooden skewers) to make a cute dinosaur shape. Morgan and I then set to work creating the eyes, tail, mouth and teeth out of rolled fondant. We made up a large batch of bright green buttercream and I gave Morgan a demonstration in using a palette knife to cover the cake with a thick layer of icing. We then added the eyes, teeth, mouth and tail to create a cute and friendly edible dinosaur. We managed to finish the whole thing within our 3hr half day private baking lesson. Morgan sent me a video of the cake which was a huge hit and she got lots of great feedback for her work.

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Cake Decorating Workshops London Venue

Introducing our fantastic new bright, light West London venue. It is a fantastic place for hen parties, birthday parties and cake classes. Basically here we can cover all your cake making and cupcake decorating needs. It is also a great environment for conference activities, team building and client events. So whatever your cake making related needs we are pretty sure that this is the ideal venue for us to host it in. We are also now offering cocktail making workshops alongside our cake making classes which have proved really popular with our hen parties and we plan to begin offering them to our corporate clients for their company events.

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