Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn!
I’m always so sad to see summer go. I love hot summer days, and days by the beach and pool. Of course, in the cake decorating world, the summer can be less relaxing; it is wedding season after all. Weddings every weekend, and hot weather making buttercream melt and fondant sweat. Yuck. The end of summer brings in a calmer period for many cake decorators, and it also means that ISAC will be open on Saturdays again! Hooray! Starting September 10th, we will be in house every Saturday for your cake decorating needs; and I know you are all excited, because just yesterday on Instagram, one of our amazing followers lamented that she wished we were open on Saturdays.
Reopening on Saturday’s isn’t my only fun fall tidbit. Nope, I have some fun events, classes, demos, and guest instructors to tell you about!
We are already preparing for our PME Ultimate Master Certification Class that begins on September 10th! This is the ultimate sugar craft experience, and we only offer it once a year. This intense class lasts for 13 days, and covers all three modules of the PME Certification program (rolled fondant, royal icing, and gumpaste flowers). This class is so packed full of skills that students leave with seven different certificate. I like this class, and I am so excited to meet all of the students who have signed up for this year; many students come from abroad, so it’s always fun to hear where everyone has traveled from! If you are registered for this class- I can’t wait to meet you! Wishing you had signed up for this class? Well, be sure to keep an eye on our class schedule and stay up-to-date with this blog, as we always announce classes here!
I bet you think after 13 days straight of teaching, Chef Nicholas would want a break. Nope (well, he might, but he’s too intense for that). The day AFTER his PME Ultimate Master Certification Class ends, Chef Nicholas will be participating the 2016 Sweet Fest Conference! I wrote a blog about Sweet Fest just a few weeks ago, but if you missed it you can read it here. Sweet Fest is the first ever business focused conference for aspiring & established professionals in the baking & sweets industry. If you need help with, or want to improve, managing, marketing, and growing your sweet business, than Sweet Fest is for you! If you’d like to register to attend, you can head over to their website here. Chef Nicholas is hosting a seminar on Saturday, September 24, on branding and sponsorship- perfect since he is the Brand Ambassador for Renshaw USA!! And, lucky you, I’ll be there too- I can’t wait to meet all my adoring fans (ok, I know you’re going for Chef Nicholas, but a girl can dream!).
After the Sweet Fest weekend of fun and business building, Chef Nicholas is jetting off to Chicago to inspire a new semester of students at the French Pastry School. They get to keep him for a few weeks, how lucky are they?! Then it’s off to Las Vegas for the International Baking Industry Exposition for a few days.
While Chef Nicholas is in Las Vegas, there will fun things going on in Studio B! Chef Joe Cumm will be returning to teach with chocolate on October 8th! In his Creating Chocolate Flowers for Cakes, Chef Joe will be demonstrating many different techniques that can be applied in different ways to make a wide variety of chocolate flowers. He will also be demonstrating the proper way to temper chocolate to use on all your yummy projects. If you are already skilled in gumpaste and wafer paper flowers, and you want to Eat Chocolate Flowers for Cakes (OOPS, I mean CREATE), you can sign up through our website here.
After Vegas, Chef Nicholas finally gets to come home and put his feet up… for three days! One of our most popular classes is Chef Nicholas’ Gumpaste Flowers for Fall, and this year it is being held on October 15th and 16th. The dahlia, poppy, fall cosmos, gingko, chili peppers and grasses, are fall favorites, but they can also be incorporated into cakes for any season of the year. My favorite is the dahlia; they were in my wedding bouquet, so I am partial! There are still seats available, if you’d like to sign up just click here.
On October 17th, Chef Nicholas will be visiting The Sweet Chalet, just outside of Orlando, Florida! Chef Nicholas will be giving a Renshaw seminar and demonstration. He and I have been going over what to include in the demo (because there are some fun new products he wants to share with everyone), and I think everyone who attends will be thrilled! If you’re interested in learning more about how to attend, be sure to contact Maressa at The Sweet Chalet!
Boy oh boy! I’ve really only scratched the surface on what we have this fall, but I think we can agree that there is a lot to do! I really hope that I will get to see you all in class or at Sweet Fest! And I know Chef Nicholas is hoping to see you all at each of these events!
Next week I am going to have a fun new product to share with you all, I can’t wait!
Sweetly yours,
Stephanie
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Winner of the 2015 Craftsy Blogger Award for Best Craftsy Cake Decorating Instructor Blog
Chef Nicholas Lodge: 2015 Finalist for the Cake Masters Cake Hero Award.
