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.

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.

Wedding Cake Baking Class

Genevieve got in touch to enquire about learning to make a naked wedding cake with me. It was something that her and her step mum wanted to do together. The company she works for Karmarama treated her to the cake making class as an early wedding present. Geneveive and her step mum have such a great relationship and it was really refreshing to see how well they get on. Certainly a much better relationship than many of the step mother daughter relationships that I’ve come across. We had so much fun spending time together and they learnt how to make a naked wedding cake from scratch which is what they wanted to cover in their cake making experience. They had some great flavour ideas including lemon & elderflower and cardamon & vanilla flavours. They learn everything from how to bake the cake to how to get the perfect ‘naked’ icing effect at the end. As well as how to create the support structure and decoration ideas. As they were heading home with so much cake I suggested that they freeze some of it so they can use it on the actual wedding day. This works as long as you put the cake in Tupperware or use plenty of clingfilm to make sure it doesn’t get frost damage. They left the cake baking lesson with a new found confidence and excitement about collaborating on the wedding cake.

Red Velvet Cookie Class & Recipe

I had a lovely time teaching a private baking class to Imer and her daughter Emine. They anted to learn how to make red velvet cookies and chocolate fudge cupcakes. I’d never tried making this flavour of cookie before but soon realised that I could easily adjust my class is cookie recipe. I have to say that the results were absolutely delicious. So I thought I would share the recipe with you.

Red Velvet Cookies (double quantity)

2 tbsp milk

2 tsp vinegar

3-4 tsp red food colour

2 tsp vanilla extract

225g/8 oz butter, room temperature

340g/12 oz granulated sugar

85g/3oz sof dark brown sugar

2 eggs

425g/15 oz self raising flour

200g/7 oz white chocolate

Preheat oven to 190/375/Gas Mark 5. You will need a large, heavy, ungreased baking sheet.

Add the vinegar, food colour and vanilla to the milk. Set aside to curdle. Cream together the butter and sugars, then add the eggs, one at a time.

Now add the 'buttermilk' mixture alternating with the flour, mixing well between additions. You should now have a soft dough. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and add to the dough. Now use a spoon or ice-cream scoop to portion up balls of cookie dough. Place these  inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes until they are just cooked/dry on top but still wet and gooey under the top layer. Leave to cool on the baking sheet for 10 mins then place on a wire rack to cool fully.

Vanilla Cupcake Class

This was a lovelys small cake making class. The ladies had a great time learning how to bake delicious vanilla cupcakes from scratch. This gave me the opportunity to work with each of them individually giving them tips and guidance on how to improve their cake baking and decorating techniques. Michelle was originally planning on bringing her 9yr old daughter as she is a passionate cake maker and really wanted to have a baking lesson. Unfortunately the daughter ended up double booked so she brought her friend instead. Michelle enjoyed herself so much that she is now planning on bringing her daughter back to do the same class! They did a great job with their baking and all turned out to be fairly proficient at piping buttercream swirls and by the time we finished they were getting to a near professional level of cake decorating. We spent a lot of time focused on creating beautiful buttercream roses. These are the one time of buttercream flowers that we cover in the beginners class. I love the fact that people can move from beginners to a high standard in a short time when it comes to piping swirls on cupcakes. They were thrilled with the end results. We even made a few extra cakes so that they could sample their creations and still take home a full box of a dozen of their gorgeous cupcake creations. What a great cake class!

Kids Cake Making Birthday Party

Jessie is a really keen baker, so for her cake making birthday party she wanted to bake her own cake from scratch! As you can see she did a fantastic job doing every step herself (with a little help from her friends) weighing, creaming, mixing & beating. She basically had her own private baking class. I then taught her how to create a stunning pastel watercolour effect on the finished cake. Whilst the cake was baking I had the opportunity to teach her and her friends and cousins how to pipe gorgeous ruffles and swirls in a kids cake class. They did a fantastic job with their cupcake decorating. Especially considering some of them were only 6yrs old! They loved the taste of the buttercream icing and cream cheese frosting in a variety of gorgeous colours. They were super excited by the huge range of sprinkles we have. The unicorn sprinkles were a big hit! The girls left the class with a good bag of their own cupcake creation to take home and share with their families. They behaved beautifully and Jessie had the best time having learnt cake decorating as well as having had her own private baking class. And she had the wonderful sense of achievement of having made her own birthday cake to take home.

