Happy New Year Everyone! Can you believe Christmas has already been and gone? All that preparation, shopping and running around like crazy people and now it’s over again for another year! I ALWAYS take on more than I can really handle and usually end up sitting there on Christmas day. Half asleep and trying not to fall into the trifle to catch some z’s!
Now I have NEVER made a Christmas cake…yes, you read right…so when my Lovely Mother-in-Law asked me to decorate a naked fruit cake she had, I was so excited! Finally I could create that enchanting Christmas scene with all the bells and whistles.
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I planned this cake for months....a little silver and white Santa village with sweet little pine trees laden with snow...lots of cute little Reindeer and Elves scattered through snow drifts all busy getting ready for their big show.....hmmmm…. as you can see from the photo, I ran a little short on time.
So the upshot was, I had 15 minutes between delivering a massive cake and 70 cupcakes (groan) dropping daughter #1 at work, taking Hubby and Daughters #2 and #3 to the Family Christmas gathering I was actually making the cake for AND finding myself something to wear in the 42C (107F) heatwave!!
So I dropped everyone where they had to go, slowing down just enough to prevent any scrapes and tears on exit, all the while hoping I had delivered the correct bodies to the correct locations (but honestly not being overly concerned lol) I bolted in the door, slapped on a coat of piping gel, threw sanding sugar all over it then raced to my cake desk and cut out various snowflakes.....sprayed half of them and the lounge room silver and ran off to get changed! Then back to the cake, threw the deco’s on trying not to smudge the wet paint, grabbed some ribbon, cut it......grabbed some longer ribbon, cut it again and voila! Yes....well....you get the picture....am I the only one who always has BIG plans and such little time?
Oh dear…….maybe NEXT year??
Raewyn :) x
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This month in the Gazette, we have our interview with the incredibly talented and amazingly down to earth and generous Verusca Walker. Verusca is poised on the edge of Total Cake World Domination with a new series of Cake Classes in Australia with Bake Boss and for the first time an amazing International Class Calendar! For the people all over the world that follow Verusca's stunning work, all these exciting ventures will come as no surprise. She is a hard working, endlessly passionate little dynamo! It was my pleasure to attend her fabulous Stiletto class back in November and I was fascinated by her boundless energy, big voice and wide ranging knowledge. Since joining CakesDecor as a member, she has posted many awesome cakes and brilliant tutorials and I for one appreciate every single one of them. Thank you so much Verusca :)
Also this month we remind you about our CakesDecor Quaterly Awards and feature another wonderful Tutorial for you to try.
Lastly, we uncover some more hidden gems from our Silent Cake section....I'm constantly amazed by some of the incredible creations we uncover!
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Your chance to win fantastic prizes in the Cake Decorating Awards!
The rules are simple and, like everything else at CakesDecor, there’s no fee to enter. The best part of this competition? There will be no designated jury of experts. You and your fellow cake decorators will cast the votes. This creates a truly democratic voting process from our exceptional cake decorating community.
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Theme
Ruffles - A strip of frilled or closely pleated fondant used for a decoration. Ruffles are always a great addition to the cake, making it more stylish and elegant. No matter if it's a fashion inspired wedding cake or a birthday cake for young girl ... if it contains ruffles, it should definitely be submited to our Ruffles Awards.
Prizes
Winner - $200 Cash Prize & Hand-painted Apron
Runner-Up - $50 Cash Prize & Hand-painted Apron
One Winner (random draw) - Hand-painted Apron
Wonderful hand-painted aprons will be made by Calli from Callicious Cakes.
read more >
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________________________________________________________________________
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| Cake Decorator Of The Week |
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Our fabulous CakesDecor Decorators of the Week for December were.......
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________________________________________________________________________
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BIO
I’m a Brazilian artist who has been living in Australia for the past 12 years.
I am working with cake decoration for the past 4 years after finished Fine Artist and Baker studies.
I decided to mix both of the industries and make eatable art.
Read more >
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Hello Lovelies,
This month, our feature tutorial was also the winner of the CakesDecor Tutorial Contest. For her winning entry Joyce received a Custom Apron by Calli from Callicious Cakes and the book Decorating Cakes with Chocolate by Katrien van Zyl from Katrien’s Cakes. Her tutorial had also been featured on the “home page banner” for 15 days, with a link to the winning tutorial. Super talented Joyce of Joyliciouscakes generously shared this incredible technique after creating the cake for her friend. I can't wait to try this one! :)
Tall Tree Tutorial
Remember that if you use this tutorial and post your result on CakesDecor we just might feature it in the next issue!
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How can you get involved?
If you are planning to use this technique, or if you have tried it already,you can show us the results by posting a cake on CakesDecor.com. Just add a description and tag it with "g201". We will choose some and showcase them in the next issue of our Gazette.
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| Cake This Tute Review by Raewyn |
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Okay....I'm thinking that if next months Joylicious Tree goes as well as my last 2 Cake This Tute Reviews, I might ask Michal to do the next one! Yes, I know he doesn't bake, decorate or model but he eats cake right? And it seems that's all they were good for haha! Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe this would have worked if I hadn't put quite so much batter in the base of the tin to start with....so i think I will give it another try, I was going for the Valentines red heart inside a rich chocolate cake effect for you but instead I think I got a kind of Zombie Brain effect lol! So because there was so much batter under the segmented heart pieces, the whole thing rose up and nearly pushed out of the pan! Who'd of thought? I will do this again and post it on CakesDecor because it is a great technique and Karen of Karmarie explained it very well.
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Our Kitchen Talk feature this month, is a HOT topic! I hear these questions asked at least 5 or 6 times a week..."How do I price this?" ..."What do I charge for that?" or worse "I way undercharged!" We've all been there or heard someone saying how undervalued and unappreciated they feel because they are undercharging or even making cakes for free (guilty!!)
There are many forum questions relating to this so I've chosen just a few. I'm sure by open, helpful communication we can all work towards an easier, more consistent standard of pricing. There will always be variables to pricing, but if we help each other out we may hear those late night complaints less often.
You can use the links below to give us your thoughts and any helpful tips on Pricing for Cakes.
Pricing Cakes by MiVidaSweets
Cake Pricing by Faye
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Could you believe that these cakes don't have any comments? Feel free to give some positive feedback to the creators.
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January 4th, 2013
We are 6,282 cake decorators making 81,947 comments on 41,839 cakes, 431 blogs, 57 recipes, 190 tutorials, and 614 forum topics.
Editor's Choice Albums: Facebook , Pinterest , Google +
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