PLANET CAKE UPDATE

The Best of 2011

2011-12-14T13:09:00.000+11:00

Every December I like to sign off with a look at the year that was, and this year has to have been the most difficult ever to narrow down the best of the best. The year started with one almighty bang when we dived head first, and quite frankly entirely unprepared, into creating the largest Opera House cake ever attempted (no biggie). Things pretty much escalated from thereon in and some of the most original, beautiful and innovative cakes of our history emerged from this year, even with the ever present cameras breathing down on our necks for a couple of months back in April.

Best Wedding

While I tried to limit it to two, I just could not decide between these ones. Believe it or not, despite the gorgeousness we are surrounded with for the most part, none of us here are particularly girly, but every one of us fell totally in love with this pink pearlised cake. For the wow factor, the prize definitely goes to Kim Veverka's invite inspired flamingo cake which looked unbelievable against the multicoloured backdrop of the Sydney Opera House foyer.

BEST REALISTIC

While we get a lot of feedback on the general fabulousness of our staff from the TV show, far and away the number one most talked about thing is The Orangutan Cake. Seeing this little guy staring out at us from the kitchen was just gob-smacking and I don't think there was one of us who wasn't a little devastated at the thought of him being cut up and eaten! Earlier in the year,

BEST CHILDRENS

The touching reaction of the client who ordered Ritzy's funky lion cake compelled me to write about it on here not too long ago, but I just have to show it off again. The lazy legs and quirky smile made this cake just perfect. Children's cakes are really difficult to pull off and these one have just the right balance of cute and quirky.

BEST CELEBRITY

Unfortunately I can't show you what can only be described as the coolest cakes we have ever made for a celebrity (you'll have to tune in to the show tonight for that reveal). My next two picks went to the Lady Gaga cake, if for no other reason that it was for Lady Freak'n Gaga (!!!) and Matt Preston's surprise birthday cravat cake.

While we're not finished quite yet, things are starting to wrap up after one very big year, only to be followed by a 2012 that's even more jam packed. Watch this space, we have some serious surprises up our sleeve!

Merry Christmas xx

Just your typical week at PC

2011-11-26T14:59:00.000+11:00

Love it or hate it you've got it to give it to Ritzy this is one helluva cake. We were thrilled this week to help Triple J thank the one and only Dr. Karl with what else - a remale reproductive system cake. We have made all manner of anotomical parts but this was definately a first and is hands down my favourite cake of the week.

With Christmas only a matter of 27 sleeps away - I know, I am frightening myself just writing this! - we decided to celebrate the festive season Planet Cake style with the appearance of our Christmas Smurfette on Chanel 7's Morning Show. Watch this space for the 2011 Christmas window display, it's going to be a cracker!

Cake Imitating Cake

2011-11-19T12:17:00.000+11:00

Ah, the cake that started it all. Three weeks ago when the show first went to air we were inundated with comments about Antony’s infamous pink, exploding-feathers 21st birthday cake - to be usurped only by Emma’s ‘menopause mauve’ cake in Ep 2. Everybody and I mean EVERYBODY, it seemed, had an opinion. Love it or hate it, there is no denying that this is one cake not to be reckoned with. Personally, and I’m not ashamed to admit it, I loved it and it would seem I was not the only one. Sweet -16 year old Alana was also completely smitten with the cake and was, only one week after the cake went national, the first to request a replica. Not one to repeat himself, Antony tweaked the design a little to create this completely one-of-a-kind Funky Varden.

Abbie's original design

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but try telling that to an eight year old. Official ‘Showroom Tweaker’ Estelle Cutler wasn’t convinced of this when Antony designed a replica of her 7^th birthday cake last week. Six year old Billy on the other hand was absolutely thrilled with his blue bowling ball, which, made entirely from chocolate mud cake, I’m pretty sure weighed in at more than he did!

And while we're speaking of replicas, Anna Maria and her team of helpers created forty mini Estee Lauder bottles this week as part of their promotion. While they look completely real, don't be fooled these are delicious caramel fudge on the inside. Can you spot the real bottle in here?

This weeks fabulousness not drabulousness

2011-11-05T16:23:00.000+11:00

I started here at Planet Cake back in early 2009 just days after the first book, Planet Cake hit Australian shelves. Back in those days, there were just the ten of us crammed into the one little room - yep, cake production, school and admin team all in the ONE room! - and little did we know what lay in store for us just a few years hence. This week when the release of our third title coincided with Lifestyle Food's launch of Planet Cake, reality TV show, for the first time since arriving here, I actually took a moment to sit back and have a look at how far we have come. While we're looking a little shinier these days, we've said goodbye to some friends and welcome other, at our core we are still that same crazy little family that I was lucky enough to become a part of two and a half years ago. Despite all the glitz and glammer that, much more frequently, now goes on around us, I am incredibly proud to say with all honesty that our number one priority is still about making really fabulous cakes.

Roll, this week's fabulousness

Ritzi's hand-made realistic figurine - including one cat-chasing canine

Melbourne Cup, Planet Cake style - forgetting one's fascinator is not a problem at PC where we just always happen to have a dress-up box on stand-by

This was a real labour of love from Shell this week. While this classic white wedding cake looks simple, these lily of the valley flowers are heart-achingly time consuming to make, although worth the hard work. The end result speaks for itself.

In the Jungle...

