A night of art and...cake!

I am so pleased to be participating in the 11th Annual 'A Taste of Fine Art', at the Yuma Art Center on April 26th. This will be the the third year in a row I've been there, and I look forward to it all year. Held in the beautiful art gallery downtown, this event features delicious food and sweets from area chefs, cooks, and dessert makers. Please get your friends together and buy some tickets, and come down and support the arts in Yuma. The beautiful paintings, sculptures and other exhibits that are displayed throughout the year, are only possible because of generous donations from people like you. Let's keep the walls and hallways of the gallery filled with beautiful art!

Although it would probably be more practical to contribute a dessert that was already portioned out, or maybe even serve (gasp!) cupcakes, but I can't bring myself to just sit there and sling out plates of pre-cut cake. It's at the Art Center, I have to do something cool! I do restrain myself a bit however, and stick with butter cream only designs. That makes it very easy to cut and serve quickly-and I am the one cutting and serving it. This was the design I came up with the first year I participated. I made each tier a little different, and you could really see the difference in shapes in person. The topper on the cake was a play on royal icing stringwork, usually seen on elaborate wedding cakes. 

 Does this look familiar? It's the cake that is drawn into my logo/watermark. I carved designs into the butter cream, piped random designs here and there, and left some areas rough iced. 

 This was last years cake. It's all butter cream too, like the previous years design. I did some more carving with this one, and played with ombre patterns. A friend suggested I do some more ombre work for this years' cake. I am thinking I may. Don't want to look too wedding-ish though. ;)

Hope to see you Friday night! For tickets or more information, please visit the Yuma Fine Arts Association's website: www.yumafinearts.org

Get some face time in, it's good for you.

So after a couple of years of not making time to get out for a convention/workshop/class, I finally did it. I took a class that I swore I would fly to Australia to take at Planet Cake some day when I could sell a kidney for the money afford it. But lucky me, I found one stateside! Baking Arts has been hosting Jessica Pedemont, for a series of classes including the madhatter workshop I attended, a teapot cake class, and a handbag class among others. I learned so much, and had a couple of 'aha' moments when specific techniques were introduced; usually when Jessica would say "this is what you paid for, pay attention to this one!" What a great time. Richard, who owns Baking Arts was an excellent host- full of information about San Francisco for the newbie (me), and created some great lunches and treats for us while we worked. Here's a few pics from my time there:

A mini store at the Baking Arts studio!

 Jessica's cake, showing us how to do those tricky tapered strips. Very time consuming,

and well worth the effort when you're all finished.

We're done! Aren't those beautiful?!? Whew....that was a lot of work. I have a few new tricks up my sleeve now that I can use for many upcoming projects, and I have some new recipes to play with as well.

I have a few friends in the business who sing the praises of Carma's fondant, and it's what we used in class. I discovered that those friends were not exaggerating when they described this as 'the perfect fondant'. Thankfully Richard had a bucket for sale, and I bought it and lugged it home with me on the airplane. I am willing to ditch my beloved fondant recipe for this stuff, it's that good. TSA had a little peek inside, as expected. Something about plastique....

So learning some new tricks and furthering my education in the field of cake decorating was great. But so was the face time with other decorators. You don't get that by being a member of an online cake forum. You don't get that by watching YouTube videos, and you don't get that when the limit of your exposure to this business is confined to the interaction of the friends and fans on your social media page. It may be beyond your control (or your local population is very small and you're the only one who does cakes) to go out and take a class or meet with people who share your passion, but I think in most cases....you just need to get out there and seek people out.

Some of the beautiful and delicious treats contributed by me and friends at past get

togethers of our local decorating group.

I started an online group of decorators awhile back where we would swap links to articles and tutorials, and bounce ideas and stories off of each other. A different member hosts the monthly get together, and we share desserts and other delicious food. Last month was my turn to host, and it was a full house. Some regular attendees, and a member who attended for the first time. It was nice spending time with those ladies, and it's an event I eagerly look forward to each month. This month....it will be a Halloween themed gathering!  

So I'm not saying online tutorials and conversing via social media is not good practice, but it's just the tip of the iceberg for me personally. I've seen enough videos, read enough tutorials, and shared enough stories with people on forums to last me a lifetime. Of course I wouldn't give any of that up for anything, but I value the 'face time' that classes and befriending local decorators offers much more, and experiencing the 'aha!' moments you can only get when you're hands on with something. And of course, another benefit is having a network of people that you actually know, when someone calls with a request for something you can't take on for whatever reason. It's so pretty awesome to be able to direct a customer to a trusted source, because you've seen their work and you know how they do business. And it's nice to hear "so and so referred you" when you speak with a potential client.

So get some 'face time' in if you can. It's good for you.