The Planet Cake Apprentice

Where has the time gone?

2011-09-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

Life at Planet Cake can really fly by fast… why? It’s because we are having so much fun!
I’ve literally worked on so many cakes I just don’t think there is enough space to take you through all of them, so I’ll give you a gimps of a few of my favorites and a quick insight into my most difficult element of each and my personal cake decorating firsts.

Hope you enjoy :o)

Shell xx

The TARDIS:

When faced with the challenge of recreating an item from a movie buffs favorite film, attention to detail is extremely important. The main area of focus when it came to the time machine from Doctor Who was ensure to replicate the scale of all the elements and to create sufficient depth to make the whole thing believable.

Most difficult element:

I had to measure….

then re- measure,

measure again,

and then, just in case, I measured one more time.

Shell’s decorating first: In regards to prep work versus ACTUAL decorating time, the scale may just be tipped in favor of the preparation, because honestly I felt like this took forever. That, along with painstakingly sharpening and ensuring the straight lines were 100% straight, meant this cake sucked up quite a bit of time. I feel like the end result turned out great

The Big Head Bears:

The photo does not really give this cake justice because it was definitely on the BIG side. Over 15kg in weight all shimmered extended tiers and 100’s of little filler flowers.

Most difficult element: Covering the extended top 6” White Choc mud cake in very humid and sticky conditions as the rain bucketed outside as the air con ran overtime.

Shell’s Decorating First: With help from Margie we created the cute little big head bears that sat proudly on top of the cake. And of all the details we put on the bears I would have to say that positioning of the ears took me quite a few goes.

Just for Neen – Pretty Dolly Varden:

Neen was know in the production kitchen as not being a fan of the Dolly Varden cake. I have to admit I could never understand why as I think they are a cute cake design. This one, designed for Ella to match her princess Barbie theme birthday had layered frilled skirt and sparkle top.

Most difficult element: Achieving the ruffles on the bottom of the skirt was a new challenge and required some gathering and strategically placed cotton wool to create.

Shell’s Decorating Frist: Well… I’m not sure I can claim it as a first as I have spent a fair bit of my childhood hours playing with Barbie dolls, but his was the first time those skills came in handy in the Planet Cake production kitchen. A cute up-do for Barbie with sugar flower hair pins…. Awww… cute!

Classic Quilted Wedding Cake:

Classic black and white theme- I think this design speaks for itself.

Most difficult element: The stylized flower was difficult in the sense that it was made to match the brides material rose on her wedding dress. The petals needed to be “rounder” and more uniform than I would normally create, and then of course some added “bling” in the centre to make it sparkle.

Shell’s decorating first: Quilting! Can you believe it? I have been at PC for over 5 moths and NEVER quilted. I have to say that I think the right tools are what’s most important in the decorating technique, for me I used a angled ruler and a wooden knife tool.

Novelty 106 Sitting Bear:

One of the really AWESOME things about working at Planet Cake is that every now and then we get to do a PC course – which we all know are AMAZING! We were lucky enough to have Chris (aka. CC) as our teacher as he showed us how to carve, mould and cover this difficult cake shape.

Everyone in the class was able to design their own bear/panda and I tried to go with an old-school cute teddy design.

Most difficult element: Without a doubt – cover the bears legs. When I was designing the cake I did not consider the position of the arms and how it would interfere with the covering, so the low positioning made it a very tight fit to get the icing on and around the bears legs.

Shell’s Decorating First: It was a PC course – so the whole bear was a first!

Funky’s:

I was so excited when handed the order with three funky figurines on top a two tier wedding cake. Excitement because I was really keen to flex my funky muscles, however, that excitement soon turned to sheer apprehension when I looked at all the detailed elements that were in the funky’s hands (both hands of both figurines) and clothing. I was fortunate enough to spend a couple hours with Margie to get a fast and furious funky lesson that would guide me in the right direction for these figurines.

Most difficult element: I would have to say the hand painted checkers on the funky chef’s pants. By the end of the whole process I had controlled my breathing to such a slow and steady beat that I could have easily nodded off to sleep!

Shell’s Decorating First: Designing clothing on a Funky to match the clients outfit.

Art Deco Extravaganza:

Art Deco can be a very challenging theme to replicate on a cake, but challenges are what I love most. With only 2 days in the production kitchen needed to really focus on my time management skills to get this cake up and out in next to no time.

As all cake decorators know, the hardest color to work with is black… the next hardest is… ummm… red. So not only was the design of the cake going to stretch my skills (and patience), but the colors were also not going to make things any easier.

Straight lines, triangles, bling and well over 10 hours later and the cake was ready to be adorned with some fabulous red feathers. The finished cake stood at over 30 inches tall and looked great (even if I do say so myself).

Most Difficult element: I probably couldn’t pick one specific element, but the skill I needed to rely on the most was definitely my patience.

Hope you enjoyed that update,

For my next blog I'll let you in on how it feels to go from intern to Planet Cake teacher! And trust me... I wont have to wait as long as you did for this one.

Till then,

Happy Caking,
Shell xx

Neen Has Left The Building

2011-08-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

Well. Can you believe it? 6 months have passed since the 1st day I walked through the doors at Planet Cake to embark on the ride of a lifetime and what a journey it has been.

I have had my fair share of victories and, if I can be honest here, one or two dummy spits as well! I have seen many highs and the occasional low. I have met an enormous array of wonderful people, been involved in the odd celebrity cake and been a part of the upcoming TV series, Planet Cake, that is due to air on Foxtel’s Lifestyle Channel in November.

I can’t even begin to explain all of the new skills that I have learned in my time here and, although at times I yearned so desperately to be back at home with my family, I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.

With everything packed into my arsenal from cake design, business management, production management, facilitating, being a PC student and gaining every decorating tip in the world, I feel well and truly equipped to take on the world of cake decorating on my own ( knowing full well that I will always have the support of my amazing PC family a mere phone call away) and I am both nervous and excited about the entire prospect but intend to hit the ground running with all guns blazing.

Although I can’t wait to be back at home with my amazing family where I belong, it is with a heavy heart that I leave all of the amazing friends and colleagues that I have gained here in Sydney . They have all made my entire internship an absolute pleasure and have parted with not only their amazing skills but their kindness, generosity, empathy and support day in and day out.

If I could, I would like to thank some people here individually as a sign of my appreciation for them.

Antony,

Thank you with all of my heart for making me laugh week after week. Both your social and design skills will be with me forever. If I can become even half as good as you are at your job, I know that I will have the world in my hands. It was an absolute joy to have been part of your life over the past 6 months and I look forward to a continued friendship with you.

Cat,

The fact that you have been able to be such a wonderful support to me over the course of my time here as well as manage all of the work that keeps you here until crazy hours week after week says it all.

I will miss your cheery smile, bon bon’s and big pears. I know it will take a lifetime to do but someday I will find a sidekick as good as you. That is the day that I know my life will become easier than ever. You are truly amazing!