2011-10-30T09:39:00.000+11:00

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have one of those days that really make it all worth while. While this joint collaboration from Ritzi and Naoko was certainly my pick of the week, there is never any guarantee the client is going to feel the same way, and believe me; I have had some very awkward moments. To my great relief yesterday morning, the tears that sprung to this client’s eye upon seeing her cake were those of joy, and not disappointment! It's easy for us to forget sometimes just how much a cake can mean to a person, and I like to think this one will live on through cherished photos in the family album. Most importantly, I hope it ends up the way all good first birthday and christening cakes should - completely smeared all over the face of this special little person!

Just 6 Sleeps To Go!!!!

2011-10-26T11:40:00.001+11:00

After months of cake craziness, bright lights and cameras, late nights and moments that left us wondering what on earth we had gotten ourselves into (!) the fruits of our efforts is just around the corner. With only a week to go until we invade your lounge room for thirty minutes every Wednesday night, we are pretty damn excited, and fingers crossed you guys are too.

While we had to keep mum about the eight enormous cake projects for the show’s media launch a couple of weeks back, I am thrilled to be able to share the photos with you now. These "couch potato" themed cakes were on display to hundreds of TV and media officials at the fabulous event held at iconic Sydney MCA, in the Rocks. As always, it was completely down to the wire getting these finished in time, and while it was a great touch to have the girls add finishing touches to the giant Foxtel remote at the event, it was also an entirely necessary touch! Each one of them was a serious feat of engineering, but the TV definitely took the cake (sorry) when it came to sheer size and wow factor. It took eight of us and more than a couple of less than glamorous words, to pick this baby up and transfer it to trusty Maz’s truck for delivery.

Paris and Lifestyle Channel General Manager, Nicole Sheffield get a piece of the action

Cat and Ant prove there is only one new black... and it's black

From left to right: Paris, Anna Maria, Shell, Naoko, Ritzi, Emma and Antony

For extra show bibs and bobs including articles, bio's, recipes, tips and programed show reminders, don't forget to "like" the Lifestyle Food Channel on their website: http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/shows/planet-cake/

It's funny how relative things get in here, that a pink pearlised, three-tier wedding cake, 1.5m long iPhone and realistic 'Masters Voice' can become just part of a days work is pretty ridiculous, but testament, I think, to how talented these guys are.

CC adds the finishing touches to the new 3D Car Workshop cake design

Anna Maria puts the iPhone cake to scale

Although slightly less glam than the world of cakes, television and media functions, we are VERY excited, at last to have our new website up and running. There have been a few hiccups since its launch two weeks ago and we are still making some final tweaks here and there, but we hope you love our new 'baby' as much as we do. Our school page has been fixed of all its bugs, and all workshops can now be booked online: http://www.planetcake.com.au/PLC/client/Courses/c_courseList.jsp

Last weekends Cookies and Cake Pops with Libby

Bride and Groom Figurines with Anna Maria

Speaking of the website, Antony has been busy designing new cakes for our online store, we'd love to hear your thoughts?

2011-10-08T16:09:00.000+11:00

Ah, the humble cupcake - the power these teeny weeny parcels of cakey goodness pack never ceases to amaze me. A couple of years ago we introduced our three day Cupcake Boot Camp workshop, which has since gone on to become one of our most popular courses on the market. Kudos to Luigi and Debbi-Lee who both took the class for the first time this week. Judging by the volume of the laughter erupting from the classroom all week, it looks like our students think they did a pretty ace job too!

Meanwhile in the kitchen, it was definitely a case of big is better this week, and with ten larger than large than life prop cakes made for a special event, in our kitchen there was barely room to swing a cat...

Unfortunately there's nothing in this photo to show the scale of this thing, but think Harry Potter's Hagrid on a cold night - and check out this size of this gorgeous castle cake (which went to a real life castle this morning) next to Ant.

For the Young At Heart

2011-10-01T15:00:00.000+10:00

Ah, the Labour Day long weekend. While for some it heralds sleep-ins, boozy afternoons and LOTS of football, for many of us, it means something entirely different: The School Holidays.

Personally, I love the school holidays, for one thing it means loads of great kids movies - I'm not ashamed to admit it - and there is just something great about the energy that kids bring to a city, although I'm sure many public transport commuters may not agree! Regardless, I thought we would celebrate all things kids and take a look at some of the best of our children's party cakes from the last few weeks, which are often overshadowed by the more impressive, grand-scale wedding cakes.

When designing cakes for little ones, our resident designer Antony's advice is to keep things simple and clean, cute but never cutesy, and always with just a hint of quirky.

At last - the Masters!!!

2011-09-30T18:28:00.000+10:00

Day 1 and 2:

GUESS WHAT??? It's the MASTERS time!!! Yep, those wonky funny looking cakes that we luuuurve so much! Good thing: no ganache. Bad thing: polystyrene. Great thing: LUIGI is our teacher for this class! Woohoo!!!! This is my first and last class with Luigi, our Mario Brother, lol! Bless him, he's such a great teacher and a lovely guy. Although I think that he's having difficulties adjusting to being surrounded by a horde of women, who have the tendency to slag off their husbands and kids (and males in general!) every other five minutes, lol! But he's doing great - we think!

