East End Cake Decorators - April 2010 Meeting

We had a full program at our East End Cake Decorators' meeting on Sunday 18th April.  Shaon led a fun workshop where we learned how to make realistic teddy bears and elephants.  The first photo is our instructor, Shaon with her two little critters, and the next photo is a grouping of all of our pretty acceptable and recognizable animals.  Thanks Shaon!Next on the agenda, Glenys demonstrated her new airbrush, and then we all had a chance to try it out. 

Our next meeting is May 16th.   Shaon has offered to demonstrate gumpaste roses and I will demonstrate the gumpaste tulip.

East End Cake Decoraing Club - June Meeting Competition

The Club held it's annual Cake Decorating Contest at the June meeting. There were four entries from members of the group.


The judges declared Lyne Coderre’s cake to a category of its own, and it won “Best of Show”


1st Place: Diane Kingston. Diane's entry includes a real cake and cake slice. The "china" teacup and saucer, the plate, the fork and spoon, the Pansy posy, the napkin ring, the napkin and the try cloth are made from gumpaste.

Second place went to Ruth Alves whose Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" were very lifelike.

Shirley Peters won third place. She fashioned an Artist's Box and Equipment. The oil paint sure looks real! Thanks everyone for your participation. And a big thanks to our two judges, Cynthia Lewis and June from Katie's Cakes. It was decided to hold the 2009/2010 year cake competition in the October.

The next meeting will be September 20th. Elections will be held at that meeting, and your membership of $25 will be due. Also at September's meeting will be demos on how to make gumpaste, cold porcelain and Mexican Paste and Royal Icing

East End Cake Decorators - April 2009 Meeting

At Sunday's meeting Lyne Coderre demonstrated how to make this barrel cake. (Thank you June from Katie's Cakes for permission to use this photo.)

Lyne began with three 3" high, 8" rounds which she carved to make the barrel shape, then iced with buttercream.To make the aged wood slats, she began with fondant that had been coloured with three different brown shades, then rolled the fondant into a long sausage and twisted the sausage shape to mix up the colours. After that she rolled it out in long uneven strips. The outcome looked like slices of bacon! These strips were laid onto a rolled out piece of cream fondant and pressed into it.

She used a wide strip cutter to cut this into about 2" wide strips which she attached side by side onto the cake, adjusting at the top and bottom where the strips overlapped.

Next she added the "metal" rings around.

And painted them black to resemble iron.

Here's another photo of the original cake. The grapes and leaves add a nice finishing touch. Thanks Lyne for a good demo.
Next on the agenda was a "Show and Tell" by Jean, one of our most talented members. She brought some items that she had made many years ago. One of the plaques could be a workshop at a future meeting.

Our members like to get their hands into something during the meeting, and those who wished to participate brought iced cupcakes and decorated them with cut up fruit roll ups. It was a little warm in our meeting room and the flowers drooped a bit!

Next meeting will be on Sunday May 10th. There will be a garage sale of character pans. June and Lyne will demonstrate some of the different ways to use the character pans.

East End Cake Decorators - March 15th Workshop

We had a very full and busy meeting this past Sunday. Glenys Davies demonstrated
how to use damp crystallized sugar in an egg mold to make a cradle suitable for use on a baby shower cake or a Christening cake.

Glenys and Valerie Pais had a few samples prepared to show different finishing options. Valerie also had a sample of a Christening cake topper with a baby in a rose. My apologies to Glenys and Valerie for lack of photos of them working, I was so involved in their demo that I forgot all about my camera and taking action pictures.

Next was Judith Parker who showed us how she makes the puffy bow (or ribbon bow) using fondant and a mound of royal icing.

She began by making about 20 strips of fondant all the same size, she pinched the ends together, shaped them into an oval shape and placed them on their sides to dry. You can see some made in front of Judith on the table. In the photo she is piping a mound of royal icing onto a gum paste plaque.

Next, Judith pushes dry loops into the royal icing, making the first row that is sitting on the plaque. She carries on, row by row until the bow is full looking.

Here is the white bow finished, and a pink and green made earlier.

She mentioned that the colour of the royal icing should match the loops of the bow.

David Hall had a bunch of graham wafers left over from the Valentines boxes, so we used them up making an Easter Basket. Glenys and Valerie generously shared their flowers and butterflies from their demo so the baskets/wishing wells were decorated.

The next meeting will be held on April 19th, 2pm to 4pm. Details of this meeting are not finalized yet. I'll add them to this post once they are.

East End Cake Decorators - February's Workshop

Lots of babies being "born" and sweet little cradles being crafted on Sunday at the EECD workshop. Lynn ran the workshop and instructed on how to make a cradle from two sizes of heart cutters. The red Wilton heart cutters worked really well. Other members brought samples of different cradles and cutters. A good time was had by all!

• Lynn is shaping the baby's head and body.

Here the pieces have been cut out from gumpaste. The large heart piece is the head of the cradle, the smaller one, the foot. The other pieces are the base, and the side rails. There is also a molded baby.




