Ritzy,

What can I say Ritz? You have to be one of the funniest people I have ever met in my life. Thank you for showing me so many your tricks of the trade. Your work never ceases to amaze me. Every time I hear “Do you know who I am?” I promise that I will think of you!

Neoko,

Sweet little Neoko. There was never a time when you were to busy for me. If I needed help, no matter what you were doing, you would drop everything without even a sigh to lend a hand. You have always shared all of your skills openly and I have enjoyed working with you very much. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Jessica,

Always there to give me a hug, a smile and those ever awesome shoulder massages. When I needed an ear or a shoulder, I knew I could count on you to be there. Thank you “YES JESS” I will miss you.

Anna – Maria,

Well the clock has ticked over lovely lady and it is with a heavy heart that I bid you adieu my inspirational mentor. I will never be able to repay you for the things that you have taught me so well over the past 6 months. I could not have asked for a more skilful and competent teacher and I feel truly honored that I was able to partake in the opportunity of a lifetime learning under your amazing leadership. I will never forget my time with you and will always have you to thank for a huge part of my career. I hope that I will make you proud to say that you taught me almost everything I know. I can’t thank you enough Anna – Maria. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Emma,

Sometimes I wonder how I would have managed to get through this without you here. You have always been my go to girl for whatever reason I needed you. Your capabilities amaze me and the way that you go through your days with a smile, no matter what happens, always makes me smile too. I will miss you VERY much.

Michelle,

My sister in arms. I am so blessed to have had an ‘equal’ as amazing as you to share the ride with. You always managed to help me see the positive side when things weren’t so rosy and always managed to give me a good laugh. I look forward to reading your future blogs on the remainder of your time here and look forward to catching up when you return to the motherland!

Lesley,

I could quite easily write an entire novel on how grateful I am to have had you as my eternal support here in Sydney. Words could never explain how much you mean to me and the amount of appreciation that I have for you. You took me under your wing and cared for me through thick and through thin until the very end. If nothing else had ever come from this experience, it would all have been worth it to walk away from here knowing that you will be my friend for life. You are truly one of the most kind, generous and loving people I have ever met. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being the greatest gift that Sydney could have given me.

Paris,

I promise you that I will strive each and every day to make you proud by putting all that you have taught me into practice when I return home. This was truly the opportunity of a lifetime and I have you and your amazing team to thank for not only being the decorator that I am today but for being a much more confident woman than I was 6 months ago when I walked through the Planet Cake door for the very first time.

Should I end up being half the business woman that you are, I will be more than happy with myself. You are someone that I am proud to call my role model and honored to have as my biggest support. Thank you for giving me my regular swift kicks up the backside and putting me back into line when it was necessary. Most of all, I would like to thank you for making me believe in myself. I will be forever grateful for the solid foundation that Planet Cake has forged for my career.

There are many others that have come and gone along the way that all made a huge impact on my life and I will carry their words of wisdom and kindness with me in my suitcase as I head back home to begin my next chapter.

Thank you all for following my journey here as an intern at Planet Cake. Sharing my stories has been a pleasure.

Finally, I couldn’t leave here without doing a huge cake so, when given the opportunity to design with the amazing Antony Bullimore and create a 7 tiered show stopper, I couldn’t say no. So I leave you all now with a photograph of my final piece made at Planet Cake as an intern.

Thank you all again! What a ride it has been.

This is Neen signing out for the final time.

xoxo

We Conquered Basics 108!

2011-07-27T00:13:00.000-07:00

Our excitement rose inside us again as we pondered what lay ahead in our very next Planet Cake class. Basics 108 – The 3 tier, inverted, tapered squares. In this advanced class we were again able to design our own creation and as thoughts flew regarding art deco, animal prints and stripes… we were brought back down to basics to first shape and cover our cakes.

For this shape cake uniformity is particularly important. And by uniformity we are referring the tapered angle of the sides of the cake. If all four sides of all three teirs were not carved on the same angle … well then… the cake would look... odd. We were lucky again to have Anna Maria as our faithful lead as she gave us insight in how to achieve this perfect look. Not only were we given great pointers to help us shape the cake, we were also given a great, no stress way to cover the cake. This method gave all of those in the class a wonderful clean and seamless finish without us even needing to hold our breath!

Even though the excitement of learning and creating cake at Planet Cake is extremely AWESOME we just have to make a quick mention of one of our other favorite things about attending a Planet Cake class… the absolutely DELICIOUS lunches! I know it might be just a small detail of the day but WOW – they are just the yummiest food ever! Sorry about that… Just had to be said…
After a couple days of Cutting, shaping, ganaching and then some more cutting, shaping, ganaching…we moved onto covering and starting our individual designs. It’s actually really amazing to be in a class full of such talented decorators with literally TONS of great ideas that seem to bounce around the room and help guide people with there cake creations. Thanks for being such a great class guys! Anyway – back to the cake,

The other thing we would argue as the MOST important aspect of this cake is structure. Due to its inverted shape it is very top-heavy and insuring the dowels are inserter correctly is EXRTEMELY important. It's those little details that can be the difference between a beautiful tall cake and one that is that bit lopsided.

We would have to say that this class was one of the fun-est we have had the pleasure of being involved in. We got to spread our wings a little with our creations and were encouraged to bring out the designer within.

Thanks again to our Teacher Anna Maria and Facilitator Kylie Dumas for a great few days!

How to make an icing crown:

Hi all, it’s Shell here. During my few days doing basics 108 I made an icing crown to top my British inspired cake. I had a lot of people asking me about it, so here are a few steps to help you make one for yourself.

I started with a 5” polystyrene round and shaped it into a "chef's hat" shape. I wanted a slight angle on the side of my crown so a taped and glued a 4" board to the base of the round to act as a guide while I shaped it. Whilst rounding out the top of the polystyrene I also added in some deep indentations. I purposefully made these indentations quite pronounced as it will no doubt loose some depth when the icing is placed over it. I used polystyrene for my crown as I wanted to keep it, however, this could easily be replaced by a shaped cake.

I removed the base board once the crown was shaped and I created a hole through the centre of the crown with a skewer. I then painted the entire thing with piping gel to act at the gluing agent for my icing.

I then covered and smoothed the fondant onto the crown and added some slight red airbrushing into the creases.

Next I moved onto the side details. For this I cut out strips of acetate in my desired thickness and length. I made and stuck on some wire "prongs" for the base of each strip which I would later skewer into the side of polystyrene. I also found the position for a hole in the tops of the acetate that I would use later to secure the strips to a centre skewer in the top of the crown..

I covered my strips with white fondant (after brushing with piping gel to allow it to stick), and added some hand cut cross details to each one.

I then covered a round polystyrene ball with white fondant and hot glued it to a skewer in a perfect position for the top of my crown.

