I had the absolute pleasure of spending a day with the fabulous team at the Little Venice Cake Company this month on my quest to find some really good cake decorating classes. Now, you have to remember that Mich Turner is one of the best in her game and she can prove it when signing her name; she finishes it with 'MBE', after all not many cake decorators can say that.

 

When Mich asked me what class I would like to try out, my first answer was 'every one'. I decided that her one day chocolate masterclass would be great because I wasn't very confident with chocolate and hoped that Mich would give me some confidence working with the tricky brown stuff. She certainly did that!

 

I arrived at the pristine kitchen in Marylebone and when I walked in, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Every single cake from Mich Turner's 4 books was on display to be touched, examined and photographed. They looked even more perfect there in front of me than in her exquisitely designed books. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there would be only 3 of us (plus one of Mich's interns) on the course. She only takes up to 4 people per course and I now know why, it is because she is so hands on with all the students. If I needed someone at the end of my Cocoform to help me, she was there!

 

We started by watching her demonstrate how to mix her chocolate truffle cake batter. I learnt so much within the first 30 minutes of being there. She beat her butter and sugar for 10 times longer than me and spent about 6 minutes just adding eggs. Mich has a scientific reason for everything she does when baking and it really is fascinating.

 

We went through how to cover our boards and I learnt some new techniques there but the best lesson of the day was her innovative way to make roses without cutters. It is explained in her Masterclass book which I will talk more about later.

 

As we were making roses and chatting about her trip to Madrid to deliver David Beckham's 30th birthday cake (I'm not kidding) her wonderful girls, Tammie and Nat kept us topped up with tea and coffee etc.

 

We then got to work on covering our cake with Cocoform in a really innovative way which almost mimicked a really enormous garrett frill around the cake. It did get tricky when we were rolling out Cocoform to about 50cm long and then wrapping it around our cake to create a 'helter skelter' but Mich was there on the other end to help and correct when needed. We used two thirds Cocoform and one third chocolate flavoured regalice, kneaded together to make it malleable.

 

We had a yummy lunch and a chat then straight back to work to firstly glitter our roses. Mich had an ingenious way of doing this. Using edible glaze spray, we sprayed the chocolate roses and then generously sprinkled non toxic glitter over them. After leaving them a few minutes to settle we turned them up to shake off the excess glitter and then gave them a 'top coat' of edible glaze spray to set the glitter in place. I have used this technique on my Tiffany cake below and it is really effective.

 

We had great fun arranging our roses on the helter skelter cake to create the finished look. Mich used a fantastic cooling spray product to help speed up the setting of the chocolate which we are hoping to stock very soon. More on that in the future.

 

Finally, we sprayed the whole cake again with edible glaze spray to make it gleam, tied a bow around our cakes, had a fuzzy picture taken together and set off home. I had at least 10 people comment on my stunning cake on the train on the way home and the smell, oh the smell. Just divine.

 

If you want to learn new cake decorating skills by one of the best then I suggest you beg, borrow or steal the money to go on one of these masterclasses. So Mich, Tammie, Nat, Paul and Fatima, thank you so much for a thoroughly fabulous day and I can't wait to come back and try another one soon.

 

To order a copy of Mich Turner's Cake Masterclass (RRP £30.00) for £22, including free p&p in the UK, telephone 01206 255 800 quoting offer code CCW-MICHTURNER and the book ISBN code 9781906417499 or send a cheque made payable to :- Littlehampton Book Services Mail Order Department, Littlehampton Book Services, PO Box 4264, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3RB.

 

My finished helter skelter chocolate cake

  

  

 

  

Tiffany is synonymous with elegance and style.  That is why it is one of the most popular choices of theme for a special celebration cake.  Have a look at this cake made with the new Regalice sugarpaste colour jade green. To add some diamond sparkle to the design I have coated our large silver icing peace rose with silver hologram glitter using the technique explained above in my Chocolate masterclass review.  I think I am going to get good use from that tip, thanks Mich from all of us!  The cake has been finished using different widths of silver lame ribbon.

 

 

Please note that the glitter used on the chocolate roses and the rose above is non toxic, yet not edible. Therefore manufacturer guidelines are that whilst ingesting it will not harm you, it should be removed from your food product before eating. 

 

The beauty of Lily of the Valley is it's simplicity and I think this cake shows it off perfectly.  I used 15mm ribbon for the edging of the board and the bouquet, 35mm for the bottom tier and 25mm for the top tier. The ribbon is olive green satin ribbon. Simple piping work around the 2 tiers and a lily of the valley spray (sold in stems of 5 or 25) tied with matching ribbon is the simple answer to any wedding or other celebration.

 

 

Complement your Lily of the Valley cake with these beautiful little cupcakes which have been piped with royal icing and finished off with these gorgeous little white blossom cupcake wraps.  Just so pretty don't you think. This delicate leaf green coloured royal icing can be achieved by using a tiny amount of gooseberry food paste.