Buttercream Swirls Private Class

It was hard to believe that Rebecca had never tried piping buttercream swirls when she did cake making before. She was an absolute natural! She really benefited from the focus of a private one to one cake decorating lesson. We covered the swirl piping techniques that we would do in our usual beginners cake class as well as some of the sugarpaste work we do in the full day decorating class. She absolutely loved creating the sugarpaste roses and as you can see from the photos she did a brilliant job with them. She spent time experimenting with the different fondant molds to make a variety of edible adornments including; broaches, bows and flowers. She also decided to use this cake class to experiment with two tone icing colours. I showed her a variety of different ways to get good effects without having to invest in a two channel bag (which I personally don’t think look very good anyway). We had such a great time working together and I’m looking forward to her returning to learn intermediate and advanced piping techniques at her next cupcake workshop.

Private Couples Baking Lesson

Rami Khleif

I had such a lovely morning teaching Rami and Selina the art of cookie baking. As you know there is nothing I love more than giving people baking lessons. It is always fascinating to me the different reasons people come to me to learn how to bake. Sometimes they just want to learn baking skills to treat their friends and families. I also have people come from all over the world because they want to learn to bake cookies and study cake making to set up in business. Rami has a business selling Dutch pancakes in stores in the middle east. He wanted to add cookies and ice cream to the menu and thought that I was the perfect person to teach him how to bake the perfect cookie. We made a classic American style, soft, chewy chocolate chunk style as well as a oat cookies. I showed them my secret method to ensure the chocolate stays melted even when the cookie cools down- I know impressive huh! They had a great baking lesson and were amazed by how delicious there freshly baked cookies were. She is also an instagram expert so gave me some great social media advice, which I really need to put into practice. They are such a fun couple and I really enjoyed spending time with them. I look forward to working with them again in the future. Perhaps they will come and learn cake baking so that they can extend their menu even further....

Cake Making Hen Day

It was a total pleasure hosting this intimate cake baking Hen Party for Ezster and her closest friends. She came all the way from Germany to have her cake making hen day with us. The girls really enjoyed the relaxed, informal environment for their private baking lesson and were thrilled with their fantastic red velvet cupcake results. To be honest it was amazing that they had enough mixture left to make the cupcakes they were so enjoying tasting the mixture as they went along! The red velvet cupcakes looked stunning with their simple white cream cheese frosting. They kept sprinkles to the minimum wanting to create an elegant end result. As most of our hen parties are cupcake decorating events it was a real treat getting to work with a hen do when they were doing their cake making from scratch. They were such a lovely bunch and obviously very close. I felt very privelidged to be a part of such a close knit get together.

Mariam's Cake Baking Birthday Party

Mariam had the great idea to have a cake making class for her birthday. She is a big fan of The Great British Bake Off and really wanted to have her very own cake class. She got together seven of her dearest friends and together they baked up a storm in our lovely HQ kitchen at their very own cake baking class in London. They really appreciated the relaxed atmosphere and the fact that it felt like they were 'home from home'. They did a great job making the cupcakes from scratch using free range eggs and butter to ensure the tastiest, most melt in the mouth cupcakes imaginable. They then showed off their competitive piping skills which I must say were generally very impressive and led to some beautifully decorated cakes. They were thrilled with the end results from their cake class and excited to be taking their freshly baked cakes home to share with their families. As a lot of them are getting married soon there was a lot of talk about hen parties. It was even discussed that they could do one of our cake making hen days. Watch this space as they may all be back to improve their skills before too long!