Have you ever enjoyed a sweet, spicy, and crispy gingerbread cookie? Do you love rolling, cutting, and decorating scores of sugar cookies during the holidays? Have you ever wondered why cookies are such a big part of the winter holiday food tradition? Well my friends, in honor of the International Sugar Art Collection's Grand Holiday Open House this weekend, I thought I would research everyone's favorite holiday treat.
Last Thursday, Scott, Gretchen, Molly, and I got to go on a fun little field trip! We took part in the Taste of Home Cooking School event in Atlanta. Taste of Home is a cooking and lifestyle magazine, and they host cooking school recipe demonstrations all over the country. It was a lot of fun and we met some wonderful new people!
We had a great booth in the vendor section. We raffled off a seat in Chef Nicholas' Gumpaste for the Holidays class, told everyone about our First Annual Edible Snow Globe contest, donated two gift baskets for the Taste of Home drawing, and we debuted a brand new product!
I was reading over all of the blogs I have written for ISAC so far, and brainstorming about what I should share with everyone this week. One of my favorites was Fondant- This is your Life. I thought it was fun and informative. While researching that blog, I came across some really interesting facts about the history of rolled fondant that I didn't know beforehand.
I also really loved all the positive comments shared by you, our readers, about both blog posts concerning Chef Nicholas' gumpaste recipe and his pre-made commercial gumpaste. I did, however, feel like something was missing. Fondant, gumpaste.... what is missing from the holy trinity of cake decorating?
Last week, at the end of my blog, I casually mentioned our new 2015 class schedule was available on our website. Let's talk about that, shall we?
Way back in July I wrote a blog sharing Chef Nicholas' world famous recipe for Tylose Gumpaste (you can read that post by clicking here). That particular post got an enormous amount of positive feedback across social media! Well, what if I told you I had great news about Chef Nicholas's gumpaste, especially for those that don't want to make it themselves? Hold on to your hats: you can now BUY premade Nicholas Lodge gumpaste!
If you have taken a class with Chef Nicholas, in person or on Craftsy, then you know how well organized he is while teaching and that he keeps a very well organized classroom. In classes, student workspaces neatly include all the tools needed for each particular class. This is a helpful and much needed necessity considering how many tools are used in the lessons! When the Nicholas Lodge line of cake decorarting products were developed, more than just tools were designed- orginaztional supplies were created to work seamlessly with the tools in the NL line as well as the tools cake decorators already have in their tool boxes. While brainstorming for blog ideas, Chef Nicholas personally suggested sharing one of his favorite products- the NL Multi Purpose Holders!
I'm going to continue the winter theme just a bit longer with this blog. I can't help myself; I'm just too excited about all our upcoming winter events. Today I am going to talk a bit more about Autumn Carpenter's upcoming class with us, and then I'm going to share a few secrets from our upcoming Grand Holiday Open House!
Chef Nicholas is only teaching four more classes this year! He has two PME Certification classes in October: Rolled Fondant Techniques and 3-Day Advanced Royal Icing Techniques. I discussed both of these classes, and PME Certification, in a blog last month (you can read that blog by clicking here). Today, let's talk about Chef Nicholas' last two classes of the year- Rolled Fondant for the Holidays and Gumpaste for the Holidays!
Christmas will, of course, still be in December, but we here at ISAC are pretending it's coming early because we are excited to share our upcoming Snow Globe Competition with all of you! So excited in fact that we have already been making our own Snow Globes to share with you and to give you inspiration! First, let's talk a little bit about Edible Snow Globes!
The ISAC team is gearing up for a very busy fall and winter season. We have quite a few Studio B classes, our Grand Holiday Open House, and Chef Nicholas is splitting his time between his classes here in Atlanta, and the classes that he instructs at the French Pastry School in Chicago (not to mention judging the National Gingerbread Competition).
Tuesday was the final day of Pastry Live 2014! It was a big weekend for the ISAC team, and we were VERY involved; we had a vendor booth, Chef Nicholas judged two competitions (Art of Cake Competition, and the National Showpiece Championship), The Art of Cake Seminar, sponsored by Nielsen-Massey Vanilla and hosted by Chef Nicholas, AND we were one of the event sponsors! I would argue while Nicholas had more important jobs, mine was more fun. Walk around soaking in the sweetly scented air, have fun, meet people, and gain inspiration for writing this very blog! My job is hard, but it's all for you dear readers- no pain no, gain!