I then attached the strips and attached a horizontal stripe (again made with acetate and icing) around the base of the crown. I also hand cut some addition shapes as details for around the crown. I allowed everything to dry over night and tied a bit of ribbon around to help support the base strip.

With the basic shape complete I added some further details to the round ball and then I was onto the really fun part - bling! I tried to keep the design quite uniform but stay within my red and white theme. I added some silver cachous to the sides and then some colored stones.

I also made a large cross to top my crown and added a rolled sausage to the very base edge to finish it off.

Ta - Da!

One crown fit for a Queen... or King

2011-07-09T15:59:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that I only have 6 and a half weeks left here at PC?

As the time to leave looms closer, I am getting little pangs of sadness along with big pangs of desperation to fit in as much as I can in this short amount of time.

I have been planning to get myself organized for setting up shop at home but time has somehow escaped me so now I have to speed into 5th gear and get a move on! Where did that time go?

The past week at Planet Cake has been full of new tasks for me to tackle.

This week I had the opportunity to assign duties to others in the kitchen and had a taste of what it feels like to be the boss. I also had the chance to liaise with a client who, at late notice, wanted to incorporate a theme into an already established and half executed cake design. I loved the challenge of this one. I had to transform a girlie present box cake, with a bow and exploding stars, into a cake that was still pink and girlie but gave off a nautical theme. This was the end result and I hope the client loved it.

Along with this cake I had yet another gorgeous Tiffany box,

a pretty floral cake ( thanks to my partner in crime, Shell, for making the gorgeous roses on this one! She is becoming quite the flower pro!) for a special lady

I also had another one of my fave finishes. A three tier royal icing finish wedding cake. Here is a snap of it not quite finished.

And to finish it off, a champagne bottle. Drink anyone?

All I can say is, with the assistance from both Kylie and Shell, combined with the obvious fact that my speed has increased by miles, I had these done cakes done slightly ahead of schedule which left me with a little free time on my hands.

Now, If we can think back to about April, I won the in house design competition for my wedding cake design

I had already attempted to make the prop cake version of this once but ended up a bit frustrated and unhappy with the final result.My head was not in the right place when I started it and I was also feeling less than 100%. Instead of losing my cool over the cake I did this instead...

I must admit, that felt pretty good and I sure didn't lose any sleep over it.

Now that I had some spare time on my hands and was feeling healthy and happy, I started the cake again and got it all done, without a hitch and in record time. This one sits proudly in the PC show room and not at the bottom of a dumpster!

And so ends another week at PC. I am still learning every single day and just fear that I won't have enough time to fit everything in that I want to.
I suppose that is the thing with a job like this one though. You never really stop learning and if the guys at Planet Cake think they are getting rid of me easily at the end of my internship, they have another thing coming. I intend to be back to bother them all as much as I can. Not just as a decorator though but as a friend to them all.

Neen x

Our first day of School

2011-07-05T01:05:00.000-07:00

So what does it feel like when your off to Planet cake for your first day of class… well kind of like holding a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory. Although, we need to be clear about this - there are NO Umpa Lumpas working at Planet cake!
Walking the quaint, winding Beattie Street in Sydney’s Inner West suburb of Balmain, we pass a great looking pub, The Exchange Hotel, on the way to class. Mental note…dinner and drinks after class perhaps?
Our attention quickly shifts to the famous pink and chocolate awning that is now in plain view. The pearly gates!!! We have arrived at the mecca that is Planet Cake to begin 8 days of serious cake decorating and intend to walk out the door as the super, huge, mega cake rock stars! OK. So we are getting carried away a little but we are here to improve the skill set after all and a girl is allowed to dream!

Day one:
All systems go. We were ready and rearing to make the fabulous vase cake in Planet Cake’s Basics 107 class, and with PC’s most seasoned teacher, Anna Maria at the helm, we felt nothing but confident…until we looked at the class notes that was!
The vase starts off the same as any extended cake – trim, split, syrup, ganach and stack onto centre pole. First challenge complete.
Our second challenge was to shape the cake. From the photo’s it may be hard to tell but the vase cake is tapered, inverted and angled. Keep in mind that before this we thought the square was a difficult shape and that has only straight sides! Should this shape really be Basics 107…
A few hours into the class and the cake seem to be shaping up – quite literally… until
Da da daaaaa

One cake hit the deck! And unfortunately it was one of ours. But Paris always says if there is anytime you want a cake to fail it’s in a Plant Cake course because you will have the undivided attention of the ever experience teacher to help guide you through the cause and solution to your cake problem. For this particular cake the “issue” was the centre pole and a soft cracked base cake. Because this cake starts from smallest cake at the bottom and moving to the largest cake at the top, if you mix I unsecured centre pole with a less than idea foundation you may just end up getting a cake looking like the leaning tower of pisa… and that is exactly what we had.
But not to worry, Super Anna Maria (who, by the way, should now wear her underwear on the outside) literally yanked the cake off the base board put it to one side and started the “re-build”. In no time at all the cake was back standing straight (well, angled, but in the right places). Yay!!!
After the traumatic experience of getting the cakes ganached and looking as they should we were rewarded with a delicious lunch and of course some cake on the side for dessert. Yum.
After we had calmed down and our tummies were full we moved onto intensive flower making. Petal, after petal, after petal, after pe…. You get the idea. A few hours later and we had made it to the end of day one.

Day Two:
Challenge: Cover cake
We are still, quite literally, speechless regarding covering this cake. The difficulty in placing the icing over the obscure angles of the cake even had Anna Maria saying a small prayer before she demonstrated the technique. Please consider yourselves warned; covering this cake is a 2 - 3 person job. But cover we did, and after some petal dusting we had the opportunity to airbrush our cakes.
Airbrushing is one of those decorating tools that can really change the look of your cake, be it in subtle or more dramatic way. But it’s also a skill that needs practice to perfect otherwise its effect on your cake can be, well, less than desired. Please refer to exhibit A.

Once applied, airbrushing can be difficult to change/fix. But some subtle over spraying and a coat of shimmer spray later and the cake colour looked more toned down.

Day Three:
Time to decorate. After two days of preparation, stress and praying to god, we had reached the day of pure fun and imagination. Yay. At this level of the basics series students are given the freedom to design their cake. For us, we wanted to do something really different and because this cake shape had not been taught before, the options were endless.
Along with the fun and excitement of choosing your own design comes the pressure of fulfilling your initial vision the way that you had planned.
Although each and every design was unique, we were lucky to have the extensive skills of Anna Maria at our disposal, and, with each tip and trick that she demonstrated to not only ourselves but our class mates, we learned and were inspired by a myriad of new techniques.

So, as the day came to a close and we had all finished our cakes, it was time for the customary group photo. We all smiled proudly in front of our works of art as the flashes triggered. Ahh yes, we were rock stars!

A special thank you must be given to our amazing teacher, Anna Maria and our facilitator for the day, Kylie Dumas for an awesome 3 days.