In this workshop, the students get to choose between those sexy corset cakes and the topsy-turvy cakes. Only Ellie and I have decided to do the Topsy-Turvy in the class. So there I was thinking that I would "take it easy" and all, but that was before Luigi asked us to design our own cakes. For a good 30 minutes, my brain went blank. I couldn't think of good design and couldn't make up my mind about the colours. The funny thing was that within about 5 minutes, I went from "taking it easy" to "ARE YOU FLIPPING INSANE????" cake. The original blank canvas has miraculously turned into a 4-tiered topsy-turvy cake, extra large, with individual designs on each tier, and about 100+ flowers! Could this possibly be any more insane? Yep. Ellie and I have decided to make the flowers together because she hates making roses and I hate suffering on my own, so we now have to make 140 roses together! I wish I could say that this was fun…

Nothing, except from the set-up of the cake, seems overly complicated so far. We're pretty much left to do things at our own pace and the way we like, which is an interesting experience. By the end of the second day, all our cakes and spacers have successfully been iced and flower buds prepared. In a way, I am quite nervous about how my cake will turn out because it's like a proper wedding cake, which I've never really done before. I guess that we'll just have to wait and see!

Day 3:

Sometimes, I feel really bad for poor Luigi. All the women in the room seem to enjoy teasing him a little bit too much and he's now become a common joke, lol! But despite being traumatised by us students, the man ploughed on and continued to give all he's got - always ready to give careful guidance and important advice. He's definitely one of our most favourite teachers!

So Ellie and I have finally finished making our roses! While Ellie carries on making MORE flowers, it was time for me to decorate the cake. As things were starting to take shape, I noticed that my topsy-turvy is looking quite pretty and elegant, which is not my usual style. We were definitely feeling the pressure today - three days have gone by so quickly, it's almost impossible to imagine our cakes being finished! But the show must go on - there's no stopping now. Tomorrow, four of us will be graduating from the Planet Cake Basics Series so we're all really excited! Anyway, I’d better get some rest before the big day. Night night! xx

The Graduation:

The day has finally come. Here we are standing at the end of the road, about to begin our own adventures, left to our own devices. Two months earlier, I would never have imagined myself as an "advanced" cake decorator. The truth is that I feel less than confident to be leaving this safe learning environment and embarking on a new journey - on my own. Will I be able to make it out there? Have I got what it takes? Will people like my products? Will I be able to overcome unforeseen obstacles? I am absolutely terrified!!!

But! If I've learnt anything in the past couple of months, it's that you must believe in yourself and never give up.

Planet Cake has given me SO MUCH - more than I could ever have imagined. To have had the opportunity to learn from some of the best decorators in the world is like a dream comes true. Not only did they offer me a vast amount of knowledge and skills, they also made me feel like part of the family - somewhere where I belonged. When I first came to Australia, I was homesick, lonely and scared. Now, I'm going home with a tonne of life-long friends and family, many of whom I'll never forget.

Thank you, Anna-Maria, CC, Jess, Luigi, Margie, Ritzy, Marianne and Neoko for sharing your valuable experience with me and for making me a decent decorator that I am today. I will never forget all that you've done - your patience, support, encouragement, friendship, guidance. I will try my best to remember all that you've taught me and make you proud some day. You were such wonderful teachers and I am so glad to have had the honour to learn from you - my mentors! So thank you, thank you, thank you a million times for everything! You will all be dearly missed. I hope that we will keep in touch xxx

Thank you, Michelle, Lori, Marisa, Kylie and Debbi for being so awesome and helpful all this time! You've all worked so hard to help me get through those rough and miserable days and you guys made the good days fun! You are truly wonderful in your own ways and I wish you all the best in whatever you do! Keep in touch, k? xxx

Thank you, Lesley, Emma, Thea, Cat, Antony for your big bright smiles and never-ending support. A special thanks to you, Lesley, for organising my lessons and looking after me throughout the duration of my stay! You have all been incredibly helpful and welcoming - it was so great to have met you all!

Thank you, Paris, for allowing me to come into your kitchen and learn from your talented cake artists! Also, thank you so much for all your time, encouragement and assistance - I will try my best to make you proud of me some day! I've had the most amazing experience and will always owe my success to Planet Cake!

Thank you, my classmates, you've my time here really fun and interesting! It was so lovely meeting you all and I wish you all the best for the future! xx

Thank you, Ellie, my sister from another mother! We've had such a fantastic time together and I'll always think of you when I sit alone at home making cakes! You're a truly wonderful friend, rose-making partner, moaning/whining/gossiping/having a banter buddy - I really hope that we'll keep in touch and be friends forever and ever... MWAHAHAHAHAH!!! Love you to bits xxx

Finally, thank you so much my gorgeous readers/fans/audience. You guys inspire me to be better at what I do and helped me to get through tough times. I appreciate all your time and support - I hope that you've enjoyed reading my blogs!

So I guess that this is it for me - the Blog. Although I'm shaking with excitement at the thought of returning home to my beloved family (and dog!), my heart is sinking at the thought of leaving such a fantastic place and its people behind. I'm terrible when it comes to saying goodbyes...

Anyway, before I go, I just wanted to let you know about my new Facebook page! I know that it's still relatively empty, but I am working on building up my portfolios and I'll sure keep you guys updated on the progress of my work. It would mean the world to me if you could all help me out by 'liking' my page. Please visit: http://www.facebook.com/sweetobsessionbkk Thank you so much again in advance!

