Not For the Faint Hearted - Cupcake Decorating Class

In thanks for being such great Aunties to Calypso, Lisa gifted Nadia and I with "cupcake decorating" classes. Clearly Lisa has an ulterior motive that shows great foresight and planning for when Calypso's older and in school ... considering she's only 8 months old now.

When I was in the US this past August, I noted two TV show trends. New Jersey's getting a bad rap from several reality TV shows (Real Wives of New Jersey, Jersey Shore and Jerseyliciious) and cupcake decorating is not just for Martha Stewart anymore (Ace of Cakes).

So I should have suspected when I went to our cupcake decorating class (on Oct. 8) that it was going to be more than slabbing some frosting on top and taking colored tubes of frosting and decorating them with pretty flowers. In fact, when Nadia and I arrived, it was a packed room of 40+ women and when we watched the demonstrations the instructor used lots of tools, measuring circles and colored fondant (new word for me).

And everyone was quite serious about maximising their time executing each of the techniques demonstrated, using the tools and all the different colored fondant. It was quite intense and high pressure. So not what I was expecting from a morning of cupcake decorating.

In the end, Nadia and I decorated 6 cupcakes and you'll see our results here.



The cupcake that I think turned out best was the one that looks like a wedding cupcake with pearls - I used a "quilting tool" to create the patchwork pattern, then placed these silver balls at the intersections of the lines and added some of the flowers that I'd "punched and rounded" and put "shimmer" on to create the glistening effect.

I didn't get the scale of the "bear" cupcake right as the ears look more like moose ears, but note the attention to detail with the "blush" on its cheeks. And the same thing with the ladybugs, again I didn't get the proportion right as the head is supposed to be much smaller than the body.

Later that night I shared my cupcakes with friends at Cafe Sicilia in Surry Hills.