Cake Master Award Nominations!

Earlier this week the Cake Masters Awards opened their nominations for the 2016 awards! In 2015 Chef Nicholas was honored to be a finalist in the Cake Hero category. This year we are hoping that Chef Nicholas will be selected as a finalist (and eventual winner!) of the Best Learning Experience Award. With 38 years of experience, Chef Nicholas has reached an innumerable about of students around the world. On Facebook, Chef Nicholas shared the highlights of his teaching career, and I thought I would do the same here. It’s our hope that you will consider nominating Chef Nicholas for the Best Learning Experience, especially if you have had the privilege of taking one of his classes!

Chef Nicholas at the ICES Convention

Chef Nicholas taught his first cake decorating class at 16. By 21 years old, he was teaching at a top sugar arts school. In 1985, when Chef Nicholas was only 23, he wrote his first book on cake decorating and sugar arts. Wowza.

In 1992, Chef Nicholas, and his partner Scott, opened the International Sugar Art Collection; this is his home base, school and retail gallery in Atlanta, Georgia. Just three years later, the Nicholas Lodge Sugar Art Collection Japan- a sister school to the location in Atlanta- opened for business. In addition to teaching at his two schools in Atlanta and Tokyo, he also accepts countless invitations from around the world to teach classes and to judge sugar arts competitions.

I think Chef Nicholas may hold the record for teaching cake decorating and sugar artistry in more countries than anyone else- over 30 countries have host at least one of Chef Nicholas’ classes! He has also given instruction at prestigious schools including Le Cordon Bleu, Johnson & Wales, the French Pastry School, and the Art Institutes. At the Epcot Food and Wine festival he was invited to be a guest pastry chef and teach exclusive classes for the Walt Disney World Resort pastry chefs. Chef Nicholas also teaches and demonstrates at cake shows and conventions throughout the year. And of course, many of you know that he teaches 11 different Craftsy classes; this is more than any other Craftsy instructor (including ALL the categories, not just cake decorating!). This allows Chef Nicholas to reach tens of thousands of students who may not have an opportunity to take a class with him in person.

At Chef Nicholas’ school in Atlanta, he teaches classes throughout the year, but he also invites some of the best sugar artists in the world to teach their skills as well! Chef Nicholas has a huge network of colleagues in the sugar arts world, and is able to offer students classes in all aspects of cake decorating and sugar arts: fondant, gumpaste, isomalt, modeling chocolate, cookie decorating, chocolate pieces, even cold porcelain!

Chef Nicholas is also the Brand Ambassador for Renshaw and their line of Decor~ice Ready to Roll fondant and gumpaste. In his position as Brand Ambassador, Chef Nicholas conducts classes, training seminars, and demonstrations throughout the United States

At this point in his career, Chef Nicholas has authored eleven books for Merhurst and Letts publishing, co-authored three books with various cake decorators, co-authored the Sugar Facts book and video series with Margaret Ford, self-published three books and sixteen instructional dvds, and has written dozens of cake and pastry magazine tutorials.

Teaching cake decorating and the sugar arts is truly Chef Nicholas’ life’s passion. Through the classes (in person and online), seminars, and demos that he teaches, instructional books and videos, and hosting guest instructors at his school schools, it is plain to see that he has dedicated my life to helping other attain the highest level of cake decorating and sugar artistry. Through education, Chef Nicholas has been offering the best learning experience to his students for nearly 40 years. I have taught hundreds of thousands of students, perhaps even a million, through my books, hands-on or online class, demonstrations, and seminars.

“It is my sincere hope that each of my students, no matter if they have taken all of my classes, or have just read one of my books, will consider nominating for the Cake Masters Award for Best Learning Experience. If I have made an impact on your cake decorating career, please help by following this link: www.cakemastersawards.com/nominate. You will need to include a link to my website: www.nicholaslodge.com. Thank you all so much. I hope that I can continue to reach all of you through my classes for many more years to come.” -Chef Nicholas Lodge

Before I sign off for this week. Chef Nicholas, the ISAC Family, and I have one last favor to ask of you. There is a brand new category at the 2016 Cake Masters Award: Best Cake Support Award. No, this is not an award for the best dowels in your stacked cake. Nope. This award is for those people behind the scenes supporting all the cake artists! We’d very much like to nominate Scott! If you have taken a class at ISAC, shopped in our retail gallery, visited our vendor booth at any cake show or convention, then you have met Scott. Scott and Chef Nicholas opened ISAC together in 1992, nearly 25 years ago. From the beginning Scott has been the rock that keeps Chef Nicholas grounded, he manages our main location in Atlanta, keeps track of Chef Nicholas’ schedule, and always greets students and shoppers by name! He also takes all of the photographs for our website, books, articles, and many of the images you see here on the blog! So if you have read one of Chef Nicholas’ books or bought anything on our website and used photos as your guide- thank Scott!

I couldn’t decide which photo of Scott I liked best, so I included them all!You can see Scott doing his own demonstration of mini gingerbread houses at our Grand Holiday Open House and chatting with pastry chefs about Renshaw Ready to Roll Decor~Ice Fondant at Pastry Live.

He provides support for not only Chef Nicholas, but many students as well. If you have had the pleasure of taking a class at our Atlanta location, you know how fantastic Scott can be! Not only does he support Chef Nicholas, but he lays out breakfast before class, prepares homemade lunch each day of class for every student, AND (my favorite part), provides a welcome afternoon break with COOKIE TIME! Scott has been feeding armies of cake decorators and sugar artists for a long time now! His meals are so popular that Chef Nicholas students are always asking for his recipes. This lead to the publication of Scott’s own book! Lunch is Ready, Scott’s cookbook sells out regularly will soon be rereleased as an anniversary edition! Scott is also a standby at conventions and shows; he mans the vendor booth and makes everyone’s dreams come true by providing the best cake decorating tools a sugar artist could ask for. Here at ISAC we all love Scott. We know that there are lots of you out there who love Scott too. If you would be kind enough to nominate Scott Ewing for Best Cake Support alongside Chef Nicholas for Best Learning Experience we would be forever grateful. The ISAC family is dedicated to our students, and we would like to honor ALL OF YOU by winning this award! It would show us that all we do for you has been appreciated! If you would like to nominate Chef Nicholas AND Scott, you can do so by following the link I provided above, or by clicking either of the nomination buttons! (One last quick tip- we have found that the easiest way to fill out your nomination form is on a desktop or laptop computer. Thanks again for taking time out to nominate Chef Nicholas Lodge and Scott Ewing!)