Clea wrote a lovely blog on my cupcake classes
http://tyolr.wordpress.com/tag/tracys-t-cakes/
http://tyolr.wordpress.com/tag/tracys-t-cakes/
Mmmm, cupcakes. The lovely little treaties dear to any girl’s heart. And after this week I can now say that cake decorating skills have been added to my repertoire, and ticked off the list of randomness… So if any of you ever need buttercream icing, dainty little roses, leaves and flower petals made out of colourful icing, well, I’m now your girl!
I’d been meaning to try my hand at cake decorating ever since my friend Fiona suggested it to me as a potential random task when I was back in NZ. For some bizarre reason (!) the opportunity for a spot o’ cake decorating didn’t really crop up during my travels, but when I noticed that the community library near my workplace in Essex ran a lot of ‘ladylike’ evening courses (patchwork quilts, knitting bees and the like) I kept an eye out for stuff like this. And booked myself in the moment a cupcake decorating class came along.
Cupcake class in action
The course was run by a really nice lady called Tracy who’s doing quite well for herself in the local community - Tracy’s T-Cakes even have their own website! Not only does she sell her amazing cupcakes at local fairs and markets, she was savvy enough to start sharing her skills with other people. Kudos to her.
There were 10 of us at the course (all female, what a surprise!). We sipped tea out of little china cups and spent two hours gossiping and decorating 6 vanilla cupcakes each (premade by Tracy). Each of the ladies on the course had a little workstation, and we wore dorky plastic aprons. We each had globs of different coloured icings, which we rolled out on mats, and cut into dainty little shapes like flowers, hearts, stars, and leaves. We iced our cupcakes and then glued all the little pieces on using ‘edible glue’, then sprinkled them with edible glitter at the end, just to ‘zhuszh’ them up a bit.
See them candy roses? Not easy to make, not at all...
The part that I enjoyed the most was making the pink ‘roses’ out of icing. They were really fiddly and to be honest were a total bitch to make. Being a little bit stubborn (oh, and a little bit competitive too) I persisted until I had 3 perfect roses, and watched smugly as other ladies around the table gave up on the roses and continued with the easier shapes, like hearts and stars. Suckers.
The verdict? It was such a nice, mellow, relaxing evening. And I got cupcakes out of it! It reminded me of when I was much younger and I used to get really really hardcore with my home baking. I hadn’t realised just how much I missed being creative like this – it’s cheesy, but making something beautiful with your own hands is surprisingly rewarding.
Flowery cupcake goodness
From a timing perspective it was a bit torturous taking a cupcake decorating course the very same week I started my “Sexy Laydee” nutrition/exercise plan that my mad Russian personal trainer has given me (it’s going well by the way). I did cave in and sample one of the 6 cupcakes and my extremely grateful flatmates did me the honourable favour of devouring the rest (giving little ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ over how pretty they looked).
So while I don’t think I’ll make a regular habit of cake decorating (to be honest I felt a bit young compared to some of the attendees), it was really really nice to do something so mellow and creative on a cold winter’s night. And I would totally buy Tracy’s T-Cakes if I come across them in Essex again!
I’d been meaning to try my hand at cake decorating ever since my friend Fiona suggested it to me as a potential random task when I was back in NZ. For some bizarre reason (!) the opportunity for a spot o’ cake decorating didn’t really crop up during my travels, but when I noticed that the community library near my workplace in Essex ran a lot of ‘ladylike’ evening courses (patchwork quilts, knitting bees and the like) I kept an eye out for stuff like this. And booked myself in the moment a cupcake decorating class came along.
Cupcake class in action
The course was run by a really nice lady called Tracy who’s doing quite well for herself in the local community - Tracy’s T-Cakes even have their own website! Not only does she sell her amazing cupcakes at local fairs and markets, she was savvy enough to start sharing her skills with other people. Kudos to her.
There were 10 of us at the course (all female, what a surprise!). We sipped tea out of little china cups and spent two hours gossiping and decorating 6 vanilla cupcakes each (premade by Tracy). Each of the ladies on the course had a little workstation, and we wore dorky plastic aprons. We each had globs of different coloured icings, which we rolled out on mats, and cut into dainty little shapes like flowers, hearts, stars, and leaves. We iced our cupcakes and then glued all the little pieces on using ‘edible glue’, then sprinkled them with edible glitter at the end, just to ‘zhuszh’ them up a bit.
See them candy roses? Not easy to make, not at all...
The part that I enjoyed the most was making the pink ‘roses’ out of icing. They were really fiddly and to be honest were a total bitch to make. Being a little bit stubborn (oh, and a little bit competitive too) I persisted until I had 3 perfect roses, and watched smugly as other ladies around the table gave up on the roses and continued with the easier shapes, like hearts and stars. Suckers.
The verdict? It was such a nice, mellow, relaxing evening. And I got cupcakes out of it! It reminded me of when I was much younger and I used to get really really hardcore with my home baking. I hadn’t realised just how much I missed being creative like this – it’s cheesy, but making something beautiful with your own hands is surprisingly rewarding.
Flowery cupcake goodness
From a timing perspective it was a bit torturous taking a cupcake decorating course the very same week I started my “Sexy Laydee” nutrition/exercise plan that my mad Russian personal trainer has given me (it’s going well by the way). I did cave in and sample one of the 6 cupcakes and my extremely grateful flatmates did me the honourable favour of devouring the rest (giving little ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ over how pretty they looked).
So while I don’t think I’ll make a regular habit of cake decorating (to be honest I felt a bit young compared to some of the attendees), it was really really nice to do something so mellow and creative on a cold winter’s night. And I would totally buy Tracy’s T-Cakes if I come across them in Essex again!