*SIGH* Is it time to say good bye already?? Well, farewell, Planet Cake. Farewell, Sydney. Farewell, everyone. Thank you so much for everything - you'll all be dearly missed! I hope to be back here again some day! Until next time!

Pam xxx

Basics 109 - it's time for the madhatter!!

2011-09-26T09:34:00.000+10:00

Ah, the infamous mad hatter cake, taught by our very own "CC"! This little beauty is definitely the devil in disguise. While many of us actually found this course easier than the Basics 108 (or even the Basics 107), we were not left without complications. Firstly, it's tapered. Secondly, it's top-heavy. This means that covering this cake was relatively challenging as you can easily tear the icing if not careful. Another very important thing to consider is the angling of the top tier because if this is not done correctly, the cake will not look "right". I for one did not manage to get the "perfect look" but that's ok. I'm here to learn, after all.

Funnily, a lot of us found the bows difficult! Lol!

Once again, this was my last lesson with CC, whom will be dearly missed. CC has taught me many novelty and basics courses and he's truly a great teacher. He's always there for the students, spending most of the time giving us guidance and assistance, even if it means that he doesn't get his own cakes finished or perfected - now THAT's dedication! His calm and relaxing manner also help us to feel more reassured. So thank you, CC, for making my time here so wonderful and full of laughter!

Half the class will now go on to do our Basic Masters next week - so watch out for beautiful photos and terrifying moments! I can't believe that my time here is nearly up.. It's certainly been a great journey - one that I'll never forget!

Better get packing now. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! xx

Basics 108 - the results!

2011-09-22T09:30:00.000+10:00

Day 3:

Wow! I can't believe that all eight of us have managed to finished our cakes on time despite all the hiccups in between! They're all so fantastic! So amazing! So breathtakingly beautiful! One of the hardest cakes has now been completed and with no unfortunate disasters too! I am so incredibly proud of myself and my classmates! Congratulations, everyone!!!

Since this is the last class I have with Jess (and Kylie, our awesome facilitator!), I want to talk a bit about her. Jess and I have had many wonderful 'first moments' together: first flowers, first round, first square and first novelty. And I'm really glad to have had such a knowledgable and patient teacher teaching me all the basics and foundation. I'm glad to have had her support and encouragement throughout these two months. So thank you, Jess, for everything <3

Before the end of the day, we all shared a special moment - Mary, one of our lovely fellow students, has finally completed the entire basics series today!!! Well done, Mary!

So just in case you were all wondering, yes, I did manage to finish my "crazy cake" (as described by Ellie)! Woohoo! The hand-painting came out really well - although the set-up of the cake was just a tiny bit wonky. Oh, and check out my hand-made African mask, lol! xx

Basics 108 - Pam takes us through Day 2...

2011-09-20T18:02:00.003+10:00

Hallelujah! Alas, ideas and inspiration! I can now see clearly! And, of course, I am once again pushing myself to the limit. It's going to be really tough to get this cake done in time and it needs to be done well. Very well, in fact. If you were wondering how crazy my design is, let's just say that all 15 sides will have different things going on. Fact.

I'm not going to lie - this whole marathon is sucking the life out of me. I'm beginning to realise why I was advised to take breaks in between my private lessons! Cake decorating can be surprisingly tiring.

Anyway, better go to bed early tonight because I'll need all my energy for tomorrow! Have a lovely evening, everyone! xx

Pam's Basics 108 blog

2011-09-20T09:20:00.000+10:00

Day 1:

Guess what??? I am now an "ADVANCED" student! How advanced? Advanced enough to put me off ganaching FOR LIFE! Seriously, we spent THE WHOLE DAY carving and ganaching this bloody cake!!! I will definitely charge my future clients extra JUST for cleaning up! Never before have I seen the buckets being changed so frequently as there was so much mess everywhere - all the time. It's an annoying process: check measurements, carve the cake, turn the cake over, carve again, build up the height, carve, turn the cake over, carve, check measurements, check for excess cake, prepare cake for ganaching, crumb coat, ganache, smooth.. It just goes on and on and on and on and this whole process had to be repeated 3 TIMES!!! Sure thing, everyone was on the low - tired and ganached out.

And don't even get me started on how complicated the internal structure is.

Oh, and I've got this big fat giant blockage in my brain! No bright ideas, no clear vision - nothing. I have no idea what I want to do with this cake. The ones that I've thought of doing are either too complicated to do in 2 days or missing the X factor. I'm doomed.

*SIGH*

Hopefully, will have some good news to share with you guys tomorrow! x

Day 2 and 3 of Basics 107 - Pam's Vase experience

2011-09-19T10:28:00.000+10:00

Day 2:

So the worst is over! Never before have I felt so much tension in class.. Just to give you an idea, the cake required 2-3 people to help cover it!!! Our partners were put to the test but, luckily, we didn't have a runner. My trusted friend and cake partner, Ellie, and I struggled.. and struggled.. and struggled until we both got the icing on the cakes - which, by the way, turned out quite beautifully!

Thanks, Ellie! =)

On a more serious note, it would be smart to check your face and clothes before leaving the room after a serious air-brushing session..

And yes, people WILL and DO stare if you're walking around with BLUE NOSTRILS!!!! ***cringe***

Day 3:

The energy was low in class today. Everyone just looked exhausted.