Happy Caking,

Neen and Shell xx

A Long Overdue Update From Neen

2011-06-22T00:55:00.000-07:00

I don’t even know where to begin with this blog as so much has happened in the time since my last blog was posted.

The end of May was possibly my most challenging since my internship began. This time, it had nothing to do with the cakes though. I was going through quite a huge burst of homesickness and was having to deal with a few personal problems happening at home. The problem was, of course, was that I am living in Sydney and my family are in Melbourne.
I was completely on edge and, quite honestly, had so much trouble focusing on my work.

Everything came to a head on the night that I was leaving Sydney to spend a full 10 days in Melbourne with my family for a mid internship break.
I had been assigned and amazing 3 tier wedding cake with an extended and quilted base tier, a technique that I had never attempted and completed successfully! Next was another extended tier covered in bling with a big black bow at the base. The top tier was another extended that was to be hand painted with a chandelier and adorned with a few small splashes of bling.
My 1st attempt on the top tier was a major fail. I covered the cake and the whole thing just looked warped and off. I stripped the cake to re ganache and realised that the cake itself was extremely soft and unstable. I added stability by placing another board between the two extended tiers of the cake and proceeded to re ganache the cake and leave it to set.

It was important to me to have this cake finished before I left work that evening to head to Melbourne so I had scheduled my time line accordingly and was on track to have it done.

I finally covered the top tier and prepared to hand paint the chandelier on. I was a little nervous about this as I would usually leave the cake overnight prior to painting but it had to be done after only a couple of hours drying.

With a steady hand and a great deal of patience, I finished the painting and was so proud of my efforts. The last things to do were to place the top tier on the cake and cover the board.

With about a half an hour until I was due to leave work, I placed the top tier onto the cake. With this, the entire cake cracked right down the center and there was no salvaging it. I literally burst into tears. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it and I HAD to get to the airport.

All I can say is thank God for Neoko and her calmness and generous spirit. She took my order, got a new cake out and ganached it with lightning speed as per usual. She told me to go home to my family, relax and just have a lovely time.

It was a bittersweet moment. I so desperately wanted to see the cake through from beginning to end as I had worked so hard on it however, I just felt so lucky to have the support of my team to make things right. I took the now sad and sorry looking top tier and hurled it into the rubbish bin which seemed to alleviate my tension somewhat!

The 10 days back at home with my family was exactly what I needed and not only gave me time with my amazing children and husband but also gave me the chance to start getting my business into order with a new name, logo and web site all sorted.

Just as I was almost ready to head back to Sydney and get back into work, some volcano had to go and erupt and leave a ginormous and potentially deadly ash cloud over Melbourne which ended up delaying my return to Planet Cake by 4 days. Just in time to begin Basics 107, the vase cake, with Anna Maria.

I am completely refreshed and calm after my break and feel ready to tackle the remaining 2 and a half months with gusto!

So, that is about where I am up to at this point. I have decided to delay writing the details about my 107 class as I am set to do 108 and 109 this week with my intern sister Michelle. Our next blog will be a joint one about our experience of being the student rather than the intern.

I cant wait to share it all with you.

Happy caking

Neen x

P.S. They haven't all been so disasterous! Some of the other cakes I have done recently...

Another update from Shell

2011-06-17T01:06:00.000-07:00

I am about to embark on 3 weeks of SERIOUS CAKE CLASS MADNESS! Starting at Basics 107 and working through to Masters, but before I get there let me give you a run down of what I've been up to more recently.

Now - I need to be honest here... I'm a tried and true Melbourne girl, so when I was asked to make a rugby ball cake... well... I just didn't quite get the point. Why didn't the birthday boy want an AFL footy? And who exactly are the Crusaders? Regardless of all that, a Rugby ball seemed like such a straight forward design but I have to admit that it did take me quite some time to get it looking uniform. I also actually fretted a little with the prospect of covering the shape but due to the seam running down the centre of the ball it was easy enough to just pinch and cut away the excess icing at the join point. And although the point of the cake was lost on me I think it turned out pretty great.

So... it seems as though the classic "shooting stars" is exceptionally popular. In fact - I had two on the cards to make in a couple days! Kylie pretty much set up the girly one and I just gave her a hand to put on the finishing touches. The boy one was all me, and I think I could get it done with my eyes closed this time! They are such a great design and I would highly recommend those newbie cake decorators to give it a go... or of course you could sign up for the ever popular and AWESOME Planet Cake Basics 101 course and we could show you the tricks of the trade first hand... if you are SUPER keen and from the beautiful Melbourne you may even have an opportunity to get it taught to you by me one day! That is if you’re really lucky... (I'll keep you posted).

Back onto novelty cakes and I did a couple last week that made it to my favorites list. Firstly a cute lady bird cake and secondly a Penfolds red wine bottle. Although they were both 3D novelty cakes they were both set up slightly differently. Both cakes were torted and ganached as per normal. For the Lady bird I created a template out of cardboard for the cake to be built on. Once shaped I then covered it and then transferred it onto my covered base board. For the wine bottle, I actually set it up, shaped and covered it straight onto the base board. The reasons for this is the cake design, particularly the fragile neck of the bottle. If I had set it up and covered it on a template and tried to transfer it over to the base board, it would have been very difficult for me to do so without ruining the smooth finish.

Don't you think the bottle looks really life like? Well, to get that effect it was actually covered in a deep red icing colour and airbrushed with green and brown. Ritzy gave me a great demo of airbrushing and one of the key things to this shape is making sure you airbrush more heavily around the base of the cake and areas in the bottle where the "glass" is "bended" i.e. where the body of the bottle moves into the neck and the very bottom of the bottle. It is actually a little difficult to see in the picture, but in real life you can see the red icing showing through the air bushing a little. How very clever! Although I do wonder how many of you out there would be happier with a giant size bottle of wine in place of this chocolate mud cake one?

Last but not least, I had the pleasure of working on a cute pink christening cake. The design speaks for itself (and I have to admit it was awesome to work on a basic round for a change) but it did give me an opportunity to work on a figurine bear (my first at PC). I know it probably doesn't quite look like it is supposed to but it made me smile, so what more could you want? And before you start thinking of adding those cute cubes with the letters on them to your next cake design let me just give you a word of warning... they will literally suck the time out of your day and look super small for all your efforts. But by all means give it a go if you can spare the time and I'll admit it is a cute way to add in the special cake recipients initials.

So that's it for me in the production kitchen for a couple weeks. I'll keep you up to date with my progress through the courses...

Happy Caking,

Shell xx

Shell's weekly tip: GLOSS GLOSS GLOSS

When applying a glossy finish to your cakes I would recommend using a large, flat sided, soft bristle brush. At Planet Cake we use crystalline and apply the gloss in long even strokes. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you should avoid physically touching the glossed surface onceit is applied as you will end up with finger print marks - not a good look! So keep this in mind and try to make glossing your cake one of you very last steps. And one more thing - If you plan on airbrushing your cake try glossing first and then add the airbrushing colour on top. This will prevent any colour streaking and still get a great finish.