Our members concentrating on getting the pieces cut just right.











Lynn now has the rails attached to the bottom.



The finished cradle on the right is prepared ready for a canopy. This shows that the basic cradle can be enhanced and added to.


























Lynn prepared the canopy beforehand. For the posts she used glass swivel sticks which will go into holes already made in the heart plaque.

Diane K.'s heart cradle with her canopy design.

Here are more cradle designs.
On the left a small sugar molded cradle, the centre is another design using cutters. On the right a larger sugar molded cradle. and in the front, a bare bones cradle made as an experiment. Because the bottom points of the hearts were left on, the cradle needs some kind of support underneath to keep it from falling over.
The sugar molded cradles will be offered as a workshop at a later date.

East End Cake Decorating Club - Feb. 15th Meeting

January 18th Workshop was led by David Hall on making a decorated Valentine’s box using graham wafers, and molded chocolates to fill the box. Each participant made 2 boxes, 2 chocolate hearts on sticks, and 8 caramel-filled hearts.
Here's a photos taken by Lyne.

February 15th Workshop will be baby cradles made of gumpaste or pastillage and using heart cutters. Lyne Coderre and Diane Kingston will lead the workshop. Various others will bring different cutters and/or baby cradles they have made, and possibly demonstrate them.

• The workshop will consist of participants cutting out the parts and colouring/decorating them. If time permits, a baby for the cradle will be made. However, as the sugar paste must dry before assembling, the leaders will demonstrate how to assemble the cradle using pieces made previously and dried.
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• Ball of gumpaste or pastillage**
• Medium heart cutter
• Decorative embosser
• Rolling pin
• Gumpaste or other spatula
• Rolling/Cutting board
• Corn starch puff
• Small container of shortening
• Ruler
• Baby head mold
• Bag of royal icing the colour of your gumpaste or pastillage, with tip 2
• Bring whatever you have of the recommended list. If you are missing something, we can share.
  **Gumpaste or pastillage will be available for sale if you don’t have any.
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• Take a look at this website, it's hilarious! http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/
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Upcoming classes

Please let me know about any cake decorating classes you are offering.

Creative Cutters are offering some interesting classes. Check out their website http://www.creativecutters.com/ Click on "classes" to get to the details.

Flourconfections have some great classes too: http://www.flourconfections.ca/classes.html

Diane M.

East End Cake Decorators - 2009 Meetings

Hello everyone!

EECD Executive is working on next year's monthly meetings to bring you what YOU would like. At present we have no plans for our Sunday meetings in 2009.
We feel that the hands-on workshops suit our members best, and we have members who are willing to share their expertise. So.....we need suggestions and ideas for the January to May meetings. The June meeting will probably be the Cake Competition.
From time to time we could bring in someone special to run a more advanced topic. In this case we may need the hall longer, say from 12 until 4pm to have enough time.
We want to know what you want to learn! So we need your input.
If you are interested in running a workshop, we'd like to know that too.
I hope that every one of you will leave a message here with your suggestion/s - the more ideas, the better.

Thanks

Diane

East End Cake Decorators - Sunday, December 14th, 2008

NEXT MEETING will be held at St. Margaret's in the Pines Church, Lawrence Avenue and Kingston Road, from 2pm to 4pm.

Gift Exchange:
Those wishing to participate in the gift exchange will bring a wrapped gift purchased for not more than $5, or homemade.

Treat Table:
Members wishing to do so are encouraged to bring an item for the treat table.

Show & Tell:
We will have a show & tell relating to tools or techniques. Anyone with a new tool to show and perhaps demonstrate, an old tool now out of use that would be of interest, a favourite technique, or a problem is encouraged to bring them.

Workshops:
There will be two workshops: Graham wafer houses, and Graham wafer sleighs. Members are asked to bring royal icing, bags, tips, small pre-made decorations, dragees, sugars, sprinkles (basically whatever they brought to the cookie-decorating day), and a serrated knife for cutting the crackers. The Graham wafers will be provided.

Hope to see you there!

Diane M.

East End Cake Decoraing Club - Nov. 16th Meeting, Cookie Decorating

A group of us from the EECD brought baked cookies and had a great time decorating them for various charities. Between the fifteen of us we decorated and individually packaged about 150 cookies. There were lots of pre-made decorations which everyone shared and the results showed such a variety of techniques and design. We paused half way through for tea, coffee and lots of goodies, and still had everything packaged up just after 4pm, in a little over 2 hours.










December's meeting will be a workshop on making graham cracker "gingerbread" houses, a sleigh, and a "show and tell" by members who have interesting tools or projects. More info on the date and time soon.
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P.S. Here's the recipe for Lemon Curd

1 cup white sugar....4 eggs, well beaten (I remove those bits that are attached to the yolks).....1/4 lb. butter.......Rind of 2 lemons......Juice of 3 lemons

Mix together and cook in a double boiler until thick. Stir often. Takes about 20 mins. or less.