Luckily, all the big parts have already been completed, so were left to our own devices most of the day. I did all the painting and air- brushing before lunchtime just to make sure that the icing will be dry during the assembly. ***Note to self: check you nostrils before leaving class*** Speaking of colourful nostrils, it turned out that I wasn't the only one with embarrassing moments yesterday! SCORE!!!

Was I happy with my cake? Yes, I guess.. All the elements came together pretty well and I got to do draw and paint the sea turtles like I'd hoped to do.

Sea turtles:

And the final result:

I better go and work on my Facebook Page now - will sure keep you updated on the progress! Speak soon! xx

Pam for Planet Cake : Basics 107

2011-09-17T15:47:00.002+10:00

Day 1:

Something was telling me that I was going to have a good day. And I did. This morning, Anna-Maria, Michelle and I decided to indulge ourselves and had scrumptious German pastries and Adriano Zumbo's for breakfast before class. Today was Anna-Maria's last day at Planet Cake before she goes on her long-awaited holidays. We were rather sad to see her go.. It would have been nice to be able to have her for the whole course, especially for the covering tomorrow (which, by the way, is known to be the most difficult cake to cover our of all the cakes being taught at PC!). But as the wise man would say, you gotta live in the present, so all the worries will just have to be save for later.

An interesting fact about the vase - it actually took us all morning plus after lunch time to ganache the whole cake, which is longer than all the other cakes we've done up till now. Unsurprisingly, it was a day full of challenges, which, sadly and unintentionally, I have somehow set for myself. 30 minutes into class, as my tapered vase was starting to form, we spotted the problem. I had sliced too much off the cake, which means that I had to 'glue' the off-cuts back on again with ganache. Soon after, it was obvious that my cake was one of the tallest and slimmest in class - a.k.a. good luck with the covering, Pam, it's gonna be a miracle if you could get the icing on tomorrow!!!

Ganaching this thing was also awkward. There were many things to

consider: the slope, the tapered top, the off-set corners. Can't say it was a fun process, although the end results were utterly satisfying!

During the afternoon, Anna-Maria taught us how to make water lilies/ lotus. But after much consideration, I decided that the usual 'under the pond' theme wasn't going to do it for me (come on, it wouldn't be right if I was too easy on myself!), so I was trying to come up with a more "unique" design. First, I thought about adding new elements to what's already been done in the previous classes.. May be adding a frog or goldfish to it or something. But I don't like frogs and find goldfish a bit boring.. **SIGH** Then I thought about doing ocean theme. BING! CORALS! STAR FISH! SEA TURTLES! NEMOS! But.. but.. what about the lotus? Lotus don't grow in the ocean - do they?? May be it could be a cast-away lotus? May be someone dropped the lotus? DROP THE LOTUS.. Yes!!! I'm gonna drop the lotus! No one said that they've gotta go on the cakes! **evil grin**

Damn! I've already given too much away! Anyway, let's hope that I'm going to be able to pull this off this weekend! I'll let you know how things go on Sunday =)

Nighty nighty xx

Maisie Parrish for Planet Cake

2011-09-17T12:15:00.000+10:00

With so many celebrity clients under our belt, I have to say, to get the PC crew star-struck is damn near impossible...with one exception. Whenever we are faced with celebrities from our own world (the crazy world of cake decorating) we just loose it. This week we were thrilled to host sugar figurine fairy Maisie Parrish. Maisie spent years modeling her unique characters but it was only in 1998 that she turned her hand to sugar art. Based in England and recognised and renound nation wide for her exquisite and unusual work, Maisie has been sharing her art with some very lucky Planet Cake students this week.

Missed out? Unfortunately Maisie is only with us for a very short time, but check out her website for a list of her books and DVD's:

http://maisieparrish.webeden.co.uk/#

Day 2 and 3 of Basics 106 - Pam's Springtime results...

2011-09-15T20:37:00.000+10:00

Greetings, once again! Can you believe it? It's the middle of the week already! What exciting things have you guys been up to lately?

As for me, yeah, you guessed right, I've been caking it to the limit!

You know you need professional help when everything you see reminds you of cakes.. My shoulders are so sore from all the kneading that I can no longer feel the pain! One more problem - I've changed my mind about the design again so now I have no idea what to do with my life.

Looking around the room, everyone else has already started working towards their designs, then there was me, staring blankly at the walls and haven't got a clue about anything! So Day 2 for me pretty much consisted of covering and shimmering the cake.. Oh, and putting together my lilies and that was it!

So this morning, I went into class, depressed. Then I thought to myself, if the original ideas don't work - scrap it. After a while, I came up with another (vague) idea and started making up my own piping pattern, then tracing it, then transferring it onto my cake, then - NOTHING! There was literally NOTHING on the cake, no pattern, no pencil marks - just nothing! What the hell happened? I swear I was about to go into hyperventilation! Then Anna-Maria came to my rescue and helpfully told me that I had been using the WRONG pencil all along and "don't worry, honey, all you have to do is to start all over again (*reassuring smile*)"! Fine. Start again. BREATHEEEEEEE...

Second go! Didn't work either. The same lovely Anna-Maria then came over to rescue me again - only that there was nothing to rescue me from. The tracing wasn't going to work because of the shimmer on the cake.. Soooooo I basically wasted 2 hours of my precious life on something that was never going to work. Great. Fantastic. Awesome.