Update from Shell

2011-06-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

Already another two weeks have passed and I'm left wondering how time flies so quickly.
On our last week of filming Neen and I were hit with the task of managing all the online orders so the other team members could be made abailable to work on some other crazy complex cakes. Lucky for us, we employed the help of Kylie to take on the role of the interns-intern. She was more than willing to help as we spent the first day of the week ganaching our hearts out.

Although I had a number of cakes to work on, My biggest challenge assigned was to create a 3D snoopy cake. Not having worked on many (or really any) 3D cartoon cakes, I knew this would test my skills. I started by meticulously measuring up my reference picture and shapping the cake. At the end of the day when I stood back and looked at the cake I knew something was wrong... The length- right, the height- right, the basic shape - right, but as a whole it was definetely not right. I went home in the hope that in the morning I would be in a better place to figure out what was going wrong.

I have to say, one thing I've noticed about making great cakes is that there comes a time in you planned schedule that you have to make a decision. Do you continue with the cake you currently have got that perhaps isn't perfect but you have already invested a few hours in and you know will still end up looking really good, or do you decide to abandon said plan and take the time to redo what has been done and blow out your time schedule and accept what you know will result in a few late evenings of decorating. For me my snoopy cake I opted for plan B and after taking the time to re-look at it with some fresh eyes and then requesting some advice from our resident Queen of all things 3D - Margie, I finally found out what was wrong was my cake. It was flat. So I ended up re-shaping it again to round out the edges of the cake. After that I was happy and could move onto the covering.
For covering this type of cake I knew I would end up with ALOT of extra icing. I could have slowly worked the folds down around the cake but I had a think about my design and thought about where I could create some folds in the icing for me to cut away and then ultimatly cover the join lines with other details. For me and snoopy, these areas were under snoopy's ears and arms. This method meant covering Snoopy was as less stressful as possible.
Throughout the whoile process of making this cake I refered back to my reference picture and measurements as often as possible to make sure all the elements on the cake were in proportion and correct. I think in the end I think he turned out great... even when looking through red tired eyes...

With the cameras and filming finally behind us, I was happy to start the week with a strange, but very much welcomed calmness in the air, and for the first time since starting at planet cakes almost 2 months ago I was only assigned two cakes to work on. Although the number was low, Paris was keen to test my attention to detail with designs that relied on very sharp and straight finishes to achieve great results.

The 3 tier wedding cake actually proved challenging due to both the difficulty in covering the extended height (particularly the top tier) and the placement of the ribbon. I must admit right here and now that I made the assumption that I could wrap the ribbon around the cake in no time at all. The reality, and trust me I'm not over exaggerating, but almost 2 hours after starting I employed the help of Neoko to help me finish the job because it was driving me coco banana's! Yep, that's right, over 2 hours! My advice- don't design a round cake with ribbon wrapping around it, leave it to the square cakes. Round cakes really don't lend themselves to having geometric lines wrapped around them, especially when you need to achieve straight lines so if doesn't end up looking like you were drunk while placing them.

My other cake assigned was the ever popular cube. Unlike the unforeseen challenges in the wedding cake I knew the square was a particularly time consuming design and in fact a design that I was most nervous about creating. To begin with I needed to prepare support for a double stacked 8" cake, and although I didn't realise it at first, I needed to set up a centre poll and also have a second cake board in the middle if the cake to ensure it would stay secure.

After ganaching and measuring every side to ensure a perfect square I have to say covering the undercoat was remarkable easy. I stated by covering the two side panels separately and then the last three panels with one long sheet of icing. By cutting off the excess at the joins you end up with quite a straight finish.

Next, I needed to create the pale blue coloured frame around the edge of the block. For this to look great I knew the lines needed to be perfectly straight. I know there are a numbers of was people do this but for me I worked on one section of the frame at a time starting with the top 4 lengths, then moving onto the four side lengths and finishing with the bottom found lengths.

This method is probably a little more time consuming, but it worked for me. I actually used this method to also cover the little blocks, which took up almost half a day to make. Like I said, this cake is deceivingly very time consuming, but my most proud accomplishment to date.

Shell's weekly tip: STOP, LOOK and LISTEN

If you know that things are just not going right and your groove is MIA, just STOP! Sometimes when you start getting frustrated you can start making things worse than they already are. Re-LOOK at what you are trying to achieve. Perhaps re measure your cake or refer to some new references. If you've re-looked at things and it still dosent seem to be quite there, then use your life line and phone a friend. If you don't have someone close by then jump on the planet cake tea party forum and get some advice and LISTEN to what other people have experienced in the past, their advice is priceless!

http://www.planetcaketeaparty.com.au/

By the way - To find out more about the other MEGA cakes that were made by the rest of the team in the last few weeks you will unfortunatly need to wait for the TV series to come out later in the year. Trust me, the wait is definitely worth it!

Happy caking,

Shell xx

Update from Neen

2011-05-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

And so ends another crazy, mad capped, fun filled week at Planet Cake.

This week was filled with a whole new set of challenges, as usual, and I couldn’t be happier.

Due to some EXTREME cakes being made by the senior decorators in the kitchen, it was left to us very capable interns to take care of the more standard orders of the week.

I was assigned two wedding cakes, one 2 tier square with roses and one 3 tier round also with roses as well as a huge oblong christening cake for a set of twins .

The two tier square presented the challenge of having a specific type of rose requested to top the cake. I had never made a Delilah Rose before but was very happy with the final product.

Cake number 3 was a three tier round topped with sugar roses and featured gradient shades of the same colour through each tier to match the invitation colours. That was challenge enough let alone trying to shimmer the whole cake successfully without streaking it or making it look dusty. It took quite some time to get it to a point that I was happy with but, in the end, and after much experimenting, it ended up being a success.

Amongst all of this, I managed to fit in a Biz Whiz class with Paris on Friday and learned so much more about getting my business off the ground when I finally return home for good at the end of August.

So, as I sit here recovering from the past 5 frantic days, I nervously anticipate the week ahead as it is rumoured to be one of the biggest yet.

I do, however, feel more prepared than ever for whatever lies in wait for me around the corner of the sacred Planet Cake doors. Only time will tell if I am kidding myself or not! Wish me luck and, until next time, stay happy.

Neen x

Shell here again

2011-05-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

With a drink in hand and the surrounded by a few family and friends I'm happy to report that this blog update is coming to you from the warm and sunny Melbourne...and by warm and sunny I really mean cold and rainy, but lets not let the truth get in the way of a good story ;o)

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I spent only 3 days in the production kitchen this week due to my mid week flight back home. I was lucky enough to get some fun cakes to work on this week including my very first tiffany box, a special cake designed for a women who loved gerbera's, the colour orange and red wine, another shooting stars cake with a figurine of wonder woman standing on top and a giant size chocolate bar.

