Twelve Deals of Christmas

Hello again friends! I do hope you are all enjoying our Twelve Deals of Christmas sale. If you aren’t sure what I am talking about, each day for the first 12 days of December we are offering a special deal on some of our favorite products! So far we have had special deals on pump brushes, FondArt, metal flower cutters, and today

all FMM products are 15% off (enter code FMM2014 at checkout online)! There are still eight more days to shop, so be sure to stay tuned! To be sure you know what the sale is each day, you can visit our website, www.nicholaslodge.com, each day, or you can join our e-newsletter list (enter your email into the box on the black bar in the top right corner of our website). I can’t wait to see what else will be offered by “Santa Lodge” over the next week!

French Pastry School

Chef Nicholas won’t be teaching at ISAC for the rest of the year, but he will be in Chicago teaching at the French Pastry School. Initially, Chef Nicholas taught continuing education classes and the gumpaste and rolled fondant section of the 24-week program, L’Art de la Pâtisserie. In 2010 a new 16-week course, L’Art du Gâteau (The Art of Cake), was added to the school’s programs and Chef Nicholas was invited to become a Chef Instructor for this new course; Chef Nicholas helped to create the program with the school’s founders, Chefs Jacquy Pfeiffer and Sebastien Canonne, M.O.F.. This is a pretty intensive course. Yes, it is only 16 weeks, but students get over 480 hours on hands on education, they are taught 100 different techniques, and they are in class for 6 hours at a time! Yipes! Luckily there is a 93% graduation rate, and most students have 3-4 job opportunities post-graduation, and the school has hundreds of partners who allow job shadowing. The students are also lucky to receive instruction from a host of incredible Chef Instructors (of course Chef Nicholas is the best!!! Do I sound biased?).

Teaching at the French Pastry School is rather intense for Chef Nicholas as well; each 16-Week course has two sessions, morning (6:45-12:45) and afternoon (1:15-7:15). That’s 12 solid hours of teaching each day! Good thing Chef Nicolas is the king of cake decorating instruction, he was made for this! Ha! This December, Chef Nicholas will be guiding the students through the final two weeks of the current session. During this time, students will create Sweet 16 themed cake with an assigned team partner, and work on story boards for their final projects- wedding cakes that will be displayed at the reception after the graduation ceremony on December 19th.

Chef Nicholas will be posting many process photographs on facebook, so over the next couple of weeks you will get a first hand look at what life is like in the kitchen for a French Pastry School student! If you follow us on facebook, you can do that by clicking here.

 

If you are interested in taking classes at the French Pastry School, you can click any of the links above to learn more. In addition to the L’Art du Gâteau and L’Art de la Pâtisserie, other courses include L’Art de la Boulangerie (an 8-week course on artisanal bread baking). If you are ALREADY a cake decorator or pastry chef, they also offer continuing education classes. Instructors include Chef Nicholas and his dear friend (and fellow Craftsy instructor) Marina Sousa! She will be teaching a continuing education course in January 2015. You’re thinking about it aren’t you? Well, to sweeten the pot, if you book a continuing education class before the end of the year, you can get $100 off the “Food Enthusiast” classes and $200 off the Professional classes! Just click the continuing education classes link above!

ISAC Classes

What will the mice do while the cat is away?

Well, today Chef Gretchen is teaching our final class of the year, The Art of Cupcake- Winter Edition. I’m pretty pumped about this because it will be my mother’s first cake (well, cupcake) decorating class! Yay! She and her friends are having a ladies night and learning some sweet and adorable techniques (check out pictures on facebook later this evening). I can’t wait! If you haven’t taken one of our fun Studio B classes, you should in 2015! They are a lot of fun, laid back- we make mock-tails and it’s perfect for a fun night out with friends!

We will also be getting things sorted and ready for our 2015 classes! Our first class of the New Year begins on January 19 with a NEW rose class- Garden Roses in Gumpaste. It will be here before we know it!  Speaking of 2015 fun- if you want to attend our Spring Open House, which seems so far away on March 28… But the morning session (9am) is already full and closed! There are still seats available in other time slots, but please do sign up soon if you want to attend. Susan Carberry will be our guest instructor! You can sign up by calling 1-800-662-8925 or by visiting our class page.

Sweetly yours,

Stephanie

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