A while later, after my hands have stopped shaking from the earlier emotional breakdown, I started to pipe. In black. On white. Honestly, I'm starting to ask myself "why do you always go out of your way to make your life really really really difficult for yourself?!?" more and more often. Planet Cake has a nicer way to put it ("You like to set yourself a challenge"). So there I was, with bare minimum experience in piping, free-handing the crap out of it! I'm glad that I chose this pattern actually.. It's one of those designs that can't really go wrong because you could always add more things to it to make it look a bit better. By the end of it, I was simply too exhausted to appreciate the beauty of my own cake.

Everyone did so so well and I was incredibly proud of all of us. All the cakes looked absolutely amazing and I just couldn't believe how far we've come in terms of cake decorating! Would you like to see my cake? Here you go!

Until next time
xx

Basics 106 - A whole new set of challenges

2011-09-14T13:40:00.000+10:00

Day 1:

Have you ever seen zombie movies? You know how the zombies kind of walk around aimlessly and making stupid noises? THAT is exactly how I've been feeling today. The problem is that cakes give me nightmares

- It’s definitely a love-hate relationship. I love making, decorating and eating them, but they give me such a heartache that I can no longer sleep or eat properly! I'm the sort of person who almost always knows exactly what and how they want things to go in life, at least for that particular moment in time anyway. So when it's left to us to design our own cakes with no specific guidelines or structure, I feel like crap. For the past two days, all I've been doing is wondering what I'm going to do with my Basic 106 cake. At night, I laid awake staring into the dark, dark gloomy miserable ceiling, thinking about cakes and sleep and then more cakes, which resulted in the lack of sleep. Thousands of ideas run through my mind but none stood out from the rest. Damn! What am I going to say to my lovely Anna-Maria tomorrow?

So when I walked into class this morning and everyone was talking about what exciting things they're planning to do, I felt like throwing my ganache out the window. Should I go for the cute and cuddly? The bright and bold? Or perhaps the elegant and beautiful? Hell, I wasn't even sure what colours I will be using! I'm not going to lie to you, this is probably the most exhausted I've felt since my arrival.

All the physical work, the adrenaline rush and the constant focus is seriously wearing me down, but I want to do this so badly and I NEED to do it well. All these cakes will contribute to my portfolio, not to mention being posted on the internet for people to admire and criticize. There is really no room for mistakes.

*****BREATHEEEEEEEE......*****

On the bright side, I've discovered a new toy today! I got a chance to use one of those mega long metal scrapers to smooth my ganache this morning and it was AWESOME!!! Everything was going well and we were about to have lunch and then - BAM! - I made a really stupid mistake on what was, only a second ago, a beautifully ganached cake! I'd forgotten that I'd already removed the supporting board at the top of the cake, so I ended up taking chunks off it!

*****BREATHEEEEEEEE......*****

Good news? Well, while I was looking through Anna-Maria's folder for inspiration, I stumbled across a few lace designs that I liked.

Suddenly, it all came running! These wonderful ideas just kept rushing through my tired mind and it felt great! Sorry, I'm not going to tell you what the design is, you will just have to wait and see =) But I can tell you that I've gone for a black and white theme.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon designing our cakes and making our own flowers. Hey, did you hear that? WE GET TO CHOOSE OUR OWN FLOWERS!!! (I went for lilies) Tres excited about tomorrow! xx

It's time for Basics 105!! Bring on the extended tiers... :o

2011-09-13T18:24:00.000+10:00

Basics 105

"INTERMEDIATE" is what we now are according to our PC Passport!!! I can't believe that I am no longer a "beginner" with only a month's worth of experience. Despite all the excitement, I somewhat feel rather "inadequate" to be awarded with such title. I had dejavu... My mind flashing back to the moment when I had just passed my driving test and was finally legally permitted to drive without supervision. But deep deep down inside, I knew I wasn't ready but was too proud to admit that I was worried about running someone over whilst trying to figure out when to change gear!

So what does it take for one to become an intermediate student, you may ask? Answer: PASSION (and a drop of MADNESS!)! You have to be crazily passionate about cake decorating, you must be super committed, you must long to learn and try different things, you must go all out and be confident about what you do, and, finally, you must remain inspired and enthusiastic. There's just no way that I'd still be here working my butt off if I didn't 100% love and believe in what I do, as it is a very demanding business - both mentally and physically.

For Basics 105, you really have to crank it up a notch as you've got to work at a decent pace whilst still maintaining 'the standard'. We had a good class actually. Everyone was in high spirits and seemed to be enjoying themselves. After having spent hours ganaching our cakes, most of us were covered in chocolate and my heart truly went out to Michelle, who was facilitating that day! The afternoon was spent making the beautiful peony rose and berries, then it was time to go home.

On the second day, we were shown a new way to cover a tall rectangular cake, which Jess said was the same principle as baby cubes. Because we were actually covering the cake on the board with the centre-pole, you can't actually do it the 'normal' way but have to do it in three stages instead. First, you cover two of the sides individually. Then you cover the remaining surfaces in one go. After lunch, Jess showed us how to stencil, which turned out to be one of the easiest things that I've learnt so far but the result was so satisfying!

Now that I think about it, this cake was actually pretty fun to make.

Stencilling is such a simple yet effective way to decorate your cakes, hence why I've just spent my weekly allowance investing in a set! It was great to be more 'in control' of your cake in terms of designs (not that I haven't been trying to divert from the instructions in the past.. *ahem*). I decided to go for brown with white stencilling and gold borders. Do you like it?