Each cake had its own little challenge, but the most time consuming by far was creating the colourful gerberas that topped the bright orange square for Mandy's birthday cake. Those fiddly little petals almost got the better of me as the clock ticked closer to 7pm and into my 11th hour in the kitchen on Tuesday night, but what could I do? The flowers needed to be made and given time to dry before the cake assembly the next day! In the end I think the flowers turned out great and even though they were very hard to place onto the cake due to their very flat shape, I do think I achieved a good result.

My favorite cake this week was the giant size chocolate bar which was made with chocolate mud cake layered with chocolate ganache and topped with chocolate fondant...what more is there to say about that but YUM YUM YUM! The shape itself was quite straight forward to achieve. I started with a 7" square that was cut in half and sandwiched next to each other. Next was to ganache the whole cake and let it set. Once that was done I needed to measure up the cake and cut lines into the cake to form the chocolate blocks. Once cut, I let the cake set again before covering with fondant. And with thanks to Neoko for letting me borrow her really cool little wooden tool to help me smooth the fondant around the little chocolate blocks to make them look "chocolate shaped", the whole thing was coming together nicely.

Next I needed to paint the bottom inch of the cake in silver to make it look like foil. And then onto the DEI. Simple right? Well, not so simple really. For someone who doesn't know the first thing about Photoshop it took me a little while to set the DEI up to the right shape... but we did get there in the end thanks to some ego boosting from Emma - Thanks for that Em!

Once the DEI was ready I just needed to roll out some really thin fondant for the DEI to be stuck onto and then wrap around the cake. I tore off the top of the DEI to make it look like a torn wrapper. For the foil looking bits at the top of the cake I rolled out some really thin pieces of fondant through the pasta machine, ripped the edges, painted in silver and shoved them in!

I think the finished cakes looks pretty effective and will go down as one of my fave's.

Shell's Weekly tip - OPT FOR AIRBRUSHING

One of the reason I was having so much trouble with my gerberas was that the intensity and quantity of colour in my petal paste made it so soft that it was getting stuck to an in the petal cutters. I struggled through to make my flowers, but in hindsight I should have opted for less colour in my paste and then some airbrushing to achieve the colour intensity after. A lesson well learned for me so I though I should share!

I'm back in the kitchen on Tuesday and a bit unsure of what the week may bring... I heard down the grape one it's going to be HUGE!

Happy caking!

Shell.

Introducing Shell: our newest intern

2011-05-06T21:49:00.000-07:00

So... after surviving my first 5 weeks at planet cake, the time has come to officially introduce myself. Hi! My name is Michelle (Shell) Arvaj and I joined Neen on the intern rollercoster after leaving Melbourne back in April. When I was 14 I did my first cake decorating class and dabbled in cakes for a few years after that, however, my love for cake decorating was only realised when I did planet cake's novelty basics 101 course back in 2009. Since then, I've been hooked!

I was part of the awesome team that worked on the GIANT Sydney opera house cake earlier in the year and now I'm back to work and learn with the most amazing and talented cake decorators.

Week 1

When Paris asked me, "how are you with square cakes?" my response must of been somewhat convincing as she threw the task of completing 2 square cakes and ganashing 3 more (extended to 5 inches) at me! This, along with my very first DEI cake of Dora (that was to be acompanied by 24 cup cakes) made for a very busy start to my time at planet cake.

To be honest, my track record of square cakes had not been that successful to date, but I wasnt about to tell Paris that! The cakes themselves were pretty straight forward, but I had NEVER worked on that many at the same time before, especially when positioned in a room with the fastest cake decorator in the world Anna Maria sitting to my left and the most amazing cake sculptor Margie to my right.

Sure... No pressure...

Shell's weekly tip- STAY CALM

When your put in a situation that's a bit stressful it's sometimes hard to do great work (i.e. Super sharp square edges). You know the feeling... you've already spent 45mins trying to get it right but for every stroke of the pallet knife you take you seem to be getter further away from achiving that "edge", not closer. My advice - walk away! Not entirely, but just long enough for you to regain your conposure and return back to your cake with fresh eyes. And always use the fridge to help set the ganach quicker, working with ganach that's too soft is a nightmare! Why put yourself through it?

Week 2

At roughly 9 am Monday mornings the weekly cake orders are divied up between the team. I was a bit unsure what to expect, but was given a couple of simple wedding cakes and the ever popular newspaper cake to complete, which meant there were 2 big things I would learn this week;

1) Setting up a centre pole 2) Setting up a personalised DEI (Digitally Enhanced Image). With the help of a ruler, jigsaw, hot glue gun and Photoshop (not all for the same cake or used at the same

time!) task completed.

Shell's weekly tip: MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE!

For a centre pole, make sure you measure the bottom tiers of cake and halfway up your top tear. For most cakes a 13mm dowel should do the trick, and it also helps if you cut your dowel to a point at one end.

Make sure you don't forget to cut corresponding centre holes in the centre of you cake boards, and a dab if hot glue in you base board to secure your centre pole should put you in a good position to setting up a super straight cake!

For DEI's, always print out a test run on normal paper before printing onto the rice paper, this heps save some $$ and also gives you an opportunity to create a cutting template for the real deal.

Oh, and one more thing- for my rough finish royal icing wedding cake, I learnt to add glycerine to the icing mix to stop the royal from setting too hard. This helps when the lucky couple are cutting into the cake so heaps of dried icing doesnt crack everywhere. Too easy!

Week 3
Although I had started the week working on a Easter bunny cake display for the front window, the week was highjacked by an amazing 2 meter mad-hatter cake for the royal Easter show. I had the pleasure of working with Anna Maria and Neen of the hu-mongous creation, and although I'm sure there is alot that can be said about this cake I think the photos speak for themselves.

Shell's weekly tip: POLYSTYRINE IS YOUR FRIEND!

When making huge cakes it just doesn't make sense to always use just cake, as, not only is it probably a waste to use enough cake to feed 500 people when you only need to feed 100, but cake is heavy, and a lot of cake is REALLY heavy! So here are 3 top tips when working with polystyrene;

1) Polystyrene melts when you use hot glue, so to stick pieces together, sandwich the hot glue between masking tape that has been suck to the pieces your sticking together.

2) In most cases there will be no need to ganache your polystyrine before covering, just brush sparingly with piping gel in prep for fondant

3) Cutting polystyrene is a messy job, make sure you use protective gear such as a face mask and overalls to keep you and your clothes safe.

Week 4
After making a giant cake in 2.5 days where do you go from there? Well apparently, back to a newspaper cake! With only 2 days in the production kitchen for me this week I also tackled a record player.

The key to this type of cake is preparing key elements early to allow to dry before assembly. In this case, for the "stick" I used flexible plastic tubing filled with flower wire (to make it bendy) and then covered with fondant mixed with a bit of tylose to make it dry quicker. After a day it's set hard enough for placement on the cake a painting. Oh, and to get that nice silver colour, mix your silver powder with decorating alcohol and paint away!

