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 - January 2012 Meeting

Sunday's meeting was fun.  Our planned demonstrator was not able to attend due to illness, but despite that, the meeting just evolved and we certainly filled our two and a half hours very well.

To begin with Glenys, our president arrived with a boxfull of British and American cake decorating magazines spanning 20 or 30 years, from another cake decorator who is retiring.  We pored over these until breaktime.

We each bring in a plate full of snacks to share, and Glenys had these amazing cupcakes that became rainbows when cut in half.  Of course we all needed to know her secret which she shared.  

After that Glenys surprised us with a quickie demo that she put together to replace the cancelled one.    

Glenys' demo was on pattern transfers.  She showed two methods.  First is the outline method shown at the top. Second is the method of piping the design and moving the frozen design on to the cake. 

Thanks Glenys for all the above!

The Cookie Factory

It has become a tradition each year before Christmas, at our East End Cake Decorators, to decorate cookies and donate them to various groups and charities.
Each one of us baked two dozen cookies, brought royal icing, sprinkles, and other decorations and got busy. Here's Glenys, our president in the Santa mode.

Cookies of all shapes and colours emerged from talented ladies.....

We had to work quickly so that the icing could dry before being packaged later.

Such a variety....

Some were absolute pieces of art...

Here we are at the wrapping stage.  Two small cookies or one large in a clear cellophane bag tied with curled ribbon.

In total we packaged up 178 bags.  These will be given to the church where we meet as a thank you for the use of the facility.

Well done everyone!

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.

East End Cake Decorators - February's Workshop

Lots of babies being "born" and sweet little cradles being crafted on Sunday at the EECD workshop. Lynn ran the workshop and instructed on how to make a cradle from two sizes of heart cutters. The red Wilton heart cutters worked really well. Other members brought samples of different cradles and cutters. A good time was had by all!

• Lynn is shaping the baby's head and body.

Here the pieces have been cut out from gumpaste. The large heart piece is the head of the cradle, the smaller one, the foot. The other pieces are the base, and the side rails. There is also a molded baby. Our members concentrating on getting the pieces cut just right. Lynn now has the rails attached to the bottom. The finished cradle on the right is prepared ready for a canopy. This shows that the basic cradle can be enhanced and added to. Lynn prepared the canopy beforehand. For the posts she used glass swivel sticks which will go into holes already made in the heart plaque.

Diane K.'s heart cradle with her canopy design.

Here are more cradle designs. On the left a small sugar molded cradle, the centre is another design using cutters. On the right a larger sugar molded cradle. and in the front, a bare bones cradle made as an experiment. Because the bottom points of the hearts were left on, the cradle needs some kind of support underneath to keep it from falling over. The sugar molded cradles will be offered as a workshop at a later date.