Pam xx

Basics 104 - Guest blogger Pam takes us through her 3-Tier Twist experience

2011-09-12T09:34:00.000+10:00

Gosh, I feel tired today. For some unknown reason, I haven't been sleeping very well in the past couple of weeks. My muscles are aching and my mind is exploding with information - a little hibernation might be necessary. Not long now - only 3 more weeks to go. Although I'm getting used to this new routine, it would be a lie to say that I didn't miss home. Don't get me wrong, I'm having such a great time here and learning so much - much much more than I could ever hope for - but I just couldn't help but think how lovely it would be to be able to go through this amazing experience with my family besides me.

But now that I'm here, I have no choice but to finish what I've started. As the first three cakes in the Basics Series have already been completed, it's time to move on to the more advanced cakes with more technical learning outcomes. To be honest, I am not at all confident about the next six cakes that I'm going to be making during the next few weeks due to my lack of experience and unpolished skills.

I'll just have to try my best and make sure that I enjoy every second of it!

There's nothing too complicated in Basics 104. The new thing here is the addition of the centre-pole, which is essential for tiered cakes.

Marianne, our teacher for this class, explained that it's a good idea to make the holes in the boards slightly bigger to allow some room for adjustment, especially if the holes are slightly off-centre. We spent the first day preparing the three tiers and the orchids, and the second finishing off the cake. I've decided that since I've always gone for bold and bright colours, I would try making something more soft and feminine this time. I was pretty chuffed with myself this morning because my icing was almost perfect!

Unfortunately, our spirit sagged a little during the afternoon as we were assigned two of the most annoying tasks ever - fiddling with paper templates for our bands and making tiny sausages for the border!

As always, I just had to go out of my way to make my life a thousand times harder.. While the others were fussing over their 'single' sausages, I came up with a not very bright idea of making a twisty rope from two different colours of icing, meaning that I had to double the amount of sausages, which I HATE doing! I guess the good thing was that it turned out pretty well and brought my cake together quite beautifully. (If you haven't already guessed, I like to think outside the box and come up with different ideas, in order to be unique. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it makes me want to tear my hair out.. *sigh* )

Alas, everyone finished decorating their cakes! As I stood back and admired everyone's masterpieces, I couldn't help but feel tremendously proud of our work and efforts. Wanna see me cake yet? Here it is!

Latest Creations

2011-09-10T14:29:00.000+10:00

Phew, it's been a hectic couple of months in here (then again when isn't it?) but with the Basics and Novelty Marathons now behind us, we are gearing up for the spring wedding season. That's right; spring time in the cake world is not only about flowering blooms, the emergence of pasty winter legs and hay fever, but The Spring Bride. Having taken a peek inside our order book, I can promise you this year is set to be ultra classic and beautiful, and I can't wait to begin sharing our newest designs with you.

In the mean time, things are definitely getting a little bit mental back in the kitchen of late...Check out our latest:

So we all know that cake pops are all the rage, and while admittedly we were a little slow at catching on to that one, I think we've more than made up for it by taking them to the next level - the Dog Pop! Unfortunately the photographs really don't do these guys enough justice, they were just so damn cute.

Intern Shell, flexed her Funky muscles this week. These guys look simple, but those of you who have ever tried to make them will know that they are anything but. Not too Shabby Shell, not too shabby at all.

Pam's Basics 103 Experience...

2011-09-06T20:19:00.000+10:00

Basics 103

Ok, guys, it's time to introduce you to 'Mi Familia' at Planet Cake (well, what I'm trying to say is that I'm sort of stuck with them, if you know what I mean..?? I'm kidding, I love them to bits!)! Ready???

Ok!

So we walk through the front door into the front room, which is always full of cakes. We go through another door and immediately to your left, there's the office! The first person you'll see is, of course, our very own Paris Cutler (I once made a mistake of choosing the wrong seat and ended up sitting on her chair - which was EXACTLY what I was trying to avoid!). After having been here for over a month, I've come to the conclusion that Paris doesn't own heels that aren't at least 3 inches high. Paris is a great inspiration and I adore her no-nonsense, kick-ass approach to business! Next is Cat. I'm not quite sure what Cat's position is or what her job description may be, because I always see her running around doing a million different things at once (I've even seen her building a big tent at one point!). But Cat is truly lovely - she gave me a chewy mint that tasted a bit like soap - it was great! Now, it's time to introduce you to the wonderful Lesley, who is a great person to be with (she has a really good British sense of humour that I miss)! Chances are, most of us have probably came across Lesley at some point in our lives, as she deals with everything from changing Facebook status updates to organising the classes.

Lesley takes her job very seriously and I know this because she never failed to reply to my emails (and there were A LOT of emails!), no matter how ridiculously annoying they were! Then we have Antony, who's in charge of all the cool cake designs that we get to admire from time to time. It's not possible to spend a day at Planet Cake without hearing his laughter booming across the room! And finally, we have Emma! Emma's always smiling and happy - I hope that I'll get to know her better now that she's back from her holidays!

So that's it for the office. Now, let's head to the kitchen. First, you have Anna-Maria, who's a fabulous teacher and decorator. Anna-Maria often says really funny things without even realising that she's being funny, which makes it even funnier! I really enjoyed making my dog cake with her. The next person in line is our kick-boxer Jess, who's got all sorts of cheffy qualifications and makes great desserts!