Shell's weekly tip: USE THE RIGHT COLOUR

So how do you make grey icing do you ask? Well the fact is you probably didn't ask because it seems so straight forward right? Get black icing and add white right? WRONG! Because the black icing is made with purple as a base colour, when you add white to it you end up with a light shade of purple. What you need to do is add a touch of yellow, yes that's right- yellow! And you will be making grey in no time! (Thanks for you help with that one Ritzy!)

Week 5

I was lucky enough to attend basics 106 springtime couse over the weekend and all I can say is WOW- that was AWESOME! Linda and Lesley did such a great job with the class and i met some amazing talented decorators in thd ckass. I had a ball! I wanted my design to be bold in colours and I think I achieved that.

Back in the production kitchen I was given 6 cakes to work on... Yes that's right- 6! I though it was going to be really tough but I focused on creating an achievable timeline, planned out my week and got to work... After 3.5 days and almost 100kgs of ganache also prepped for next week I was done! I could hardly beleive it myself but it seems I have definaty found my groove this week, maybe it's the excitement of my heading back home to Melbourne next week!

Shell's weekly tip: BE ORGANISED!

During my first couple weeks I think I literally spent hours running around the kitchen trying to find this, get that, clean this, move that... what a waste! Instead, it's best to plan you day out. Start with all you cutting, torting and ganching. Depending on the number of cakes you have that could take you all day (it certainly took me that long). Then look at all the icing colours you need and get them made.

Next get onto all your cake elements. The bows, stars, flowers etc.

Next your ready to cover your cakes (again a potential full day

affair) and last but not leat completing the cakes and piping you messages.

Planning your key outcomes for the day and then working on the same tasks for each cake, instead on each cake separately could really help speed things up.

Hope you enjoyed reading my post, appologies that it was a bit long as I tried to cram in as much info as I could without making in a novel.

I promise ill be more timely next time and look forwad to giving you some more helpful decirating tips!

Happy caking!

Shell :)

Half Way There!

2011-04-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

Yes I know that I have been slack at updating this blog however, if you were in my shoes right now, you would completely understand why.

Just when I thought that things couldn’t get any more crazy around here, along comes Easter at Planet Cake.

So, there I was, executing a skill boosting task that was assigned to me by Paris, when mayhem slammed through the doors and dropped the ultimate bomb on us.

The request? A 2 meter high mad hatter cake to be presented at the Royal Easter Show…IN 2 DAYS TIME!!!!

Me? Panic? Hell yeah!!!!

Under Anna Marias guidance, Michelle, Anna Maria and I set to work carving ginormous blocks of Styrofoam into mad hatter tiers to make this monster. By the days end, I had mammoth blisters on my hands, every inch of my body was aching and you don’t even want to know where I found styro pellets!

The next morning, it was bright and early into work to try and complete this huge cake by the end of the day.

After adding cake, ganaching, colouring 34 kg of fondant, making the biggest bow you ever saw, covering the cake in angled stripes ( a skill that I had desperately wanted to learn but had never predicted it to be on such a scale!) , a top tier disaster, stacking and re stacking and adding every detail via a step ladder, team ‘MAMMOTH MAD HATTER’ ( AKA Anna Maria, Michelle and Myself), finally downed tools at around 10pm, stood back and marvelled at what we had achieved.

Honestly, a few hours prior to completion, I didn’t know if it was ever going to get done. All I can say is thank heavens for Paris’ stash of Red Bull that we swiped. 3 cans of that battery bevvy scooted me over the finish line and what a sense of elation and pride I had at the days end. Looking up at the worlds biggest mad hatter, I can truthfully say that every second was worth it.

I could have easily slept for a week afterwards but it wasn’t to be. Come Saturday morning, rain hail or shine ( and rain it did) the cake was to be presented to the recipient at the royal Easter Show which meant a super early start in order to be at the gates at 8.30am.

The crowds gathered in the pavilion and one very surprised Michael Collins accepted his cake as a token of his 20 years as the shows general manager. Needless to say, there was plenty of cake for everyone!

The rest of the day was spent enjoying all that the show has to offer including food on sticks, showbags, animals and rides that successfully and permanently shift every vital organ in your body at least half an inch. I am glad I chose to eat AFTER the rides if you get my drift.

With fellow intern Michelle

The following few days were my 1st opportunity to actually experience Sydneys icons including the Harbour bridge, Luna Park, the Opera House and, most importantly, the Opera bar! LOL

Although the breather was a much needed one, it also meant heading back into the kitchen with only a 3 day week ahead and , just because it was only a 3 day week, it didn’t change the amount of cakes that needed to be completed.

I watched, in awe, as Anna Maria and Neoko built the most regal of wedding cakes in honour of the upcoming royal nuptuals and, once again, it was done both flawlessly and in record time.

All the while I focused on the three cakes that I had been assigned for the week. Due to a trip back home and a false start on Thursday morning, I only had a day and a half to get them all done.

It soon dawned on me that I had bitten off more than I could chew when I realised that there was a slight change of plans with one of the cakes due to some ‘technical difficulties’ and now needed to almost completely hand paint the decorations. It certainlytook me a lot longer than was originally anticipated.

I did however manage to complete two and a half of them before finally running out the door at 8.30pm last night in time to catch my flight back to Melbourne for the weekend.

So, here I am, resting in my own lounge room with my husband and should be concentrating on the break yet all I can seem to think about is what new and mammoth tasks await for me in the kitchen next week!

I am almost half way through my internship and yet I have so much yet to learn. Every day is something new, exciting and, well, exhausting but I wouldn’t trade this experience with anyone.

I look forward to getting home and putting everything that I have learned here at Planet Cake into practise. The closer it gets to the end, the more mixed feelings I have about what lies ahead.

I can’t wait to finally be back at home with my family, in my town yet I will miss all of my new family at Planet Cake terribly. I have fears about how I can possibly succeed without the guidanceand regular kick up the backside from Paris and the skillful hand of Anna Maria. There will be no Jess to protect me, no Lesley to hug and vent to and no Michelle to share the experience with. There will be no Emma to run the show so flawlessly and check up with me on how I am feeling and no Cat to bring me my late night Pizza and make me laugh. There will ,however, be a new woman in town, ready to take on all of the challenges presented to me and an entirely new set of skills and tools to tackle them with.

I can confidently say that I could not have even contemplated the future for myself that I do now without this opportunity.

I will forever be indebted to the amazing team at Planet Cake and I can’t wait to see what lies around the next corner!

2011-04-04T19:44:00.000-07:00

Well, to be honest, this week takes the cake ( pardon the pun) as the biggest roller coaster ride I have been on in a very long time.

To begin with I was assigned 5 cakes this week, which is the biggest assignment yet and I felt well up to the challenge however, after teaching the cupcake bites class over the weekend, thus having Monday off, I felt well behind the 8 ball starting on a Tuesday. By the time I arrived on Tuesday, the rest of the team had all of their cakes ganached and were busy covering their cakes for the week.