Thank you to everyone who commented on our Favorite Things blog earlier this week! I loved reading all of the reasons that you shared for wanting to win the Mini Palette Knife and the NL Floral Tape Cutter! Without further delay, here are the winners!
The winner of the Mini Palette Knife is Diane Schoonver!
"The mini palette knife is definately a must have. It gets under everything that nothing else will."
The winner of the NL Floral Tape Cutter is Karen Grey!
"I would love to win the tape cutter! I teach cake decorating at our community college and I am forever trying to tear tape into smaller pieces for flowers!"
Congratulations to both of our winners! Please email us at customersvc@nicholaslodge.com or call us at 1-800-662-8925 so we can get your prizes out to you! Thank you again to all of our readers who participated!
Sweetly Yours,
Stephanie
Last week on the Chef Nicholas Lodge Facebook page, we asked everyone to share the one cake decorating tool they couldn't live without. There were a ton of great responses, a few funny ones, and a clear winner! I also have a favorite suggested by our very own Scott and Nicholas! Oh, and read to the end to find out how you can win a sweet surprise!
Are you certifiably crazy for cake decorating? No? Well, you are in luck! This fall Chef Nicholas Lodge is offering three classes with PME certification! PME Diplomas and Master's Certificates are internationally recognized awards and they are designed as professional level cake decorating courses.
I am so excited to share some wonderful news with our wonderful readers! This past weekend, at the 39th annual ICES convention in New Mexico, Chef Nicholas released his brand new book, New Trends in Sugar Flowers. This is the second book of a trilogy; the first, Potpourri of Flowers, was first published in 1999 and re-released in 2013.
Several weeks ago I was lucky enough to take some great action photos during the Modern Marie Antoinette cake class. The cake had so many intricate designs, details, and embellishments- it was amazing to see how beautifully everything fit together. Half-way through the second day of class, Chef Nicholas demonstrated how to lace up the corset. What stood out to me once he was finished, was the adorable, and perfect, little bows at the top and bottom of the corset laces. When Chef Nicholas showed the students just how easy it was to make the bows, a light bulb went on, and I knew I had to share these bows with you on the blog!
When people think of classes that are offered at the International Sugar Art Collection, "Chef Nicholas Lodge" and "professional level" are probably the first words that pop into their heads. I am here to tell you that yes, Chef Nicholas Lodge teaches most of our classes (of course!), and yes, many of our students are professional cake decorators. However, Chef Nicholas is not our only in house trained pastry chef and not all our classes are aimed at professional decorators! Nope. Who, you ask, is our other pastry chef?
Last weekend ISAC hosted a class with Joshua John Russell! I wrote about his upcoming class a few weeks ago on the blog, but the process photos from the class just BLEW UP on facebook and instagram, so I thought I would share how amazing the class actually was! I was very excited because I had never met Joshua before! Before Saturday, I had only seen him on the TV shows Food Network Challenge and Last Cake Standing. He lives here in Atlanta, and is a regular at ISAC (both as a visiting instructor and valued shopper!). Joshua is such a nice guy, and was totally fine with me hovering over him taking pictures while he taught his class. That's right dear readers, I had to suffer and hang out with one of the coolest cake decorators in the world just so I could write a fun and exciting blog for you! :) All joking aside, Joshua was very nice, a wonderful teacher, and just an amazing and stylish cake decorator. If you have taken his Craftsy classes you know that he is inspired by fashion and fun fabrics; seriously, one is called Fashion Inspired Fondant. If you haven't taken his Craftsy classes... well, why haven't you?! His Modern Buttercream Class is FREE. FREE!
It's long overdue, but Chef Nicholas' gumpaste recipe is finally here on our website!
Boy oh boy, June was such a busy month for us here at ISAC! We had five different classes- New Trends in Gumpaste Flowers, Summer Gumpaste Flowers, 2-Day Ultimate Rose, Modern Marie Antoinette (with Chef Nicholas and Chef Lauren Kitchens), and Grand Master of the Jedi Order: Yoda with Lauren Kitchens! It was fun having all those classes, catching up with returning students, meeting new students, and having Chef Lauren was such a treat! Chef Nicholas, ever the dedicated teacher, hopped a plane to Japan last Wednesday so that he can teach at our sister school: Nicholas Lodge Sugar Art Gallery Japan. He will be teaching there for a total of two weeks. If you are one of our blog readers in Japan- I hope you are having fun with Chef Nicholas! We miss him here in the USA!
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