Review of Mike McCarey's Advanced Cake Sculpting Craftsy Class

Full Disclosure:  The review of the following Craftsy class is purely my own.  I am not being paid or compensated for my review, but Craftsy is offering my readers a chance to win a free class.  Read on to find out how!

MY HISTORY WITH MIKE
There is all levels of skill for cake artists.  People that are just trying the Wilton Courses, some that have been to culinary school, and some that learn "on the job".  I  started with Wilton Courses, then self taught using great books, then on the job as an Assistant Pastry Chef.   I still have a lot to learn and a great desire to learn more.  However, I might want to know how to make a botanically correct garden rose, but my customers don't ask for or want to pay for them, so I focus on learning things that I can actually use in my business. 

Like every other cake person, I used to love Food Network's "Cake Challenge".  There were many great competitors, but my favorite by far was Mike McCarey.  His work was always flawless, well thought out, and perfectly executed.  He was one of the few contestants that would make the cake BEFORE the show and work out all the kinks.   There was no drama or stressing, just perfect execution.  Can you tell that he is my cake idol? 

When I saw that he was teaching a two day modeling chocolate class in Atlanta, I came up with $1000 (give or take, it's been 3 years) and took that course.  I learned so much!  It was worth every penny!  So when he came back to teach a cake structure class/Big Bird, I scraped the money up, again around $1000 (OK, I charged it and dealt with it later...) and skipped down to Atlanta.  Again!  The most-best-awesome class I have taken.  The things I learned help me every week.   I also bought his car making video and it's awesome too!  On the downside, I had to "close" my business while I went to school, had to get accommodations, food, travel and the cost is a lot.  I still think those classes were worth every single penny! 

So when I saw that Mike McCarey was offering a class on Craftsy, don't you know that I jumped right on it!  He is my cake hero and favorite teacher!  That being said, I'll try to be objective and give you a little review on the class. 

THE REVIEW
I think this is truly an advanced class.  This is a hard cake for most people with a lot of techniques.  If you are just a cake hobbyist and Wilton Classes are your current skill level, then this is maybe not the class for you, just yet!  You should have carved some cake in your life, worked with real butter-buttercream, have some ability to use tools.  Mike doesn't go over basics, like how to cover fondant.  Thank God, because some of that "filler" has put me to sleep on other classes.  If you have never done a cake with structure in it, this is a great place to learn.  He does this great thing where he blows up the picture to the size that the cake will be and draws in the exact size hardware that he needs.  It's a great learning tool, and it makes the sculpting SO much easier!  I have brought a blown up picture with me to Lowe's and sat in the aisle of the plumbing department trying to find the exact right pieces. 

Mike goes over everything you need to know to make a great Bobble Head Style cake.  It's the most entertaining Craftsy class I have seen.  He is just so comfortable in front of the camera and talks just like he does in person.  I didn't get bored at all, even though I have been taught a lot of the information before.  I still picked up some great new tips and refreshed my memory on structure building.  When someone teaches me something, I'm that type that wants to know "why" and not just how you do it.  Mike helps me truly understand so that I can carry those lessons on to other situations.  His bobble head cake strategy can be used for making so many things.  If you learn these techniques of planning, blueprints, patterns, structure, refining, and finishing you can use them on every cake that isn't a traditional stacked shape. 

My favorite thing about Mike's style of making cakes is that it's very well planned, which will lead to good execution.  Carving cake is very scary, but when you have an exact blueprint that will get you 75% done, it becomes less scary.  He doesn't take chances with a cake structure and that's a really good thing.  I would hate to have 4 days worth of work fall over during the delivery.  Learning his methods are like having "cake insurance". 

I've heard of a little complaining because the head doesn't actually "bobble".  He does go over how you could make that happen if it was important to you.  But, if people aren't impressed that you made a birthday boy into a bobble head "style" cake then a extra spring isn't going to impress them either.  A cake doesn't have to move or shoot sparks to be awesome!  Please!

I am not bitter....but this class will pretty much teach you what I learned in a two day/$1000 hands on class....only it's not $1000!!!  It will take 292 minutes to watch it all!  It's a long time, but it's a lot of fantastic, non repetitive material.  After watching the entire video, I can't find one thing that it's missing compared to the Big Bird class I took (other than his awesome assistant, also named Mike.  I missed him!).

