The Cake College’s Beginners Masterclass!

Jun 11

3 min read

In April I attended the Cake College’s Beginners Masterclass, where I learnt so many amazing recipes, ideas, and skills. The course is not normally gluten free, however the instructors were so accommodating and ensured that all my ingredients were gluten free, meaning I was able to eat everything that we baked and created!

The course was over 4 days, Wednesday to Saturday, and was jam packed with non-stop baking!!!

The first day was all about cupcakes, specifically floral cupcakes! The goal was to bake a dozen delicious cupcakes, then ice them with meringue buttercream icing and finally to decorate with sugar flowers and leaves. I am a huge fan of cupcakes, especially when they are fresh from the oven, but I have struggled in the past with baking them. As such I was so excited to learn from a professional baker about how to bake the perfect cupcake!

The cupcake recipe was much the same as I had used in the past, however unlike my normal cupcakes which come out of the oven looking like little hills have sprouted on top of them, these cupcakes came out nice and flat and level – perfect for icing! Needless to say, that I was happy with the look and smell of them.

I had never made meringue buttercream icing before, so was excited to taste it and learn how to make it. The process of making it while not difficult required attention and care, as we were told it could easily become curdled or turn into soup! Luckily my icing turned out great, it was silky smooth, and I decided to colour it a gorgeous pink.

The next step was icing it onto our now cooled cupcakes, and we were shown various techniques on how to do this. My favourite of the ones demonstrated was the rose, as I thought it looked very classy, especially with our pre-made sugar paste leaves! The cupcakes were a huge success, I was happy with all aspects of them and had had an amazing day baking and decorating them.

The next three days were mainly focused on the two-tier cake! This cake was eventually going to look like a standard wedding cake, with a large, wired sugar paste flower in the centre. The process was broken down for us, which was helpful as it seemed like a daunting task with multiple steps! We first had to bake the two vanilla sponges, then make and then fill the cakes with buttercream icing, then cover the whole cake in a layer of white chocolate ganache, and then cover it in fondant. Although a challenge and difficult at times I really enjoyed learning the new skills required for making the two-tier cake, such as how to cover a cake successfully with fondant, the new baking tools I had not used before, as well as many others! I was really happy with my cake, and although it was not perfect, I was proud of my first attempt at baking and icing such a cake.

When cakes had been cooling, we had been making our sugar flowers and leaves. I had never used sugar paste before, and enjoyed the process of rolling, cutting out, colouring and decorating our flowers. I made small sugar paste flowers for the cupcakes and a large, wired sugar paste flower for the two tired cake. I found making the wired flower very challenging and it took a lot of concentration and patience to construct! I was so happy with the end result however, as it I thought it looked really pretty on the cake!

Iced biscuits were last on the agenda, and these were super fun to bake and ice! The biscuits themselves were round shortbread biscuits, and the icing was fondant. The exciting element was learning how to marble the fondant, a technique that looks impressive but can be tricky! I chose a purple colour and by being careful and not adding too much colour my fondant turned out well!

Overall, I had an amazing time on this course! The instructors were so friendly, kind and helpful, the recipes were yummy, and I really felt that learnt so much! I know that in the future I will attend another course at the Cake College and recommend them to anyone with a passion for baking or who wants to improve their skills!