  

 

 

 

These little beauties were made with our butterfly cutters and then filled in with runout icing. When the icing is dry, just pipe more detail on the body and wings. I used Peggy's sugar cookie dough (recipe in Romantic Cakes book) because it is easy to make, lovely to roll out, bakes evenly to a light colour and leftover dough keeps in the fridge for ages afterwards if not used. Simply the best!

 

***Louise's Top Tip***

If you want to hang your biscuits like I have, remember to cut a little hole at the top of each wing using a small round cutter. You can do this either before they go in the oven or as soon as they come out.

  

These happy chappies are a great way of getting the children involved in cake decorating.  We have decorated our smiley faces using a yellow and white colour theme to match the smiley face cupcake cases currently available. Our new smiley face cutter set can be used for all sorts of fun projects, including the fabulous biscuits below. 

  

  

Be brave with colour and break the rules because you never know, it may just work! It certainly did here when I started experimenting with different shocking pink, yellow and green ribbons on a cake covered in the new jade green sugarpaste. The stunning hand made medium pink orchid spray was the inspiration behind my colour clashing frenzy and again, this just goes to show that sugar flowers are well and truly in fashion this season

I have been sort of ignoring cake pops thinking that they may be just a fad but it looks like they are here to stay so I thought I had better learn how to make some! They really were fantastic fun, if not a little messy, but I can see how your imagination could really run away with you. Here are just a few of my ideas but I would love to see your attempts too. Email your cake pops to louise@cakecraftworld.com. I used the fabulous range of candy melts to cover the cake balls and my recipe goes something like this.....

 

Crumble up any cake you have left over and use just enough cream cheese (or buttercream) to make the crumbs stick together and become a dough. 

 

Take a teaspoon of mixture and roll into a ball and line up on greaseproof paper. 

 

When all the dough has been used, pop them into the freezer for half an hour to harden them up. 

 

Meanwhile start melting your candy melts, each colour in a different bowl.  Be sure to have enough candy melts in your bowl so that when you are dipping, the ball can be completely covered with the candy melt. 

 

Take your balls out of the freezer.  Dip the top of the lollipop stick into the candy melt (about 5mm) and then stick into the top of the cake ball.  Ensure that the stick is inserted enough to get a good grip (about halfway) but not too far that the ball splits.  This takes a bit of practice.  There are 3 different lengths of lollipop sticks on  www.cakecraftworld.co.uk and it is your personal preference which length you choose.

 

Before the balls start to warm up from the freezer, take it by the stick and immerse it into the desired coloured candy melt and twist the ball slowly a couple of times to thoroughly coat the ball and then tap the excess off on the side the bowl, being careful not to get any excess candy melt on the stick.

 

Stick in polystyrene or something similar and leave to dry.

 

When dry, decorate to your own design.

 

 

*** LOUISE'S TOP TIP*** 

A teaspoon of oil added into the candy melts can prevent the melted mixture setting too quickly.

 

In honour of Wimbledon fortnight

  

Letters from the tub of coloured alphabet sprinkles, pouty lips from red heart sprinkle mix, bow made from 2 large red heart sprinkles and nose is a pearlised blush sugar pearl.

  

The delectable Charlie & Lola

  

  

Delicious looking two toned candy melts cake pop

  

  

Little Hello Kitty's ears are mimosa ball sprinkles stuck to the cake ball before dipping, the bow is 2 red heart sprinkles with a red sugar dot sprinkle.  The nose is a yellow sugar dot sprinkle.

 

We are now suppying Modelling Cocoform in 1kg packs.  This is very good news for all you chocoholics who like making chocolate cakes (like my Mich Turner helter skelter cake) and are fed up opening the tiny 150g packs!  This is the chocolate that was used on the cake above and it tastes delicious.  Next month I will be showing you an idea for a one tier chocolate cake, using the same technique learnt in the masterclass but using fresh fruit as decoration.  You will need a 1kg pack of Cocoform so buy it now as it is £23.85 instead of £26.50

 

As this handy little product has been featured so much in this month's newsletter, we are offering our readers £1.00 off each can of edible glaze spray for the next month.

As mentioned earlier these are the medium length cake pop sticks that have just arrived. They are the perfect length for cake pops at just over 15cm long.

 

35 sticks for £3.05

 

 

250g pack of coloured sugarpaste (rolling out icing) in a choice of 3 new colours - duck egg blue, jade green and fuchsia pink.

I used the jade green on my "Tiffany" and "Be

Brave with Colour" cakes.

 

Have fun making smiley face biscuits and cupcakes with this small smiley face cutter set. If you don't want to make happy faces you can always turn the mouth cutter upside down to make sad faces too!

 

£3.43 for the set