Mike does recommend that you take Lauren Kitchens "Modeling Chocolate" class.  I haven't taken it yet, but since they are big buddies, I'm sure that it's similar to what he taught me in the two day/$1000 class.  So, run and take it!  Modeling chocolate knowledge is the single most important thing I've learned for making sculpted cakes.  I could NOT make a clean, well executed sculpted cake without it.  Learn about modeling chocolate! 

As with any video, please watch the whole thing before you leave a comment or questions.  I don't know how the man is so patient with some pretty crazy questions.  I'm sorry to be harsh, but man,  if you can only ask "The great and powerful CAKE OZ" one question, do you really want to waste it on something silly or that has already been answered three questions up?

As you can tell, I highly recommend this Craftsy class.  I am so excited for all of you to be able to learn from Mike McCarey.  His is the BEST at what he does and is a FANTASTIC teacher.  I cannot wait for more classes!

The best of of all this is that the fine folks at Craftsy have generously offered to gift Mike McCarey's Advanced Cake Sculpting class absolutely free to one of my readers!  How cool is that? Use the link below to register for the giveaway.  In order to give everyone time to enter, we are going to run the giveaway from now through  Sunday April 21st.

http://craftsy.com/CupaDeeCakes_CraftsyClassGiveaway

 Don't forget to enter and have an awesome week!

Emerald, the Pantone Color of 2013!

I suppose they have a "color of the year" every year, but this time was the first I noticed it being mentioned everywhere.  EMERALD, so pretty, so dark, so beautiful and not so easy to color fondant in the right shade.  We are no dummies, we started with Satin Ice Green, but then added lots of "forest green" to get the color were we wanted it.  This cake is somewhat plain, but busy in the "texture" department.  I used a mold for the band borders because I'm tired of plain ribbon :(  The star of the show is clearly the bows.  I know bows are also getting old and tiresome, but I think this is a little different since it's on it's side.  The trick to this bow (a 50/50 mix) was to make the loops (three different sizes) and then before they get hard, start attaching them.  You have to have a little flexibility.

What colors have you been digging lately??

Khaki Wedding Cake in Trenton

This past weekend I made this wedding cake for a sweet couple getting married in Trenton, GA.  This couple was a little older than my average wedding couple, but they were super nice and allowed me a little leeway with their cake for the big day!

Our color scheme for this wedding was khaki, white, and gold.  White is an easy color to bring to the party; here we used white in the borders, piping, and in the roses I got from wholesalesugarflowers.com.  A little gold goes a long way on a wedding cake and can be easily overdone.  I used a cosmetic sponge to lightly edge each of the roses with gold luster dust.

I had a rough time getting the right color combination to get that perfect khaki color.  Khaki is WAY different than ivory.  My final recipe included mixing in brown, green, and just a smidge of purple coloring into my white buttercream.

This Ain't Your Mama's Wedding Show Booth

Chattanooga is not a very big "wedding market" according to The Knot and other big wedding sites.  We have to stuff ourselves into Knoxville, Nashville, or Atlanta and that just confuses our brides, especially when you consider each is over a 2-hour drive away!  Luckily, we have two big bridal shows in the spring and the 3rd annual "This Ain't Your Mama's Wedding Show."   We are trying to find some super awesome brides that want very cool cakes!  This is just what we needed!

Since we are looking outside the box, we wanted to try something different with our booth.  That darned Pinterest, it gets me in more trouble!  I found someone had made this type of ombre feather boa background and I had to make it!  I found a great website for cheap and great boas so give them a shot!  The boas already come with a loop on the end and we slid them over a thin clothesline type rope.  Then, I took a small piece of floral wire to bunch up a little of the boa to hide the loop that looked ugly.  We wanted to tie the backdrop to columns or something, but we were on a brick wall.  Even the biggest command adhesive hooks would not hold the weights of all the boas, so we had to buy a stand.  It came from Amazon.om and was only $65 and was called a Photography Backdrop Stand.   We used glitter scrapbook paper for the flags and black construction paper for the letters.  It was a lot easier to haul around than our big signs we normally used.  We really liked the "DIY" look and feel of it!

