East End Cake Decorators November 2012 Meeting

This colourful table-full of cookies are only half of those decorated on Sunday by members of our Cake Decorating Group.  It's an annual thing.  Each November we decorate cookies for local charities, these will be distributed by St. Margaret's in the Pines Church (our meeting place).  As usual, we are under a time constraint, because we have to decorate and package within two hours, so we devise ways to not have wet icing at packaging time.  Spreading a thin layer of royal and then dipping in sanding sugar works well, as does pre-making small decorations such as holly leaves, candy canes, angels and stars.  

Working hard

Above and below are close ups

Diane K and Shirley making a start on the packaging.

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East End Cake Decorators April Meeting

At our meeting in April, Glenys gave us an excellent demo all about a fairly new product called SugarVeil.  It comes as a powder to be mixed with water to a runny mixture, this stage is called the "wet stage".

Next it is spread onto special textured teflon mats and left to dry for about two hours.  This is the "dry" stage: dry to the touch, but still pliable and not sticky.  The "set" stage is when the piece is dry and brittle.   

While it is still pliable, Glenys cuts out a motifs from the larger piece.

This is another design that stretches out like a hammock.

It can also be piped into designs or letters  ......

butterfly or dragonfly wings

This and the photo below show how it can be cut to fashion a bride's gown or a dress for an old fashioned belle.

Thanks, Glenys for a really interesting demo. 

SugarVeil is available at Flour Confections in Pickering.  

May's meeting  is the Annual Cake Competition
The criteria is as follows:

Cover a board (not a cake or stryo dummy) with fondant and decorate it with spring flowers. Advanced members are required to use gum paste. The board can be displayed flat on the table or placed on a stand. There is a fee of $5.00 per entry in this category.

East End Cake Decorators - February 2012 Meeting

We were treated to two very well-prepared demonstrations at our EECD meeting in February.  Cynthia L. showed members the correct way to do brush embroidery.  Lynne demonstrated pleating, different sizes and different methods.

Here Lynne has rolled out a large piece of fondant mixed with a bit of tylose for strength.  She begins by laying down  food-grade dowels, the first one in the middle under the fondant.  The next two on top and either side of the middle one.  She carries on in this manner to the size of drape she wants.

When the dowels are in, she trims to size and then carefully removes the dowels

She gently shaped the pleated piece, pinching each end together.

Here's the finished piece, several of which could be used on a tiered cake, and where the individual pieces of draping joined, place a gumpaste rose, for example.

Here she is working on a small fan-shaped piece

Here Lynne is demonstrating a pleating tray available from Creative Cutters, you can see the tray at the bottom of the photo.

This is a nice selection of Lynne's work.

Glenys tried her hand.  She's making a fan shaped piece.

Here it is finished.

Next, Cynthia demonstrated brush embroidery; for my embroidery readers this would be similar to long and short stitch.

Cynthia is outlining the leaf with royal icing

Next step is to gently brush icing from the inside edge of the leaf towards the centre of the leaf.  

There's definitely a technique to show that petals are overlapping.

Thank you both,  Lynne and Cynthia, for your interesting and informative demos.

The next meeting for members is on Sunday, 25th at 2pm at St. Margaret's in the Pines, Lawrence and Kingston Roads.


Glenys will demo gelatin flowers and wings.  If anyone has any gelatin items at home they've done before and would like to show them, that would be great.

 

East End Cake Decorators - December 2011 Meeting

This was the last meeting of 2011.  We had a pot luck, a fun gift exchange and show and tell which included this pretty little chalet brought in by our long-time member, and the Christmas cakes below.

All this takes is a few cookies.  Two whole ones for the roof, two trimmed for the front and back, and one cut in half for the sides.  The trimmed bits are used for the chimney.  Then decorate.  

The challenge for this meeting was to only use the holly leaf cutter to decorate a Christmas cake.  There were a couple of variations:  the top left has a poinsettia made from red holly leaves, and the sleigh in the front is a clever way of using larger holly leaves.

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The next meeting will be on January 22nd at St. Margaret's in the Pines, Lawrence Avenue near Kingston Road in Scarborough.  Cynthia Lewis will be demonstrating the correct way to do brush embroidery.

East End Cake Decorators

The next meeting of the East End Cake Decorators will be on Sunday, September 25th, 2011, at St. Margaret in the Pines, Lawrence Avenue East, Toronto.
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This is the first meeting of the 2011/12 year, and membership dues of $25 are due in full at this meeting.
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Yvette Belfonte will demonstrate the gelatin bubble and sugar glass.

For those wishing to participate, the following is a list of things to bring.


Water balloons (these are really tiny - check any dollar store)
Toothpicks
Duct tape
Unflavored gelatin
Small microwave bowl
Styrofoam block for drying
Small paint brush
Super Pearl dust

Hope to see you there!

East End Cake Decorators - April 2010 Meeting

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

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

East End Cake Decoraing Club - June Meeting Competition

The Club held it's annual Cake Decorating Contest at the June meeting. There were four entries from members of the group. The judges declared Lyne Coderre’s cake to a category of its own, and it won “Best of Show” 1st Place: Diane Kingston. Diane's entry includes a real cake and cake slice. The "china" teacup and saucer, the plate, the fork and spoon, the Pansy posy, the napkin ring, the napkin and the try cloth are made from gumpaste.

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

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

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

East End Cake Decorators - April 2009 Meeting

At Sunday's meeting Lyne Coderre demonstrated how to make this barrel cake. (Thank you June from Katie's Cakes for permission to use this photo.) Lyne began with three 3" high, 8" rounds which she carved to make the barrel shape, then iced with buttercream.To make the aged wood slats, she began with fondant that had been coloured with three different brown shades, then rolled the fondant into a long sausage and twisted the sausage shape to mix up the colours. After that she rolled it out in long uneven strips. The outcome looked like slices of bacon! These strips were laid onto a rolled out piece of cream fondant and pressed into it.

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

Next she added the "metal" rings around.

And painted them black to resemble iron.

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

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

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

East End Cake Decorators - March 15th Workshop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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