Surprise.

Meet Chef Nicholas Logde.  The man is a creative genius when it comes to cake design.  Just to get you thinking in the right ballpark of who he designs cakes for... think royalty.  Oh yes, this Brit designed the wedding cake of Princess Diana, the Queen Mother's 80th birthday, and the Christening cake for Prince Harry.  He doesn't compete in cake competitions anymore.. he is the judge.  Long story short, Chef Nicholas can make gum paste flowers look more real than actual flowers.  If you are not using his technique, than you are using the wrong technique.  So, for such an accomplished man he must me a pompous jerk right? Wrong. The man is incredibly sweet.  He is filled with heart-felt compliments, sincere concern for our success, and genuine interest in our futures.  

This week the cake we are working on is a surprise.  I could reveal it in steps like I have in the past, but I think the effect of this cake would be much better if I revealed it in one swift shot.  It is Halloween weekend, but if I have time I will be including a video post with the showing of the cake.  In the pictures above, Chef Nicholas is teaching us gum paste roses, and how to cover our cakes in marzipan. Then you can see below, him teaching us how to paddle the air bubbles out of our royal icing, so that it is the perfect consistency for pressure piping. 

So I had a stage this morning at "More Cupcakes".  My alarm started singing to me at 4 am this morning and I rolled out of bed, onto my train, and into a cupcake scented bakery.  The crazy part was that it was totally worth it!  I really wanted to see how a cupcake place operated, so I was very grateful that they let me into their kitchen!  I now know all the secrets of cupcake making.  Mwahaha!  Ok maybe not all of them, but it was awesome to see them frost and decorate all the different flavors of cupcakes.  I worked with three other girls about my age, and they blared some sweet tunes while we frosted cupcakes.  Six hours of frosting later and a bunch of dishes, I left with a box of More Cupcakes.  They use all the best ingredients, trust me I saw.  Even if I hadn't seen, you can tell in the taste.  They were UH-MAY-ZING!

Now that I've tripled a reasonable caloric intake, I think I'll do what every fitness magazine suggests... go to sleep.