We also decided to add some rustic style flowers in mason jars and some offbeat flavors for sampling.  Our mango sample was SASSY with some cayenne and since it was St. Patrick's day we made Irish Car Bomb cake.  What is that you ask?  Guinness chocolate cakes, ganache with Jameson whiskey and icing made  with Bailey's Irish Cream.  YUM!

We are very proud to be a part of this show and to be a Chattanooga Wedding Cake vendor, small market or not!

My Fourth Blogiversary!

Well, this week marks the fourth year my little old blog has been in existence.  In the beginning I didn't know if I would like writing it, or if anyone would even read it.  There's the occasion when I get really busy and it feels like work, but for the most part I really like sharing and communicating with other decorators from around the world.

Participating in the online caking community has been very rewarding.  I have made several very good friends, learned a lot about new cake techniques, and even had my cakes featured on several websites.  This last year alone I have had 2 cakes featured in digital cake publications.

So what does the next year hold?  Well I hope to do some more awesome cakes, learn a few new skills, and maybe even see some more of my cakes published.  And I would love to make some new friends... so more of the same!

And I really want to thank each of you for stopping by and reading my posts and flipping through my tutorials.  There will be more of those coming too!

Cottage Food Law in Georgia

Last week I got my bi-annual inspection from the Department of Agriculture.   She was about three months late and that has never happened, so I was curious as to why.  My inspector, Beth, said it was because Georgia has passed the cottage food law and they are very busy inspecting all the new businesses.  Since the "shop" is in people's home, they are required to have two inspectors go together.

Just for background of where I'm coming from, here is a little about my situation.  I started my baking career by working in a commercial kitchen that made beautiful goodies.   Long, days but I learned so very much that helps me to this day.  When we were ready to start our business we didn't do a business plan or apply for a business loan because the first thing banks want you to do is "gamble on yourself".  We took a leap and got a second mortgage, knowing that was now my company's overhead and responsibility (I haven't missed a payment yet....).  We took out $51,000 and used $12,000 on concreting the driveway and pathways.  $35,000 was paid to the contractor that built on our 440 sq kitchen addition.  It includes a bathroom with a "mop sink" (a shower with a very small lip), a pantry, a 50 gallon water heater, lots of extra plumbing and outlets and a huge 1,000 gallon grease trap with an extra 200 feet of field line(an extra $4,000).  I made the floor plan and sat down with the Health Department BEFORE we started.  We were going to be making cakes and doing catering, so we went with the stricter health department.  There are rules as to which you have to go with, but we'll save that for another day.  We had a "issue" with the zoning department, but once she got her head on straight, we were fine.   About three years ago, I stopped all catering and went to cakes only, then to only wedding cakes.  I also wanted two crystal chandeliers that the Health Department said "no" to, so I switched to Department of Agriculture.  They are not as strict, but butter is not as hazardous as raw chicken, so there you go!   I have a beautiful pink kitchen that I love very much and it's legal, inspected, and a great tax write off.  I also have my normal house kitchen for all the non fun stuff. 

The Georgia Cottage Food Law is for people that want to make certain types of non hazardous food in their home kitchen.  I'm no expert, but I'll give you the run down in simplified terms. 

1. Make sure zoning will allow it.  In our area, if you live in the city, you won't get approved.   I'm in the "country".  According to zoning, even my kitchen is not allowed to have employees that do not live in the home. 
2. You have to show that your water supply and sewage can handle the extra output.  If you have well water you have to do some testing and if you are on public utilities, you have to check with them.
3. Food Safety training such as ServSafe.
4. You then apply and have to pay an annual fee of $100 (I pay the same)
5. Inspection.  You get a pre-operational inspection to ensure you can meet the requirements and regulations.  This is a big list, but it's food safety, labeling, proper washing, animals and kids aren't present when you are dealing with food.

***COTTAGE LAW OPERATIONS DO NOT GET ANY INSPECTIONS AFTER THE FIRST AND ONLY ONE.  If you get complaints or cause a food borne illness outbreak, you will get reinspected.

