Ruffles, Flowers and Sugarpaste Private Lesson

Rosa really wowed me with her cake decorating during her cake workshop. She had just finished her patisserie diploma in Melbourne before she came to study with me. It was a real treat to do a cake class with someone so proficient. She really wanted to focus on advanced cake decorating rather that cake making and also to learn how to make fondant and sugar-paste roses and other decorations. So I created a bespoke cake class for her to cover everything in one go. She was able to get the hang of the buttercream roses, ruffles and petals very quickly and she loved the coffee, peach and pastels colour scheme that we worked with. She was also amazed by the technique we used for piping leaves just by cutting the piping bag into an appropriate shape. She was an absolute natural at piping buttercream flowers and quickly got the hang of the fondant and sugar-paste work. All in all I was totally wowed by what she achieved. As I’m sure you are when you look at these pictures. We had such a lovely time during her private cake lesson.

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....

Kate's Hen Do

What a great time Kate and her Hens had at her cake making hen do. Her mum had come all the way over from Oz with one of her oldest friends (Kate is Australian). The rest of the Hen Party where made up of stage managers from various west end shows. They did a fantastic job with their cupcake decorating creating some beautiful buttercream swirls. As you can see there was a lot of laughter between them all. As they were a small group it was a lovely intimate event and I was able to give them lots of individual attention. At the end of the cake class they couldn't help but admire their cake making achievements and were thrilled to be able to take back their beautiful cupcake creations to share with their friends and family. 

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.

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.

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....

Rose Swirl Cake Class

It was great to have a couple of students whom had come all the way from the Netherlands to take part in our cake making class. They have been friends since Uni days but like so many of us don't get to see enough of each other now their lives are filled with work and children. So, every year they come to England to meet up for the weekend, stay in a hotel and plan some fun activities. Usually involving some form of cake baking or cupcake decorating. We were very pleased that on this occasion they chose to come to us. What a delicious excuse to get together with old friends!

During the class the students each made their own cake mixture and baked the cakes themselves. They then made a delicious buttercream icing whilst the cakes were cooling. After that they trimmed the cakes using a cake cutter. Then they filled and crumb coated them. Once they had done this they created a stunning design by piping on two tone buttercream rose swirls all over the cakes. They looked absolutely beautiful and the students were thrilled with what they achieved. Hopefully the ones that were flying back to the Netherlands survived the journey.

Hannah's Afternoon Tea Hen

When we were asked to host an afternoon tea hen party for 18 I wasn't quite sure our kitchen was big enough. It turned out to be one of the most fun events that we've done here at Cookie Girl HQ. As you can see from the photos bride to be Hannah and her friends and family could not have had more fun. Her sister Naomi did a wonderful job planning the cake making class and afternoon tea. Naomi, her mum and Auntie arrived early to decorate very tastefully as you can see from the photos. We started off with a delicious afternoon tea created by me (obvs). This consisted of; Scones, Chocolate eclairs, Mille Feuille, Strawberry Tarts and Chocolate Brownies. Alongside a selection of sandwiches, curtesy of M&S, (there is a limit to what I can make for a group of this size!). And lashings of tea (English Breakfast & Earl Grey) as well as Cappuccinos. Once they had eaten their fill we moved on to the real reason they were there. The cake decorating class. The girls loved learning how to perfect the art of cake decorating using a variety of coloured butter cream, glitter and edible decorations. The decorated cupcakes they created were really beautiful and they were thrilled to take them home to show off to friends and family. They were a really lovely group and hopefully some of them will come back to take one of our cake, biscuit or cupcake baking classes. Or maybe they will decide to build on their skills and join us for an intermediate or advanced cupcake decorating class in the future.

Buttercream Flowers Cake Making Class

It was really lovely to have Emily and Millie come back for another cake class. They have now worked their way up from basic through intermediate to advanced cake decorating (featured here). As you can see their results were spectacular. They made a beautiful antique ruffle cake, a buttercream rose cake, a variety of carnation cakes and even a poinsettia style cake (although we kept to pastel colours). it was tricky work pipin each buttercream flower petal by petal but the results were well worth the effort. They were very keen to learn how to make sugarpaste roses as they had never worked with fondant icing or sugarpaste before. So I created a bespoke class for them. We also had a mum and daughter join us. They did brilliantly, particularly considering it was the first class they had attended one of my classes. If you would like to learn how to do the sugarpaste roses then come along to one of my full day cake decorating classes and we will cover that and so much more. If you are mainly interested in the buttercream flowers then come to one of my advanced classes.