Margie teaching Lesley and myself how to make the seals for Cupcake Bites

I had to get moving on my work and, come Tuesday evening, I must admit, that a bit of panic had set in. I am, by far, the slowest in the kitchen at setting up cakes ( which I suppose is to be expected due to my severe lack of experience in comparison to the rest of the team) so it literally took me an entire day to prep all of my cakes ready for covering and decorating.

To make things even tighter, Wednesday I was assigned the duty of making ganache for the following weeks orders. A whole 90 odd litres of it! All I can say is, thank goodness for my angel in disguise. My amazing work colleague and, as of this week, new room mate ( woohoo) Lesley, was there to save the day at around 60 litres of gooey chocolate goodness in and took over my ganache making post to allow me to get into the production kitchen and start covering my cakes ready for decorating.

On to decorating it was. The first order for the week was one of our gorgeous online christening cakes and, just to add a little more pressure, I was told that the original collection time for the cake had been moved forward to a morning collection on Thursday rather than an afternoon one!

With the first cake done and assessed by Paris as a “couture cake that I should be very happy with” it was on to the next with a sense of pride and elation.

The iconic Tiffany box was next on the list but things didn’t go so well with this one. Whilst on her rounds Paris questioned where the template for the logo that I had painted on the box had come from. It was incorrect and needed to be fixed. I felt so crushed! I have a tendency to be quite hard on myself and want everything to be perfect so, when this happened I felt as though I had let Paris, Planet cake and myself down.

The criticism put me into a tail spin and I felt so scattered. All of my organisation and scheduling went out the window and, before long, I felt myself falling way behind with my deadlines.

Emma came to my rescue and assisted me with finishing off the other 2 cakes that were to be completed by the days end. I felt so deflated and annoyed with myself for letting something like constructive criticism throw me off so badly. Certainly a lesson learned!

The week wasn’t all negative though. I managed to set up and cover my first cylinder cake with great success and I was the very proud winner of the in house design competition for the fortnight. Those factors, along with the fact that Paris praised my cake as couture and has entrusted me to my first wedding cake next week reinforces that I must be on the right track.

Quite honestly, I was so happy to walk away from work on Friday night and leave the rollercoaster week behind me but it has only stoked the fire in my decorators belly to kick some major cake butt next week!

March 26th (already!)

2011-03-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have officially been a slacker with this blog, but I have a really good excuse I promise! It has been absolutely flat out in here and I honestly can't believe it's only been just over a month since I walked, shaky-kneed through the front door.

After three nights at the Taste of Sydney festival, I fell, exhausted, into a heap and with the aid of my eye mask and ear plugs managed to sleep in until 1pm on Sunday! I certainly needed the rest, and it was a healthy reminder that I had definitely been burning the candle at both ends. Hectic, it certainly was, but I had a great time and it was awesome meeting so many fans.

This week's major challenge was creating 60 (!) 6'' round cakes in the exact likeness of Nivea cream and it was a little like a production line with everyone contributing. While we originally thought a DEI (digitally enhanced image) would work for the logo's, once on it was decided that this really didn't cut it. Instead we hand-cut out each of the logos and then covered the entire cake in gel to give it that polished look. These were definatily a labour of love, but I reckon the end result speaks for itself. Here's Ritzy with 13 of them:

I must run, its Round 3 of Cupcake Bites today, Planet Cake's cupcake teaser (luckily Margie gave me a crash course in cupcake figurine modeling yesterday!) but I promise more photo's next week.

Neen x

My first 'taste' of Sydney

2011-03-11T16:38:00.000-08:00

How am I feeling after week two you ask? Knackered would pretty much sum it up! After all weekend at the amazing Taste of Sydney festival (a show case of all the best culinary experiences Sydney has to offer) this will just be a short one I'm afraid, but I absolutely promise to put up more photos next week.

Here's a taster of what my week held:

I was sooooooo excited this week to decorate my first cake in its entirety, from start to finish. I made this one for a very big Lady Gaga fan. I added a little personal flair to what would have otherwise been a fairly straight-forward DEI (Digitally Enhanced Image) bu adding some lightning bolts. Unfortunately this photo doesn't really do it justice, but I painted them on with edible blue glitter, and if I do say so myself, it looked VERY cool.

It's back to Taste of Sydney for me again this evening for night three of cupcake decorating workshops, stay tuned for more pics!

Neen x

And so ends week one...

2011-03-04T16:09:00.000-08:00

And so ends week one with the amazing team at Planet Cake. My feet are sore and I'm so tired I could drop, yet I absolutely can't wait to do it all again! Perhaps it's all the sugar giving me the energy?

After a 4am flight and several delays, including airline traffic and car rental issues *sigh* I was at last on my way to PC. I guess I hadn't counted on the logistical issues I now faced (no GPS aaaaaaargh), and as a stranger to Sydney, surprise, surprise I found myself on the completely opposite side of the city from where I was meant to be. Luckily the rising panic which was threatening to overtake dissapated instantly (only to be taken over my nervous excitement) the second the famous Planet Cake awning came into view.

After stalking Planet Cake for the past two years and dreaming of one day being able to attend a class, I was here to learn from the best of the best for en entire six months! The smiling Lesley greeted me at the door before leading me in to meet the rest of the team and Paris, all the while, me hoping I didn't look like too much of a goose in front of my idol! Paris has been the woman I have looked up to and aspired to be from the time I started my own cake decorating business eighteen months ago, and to meet her was literally like a dream come true.

Paris lived up to expectations and was everything I had expected and more, kind, grounded, welcoming yet strong, astute and firm in her goals, beliefs and expectations of the team. A true success and the epitome of success. The entire process of the internship was explained to me and Paris let me know what she wanted each of us to get out of it in the following months. Getting. Seriously. Excited.

Now, for those of you who think my job is all washing dishes and making coffee, think again! The first thing I was asked to do was cover a 9'' square cake for a christening cake, up to Planet Cake standards. Okay, packing it a little now. With some gentle help from Emma and Danielle I think the end result was pretty good, although I certainly don't feel as though I'm at my full potential at this stage. But baby steps I suppose.

Over the following four days I had the opportunity to assist in the decorating of another five beautiful cakes ranging from weddings to birthdays, learning so much more than I ever could have expected. Even after late nights (these guys really put in the hours to deliver these cakes) and one very messy ganache affair, still I couldn't wait to get back in there each morning to suck up as many tips and techniques and tid-bits of info as I could. I feel a little like a sponge!

So, yes I was nervous (understatement) am still feeling completely out of my league and occasionally have a minor freak-out when I'm assigned something foreign to me, but little by little and with the help of the amazing crew here, I am finding my feet and can only envision myself improving with every day that passes here in the crazy world of Planet Cake.

See you all next week!

Neen xx