All items that are packaged must be labeled "MADE IN A COTTAGE FOOD OPERATION THAT IS NOT SUBJECT TO STATE FOOD SAFETY INSPECTIONS"  as well as the general stuff.   Many venues where we deliver wedding cakes require a "food license" and some require business insurance.  I don't know if they will accept a cake from a cottage food house.  If I owned a ballroom and there was a guest that got sick, it would be hard to say that the cake was legal but "not subject to inspections".  It leaves them open for a lawsuit to some degree.

Some of the "non hazardous" foods are breads, cakes, pastries, cookies, candies, jams (not fruit butters), dry herbs, cereals, nuts, vinegars, popcorn, and cotton candy. 

Here is just a little more... "Operators can sell their products at non-profit events, for-profit events, and may also conduct Internet sales.  The cottage food operator is not able to distribute or wholesale their product, nor can they ship across state lines."  Really, Internet sales, but only in-state?  That will be so easy to police -  NOT!  "Cannot be distributed to retail stores, restaurants or institutions".   That means no making cakes for a local restuarant for them to sell or selling wrapped brownies at your husband's workplace.

Well, that's what I know about all of that.  Beth asked if I was "mad" because now it's so much easier to make cakes legally and they don't have to spend $35,000 in construction.  I am not upset at all!  Mostly because I only make wedding cakes and I could NOT make them in my home kitchen.  If I had a cake in my home fridge right now, it would absorb odors and taste like the red onion that we cut yesterday.  I would worry about cat hairs that float around.  My customers wouldn't know how seriously I take this job and their cake.  I have separate insurance for my commercial kitchen.  I also have set up an "LLC" so that if I poison someone, I'm protected personally. 

I think the new Cottage food law is good for people that are doing food as a side business or as a start up.  Maybe it's a good idea while you are figuring out your recipes, costs, time and what your overhead will be.  Since you can't have employees, you will see all these things as well as how many hours of your week it's going to take to make a profit.  It's a good first step.  People jump into a retail space way too soon without working out all of the details or having enough capital. 

I can "write off" a lot of my kitchen because the space is totally dedicated to the business.  A cottage food kitchen would not qualify for the same exemptions.  Since my kitchen is 40% of my home, I get to write 40% off of a lot of things like home improvements and some utilities.  My commercial kitchen is good for me because I AM NOT going to grow my business.  I don't want a retail space with walk in business.  We are going to stay small and focus on making, and learning to make, the very best product in the area.  We aren't small, we are "exclusive"!

Baby Shower Reveal Cake

I blogged about Matt and Nikki's awesome Converse cake a little over a year ago.  They are such an awesome couple!  When they called me about making a "baby reveal" cake, it broke my heart to say "we only make wedding cakes".  Matt was super sweet and willing to bend over backwards to get any cake from me so I had to do something.  He agreed to a 9" cake with NO decoration, but this is the cake he got.  It's not awesome, but I had a little extra time and felt like doing a little something for such special people. 
   
I REALLY like Jonathan Adler's designs and pottery.  I have a wish list a mile long on that website (hint, hint..) so when I found this stencil (and a few others) on DesignerStencils.com.  it had to be mine!  Something about me wants it to go the other direction, but I'll get over it.  Do you see it or does it look right to you?  I used a hounds tooth impression mat for the bands and border.   I love to mix patterns, but it does often look messy to me.  I added piped the borders because I had extra yellow icing.  At least I'm honest :)  It probably would have looked better without the piping.  The cake was lime cake with lime French buttercream filling and rum French buttercream outside.  It's kind of a mojito cake!  By the way, it was blue on the inside!

Valentine's Day Chocolate Bake Off

A few weeks ago I was called about a Valentine's Day Bake off that Hamilton Medical Center (the local hospital) was hosting for their associates.  The employees could enter their best chocolate dessert to see who would be crowned as "Hamilton's Chocolate Champ!"  All the employees would get to sample the goodies too, so they were making a little party out of it.  I thought it sounded like a really cool idea, and so I offered to donate a cake.  I didn't spill the beans at the time, but I have been really chomping at the bit to make this Eiffel Tower cake for a while (since my Mike McCarey Big Bird class - WOW!).  The cake is actually pretty small, I would say it would feed 6-8 people, but I had fun making it!

But they also asked if I would be one of their chef judges too and I was more than happy to help them out.  I really expected that their might be only 20-30 entries, but I was surprised t hear that 80 people entered their various cake, cookie, brownie, and pie recipes.  There were so many entries they decided to get a second set of judges (one set for each category!!)  It took me an hour to sample 40 cookies, brownies, and pies!!

Here is the Eiffel Tower Template I purchased from Mike McCarey. As you can see, it is very simple, but the effect is incredible. It's just 2 cutting guides and an impression mat, but man, are they effective! I think they give you an instuction sheet when you buy these templetes, but they were out and I have failed to follow up.  So, I winged it!  Make sure you use a dense cake as the only support is the master dowel going through the center.  Box cake will not hold up, so don't even waste your time.  Use cake drums or foam core so you have something to stab your master dowel into for support.  Lastly, use modeling chocolate for the outside coverings.  You know I love the stuff and it did not let me down here!  It made the tiny bit of cake much more sturdy and I was able to carve more lines and details after I let the cake chill up.  We also found a cute blog where the author gave some great information and pictures.  Take a look at it if you decide to make this cake.  http://www.sweetdreamscakeapp.com/2011/05/21/amazing-classes-with-mike-mccarey-day-1/
 I have said it before and I'll say it again -- If you ever get a chance to take a class with Mike, jump on it!  The man is a genius!

Blue Damask Wedding with Bows

I'm so tickled that we made a wedding cake with lots of color!  I love an all-white cake, but sometimes a bride wants to make a big color statement.  The location for this reception was at a very rustic and HOT barn.  We have decided to MAKE customers use fondant for outdoor events when the temperature will be more than 75.  I know this isn't some crazy awesome cake, so let's just cover some tips and tricks.

A few hints for this type of cake.  First we did use our buttercream for the stencil instead of royal icing.  Due to condensation and general humidity, the very heavily colored stencil may have the color run.  There is no way to really fix this since it will stain everything it runs onto. 

Second, keep your hardened bows out of the fridge until the day of the event.  If you put them on sooner, they will become soft and lose their shape.  If you put them on right before you leave with the cake (the bows never made it into the fridge in this scenario) the bows will be matte and the other fondant will be shiny looking.  It does look really bad.

Third, to keep all condensation off your cake cover it with a brand new garbage bag.  Cakes going in and out of the cooler in short bursts of time won't get condensation.  Stack your cake and chill it for a while so all the piping, stenciling, etc are hard.  I use really large clear bags from Sam's.  Open the bag and put the cake on top of the bag and bring it up to the top.  Use a long pipe cleaner to secure your bag closed.  When you take it out of the fridge for delivery, give the cake about 10 minutes to acclimate to the kitchen temperature before removing the bag.  You may get some damage to your cake, so be super careful and only use this tecnique if you have a sturdy design.  Some cakes you just can't let sticky for different reasons so use this trick when it will really make a difference.

I'd love to know if any of these tricks have worked for you or if you have some that work even better.  Thank you all for your comments and participation in my little blog.

Super Bowl Cake Strategies

So most of my regular readers know I'm not here to talk about the Super Bowl, but since football has been all over the news lately so I thought it was worth discussing.  Lots of grooms are into football, and as much as I like making sculpted helmets, a lot of times our clients are looking for something more economical.  A football field cake can show the groom's love of his team while not breaking the bank.  Here are some tips I have learned through trial and error that I thought I would pass along.

It's pretty easy to figure out that you can print team logos using edible images or even using cricut cut outs, but getting the field just right can be a difficult task.  I have struggled with the field lines and in the end I have found that using small strips of edible paper.  They lay very flat and stick well to the fondant underneath.  The yard markers can be hard to get just right.  In this case, the cake was large enough that I was able to use my small number cutters and they looked good.  If this cake was any smaller though, the letters would have been too large.  What to do then?

Well, it was a problem SO many times that I finally found myself a high quality image of a field with all the lines and numbers.  That's what I used to make the cake above.  If I'm not mistaken, I had to use 2 pages and piece them together, but it makes for a good look.  With minimal skills on the computer, you should be able to print this to match whatever size cake your making.

And since this isn't the Super Bowl and we can all be winners here I wanted to provide all my friends here with my football field image to use however you see fit.  You can download the image here.

Hope you guys have a great week!