One time, she introduced me to her class as "Crazy Pam" - thanks, Jess! She also has a tendency to utter random Thai words to me at the most random times (her favourite words include "very expensive", "I don't understand", "Really?"). Who's next, who's next...? Margie!

Margie is insanely good at making novelty cakes and realistic figurines (I swear she can make a blob of old icing look good!) and she loves drinking Chai Latte in the morning. Once, Margie tried to teach me to make Will Smith's head, which went horribly wrong, which meant that we had to peel off the skin, which then resulted in something that resembles Freddie Kruger - not my greatest moment..

*Ahem* Then we have Ritzy, who, for some reason, likes to say "Easy Peasy Japanesey" whenever she does something that looks super difficult! But the good thing about her is that she likes to "experiment" with various combinations of chocolate cereal treats (they always taste sooooo good!) so my plan is to keep encouraging her to "experiment" every week! Next, we have CC! CC's a gifted sculptor and a great teacher. We've had our moments, which largely consist of me complaining about how bad my cake looks and him ignoring my complaints, lol! The last few in the list includes the interns, Michelle and Lori, who are also very talented cake artists. They are so fun to be around and always offer great encouragement and support - thanks, guys! Finally,we have Luigi, Marianne and Neoko, whom I haven't really had a chance to get to know yet, but I've definitely admired their work from afar! And here we go, guys, isn't this exciting??

Yeah, you're right. The reason I wrote such a long introduction was because I didn't want to let myself loose and write an essay on how much those corners frustrate me. I actually went into class with such low expectation that I didn't even freak out when Lori (the new intern) kneed my beautifully ganached cake at lunch time! (Don't worry, Lori, I will NEVER EVER forget what you've done! Hehe..) I always get myself really worked up about these squares - I mean, I know that this is only my second square and I shouldn't be so hard on myself.. BUT THESE CORNERS ARE SERIOUSLY DOING MY HEAD IN! The sad thing is now it's not even the corners that's the problem,.. I've somehow managed to ruin the easiest things on those ghastly squares (a.k.a. flat surfaces that I kept damaging)! You know how the icing sticks together and then you try to pull it apart, which of course leads to stupid cracks in your icing but you just can't be bothered to start all over again?!? Yeah, that's what kept happening to me all morning! People kept telling me that no one would be able to see those faults once the bands go on but I know what's underneath those pretty green bands and I'm just too much of a perfectionist to ignore this fact! But bad things aside, I actually really enjoyed decorating the Basics 103 cake. I've only recently discovered my love for flower-making, especially those 'stylised' ones (as this means that you could do whatever the hell you want with the flowers and will always have "they're stylised" as an excuse!).

The funny thing is that by the time we put everything together, the cake actually looked a hundred times better and I was really quite pleased with myself (and immediately fell in love with my camera for not picking up those horrible dents!). What do you think?

You wanna hear the good news? Basic 104 is all ROUNDS! I can FINALLY get a good night's sleep without having nightmares about those corners for once - woohoo!!! I've got a day off tomorrow so will try to spend it wisely! Laters! xx

Guest blogger Pam takes us through her Basics Marathon experience...

2011-09-05T18:38:00.000+10:00

Ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves! It's that time of the year again.. The time that we've all been waiting for.. That's right! It's the Basics Marathon time!!! Woohoo!!!

It's now been exactly one month since the day I set foot in Planet Cake. I can still remember my first day: homesick, jet-lagged, first time in Australia, no experience in cake decorating - I was a nervous wreck. I remember myself wondering if I had made a really stupid decision, committing myself to something so alien and unknown to me, in a foreign land, away from my beloved family. But as soon as I walked through the front door, I knew that I was exactly where I belonged. With welcoming arms, friendly smiles and never-ending kindness, Planet Cake team gently guided me through my once in a lifetime journey and embraced my presence without hesitation. And here I am one month later - still having the time of my life! So when the wonderful Lesley approached me and asked if I would write a blog, "Of course!", I replied. It would be an absolute honour for me to share this incredible journey with you.

First of all, a little introduction. My name is Pam. I'm from Thailand. And I'm about to undergo a major career change, one that, I must admit, my family doesn't exactly approve of. It's been almost a year since I left the corporate world behind and began this culinary journey and, quite frankly, I still pray everyday that everything will turn out according to plan. Many people have asked me what brought me to Planet Cake. Well, it's the love of all things sweet and savoury and my passion for books that first introduced me to cake decorating. I've got hundreds of cook books at home but have never actually attempted any of the stuff from the dusty cake decorating section because I never really thought myself as being creative or artistic. But as my time at Le Cordon Bleu (Bangkok) was coming to an end, I knew that I had no choice but to make a decision about my career. Luckily, I already knew that pastry was something that I wanted to specialise in but the bad news was that you can't really go very far in this area in Thailand due to a number of reasons. So what else could I do? In between tantrums, I went back to my beloved bookshelf and desperately looked for an inspiration. And there it was! My two Planet Cake books sitting regally on the shelf in mint condition! After some research on the internet, I found that Planet Cake was about to run their infamous Marathons for both Novelties and Basics Series, which I signed myself up for almost straight away! Since then, I never looked back. I was immensely proud of myself when I completed the Novelty Series last month and really surprised myself too with some of the things that I'd accomplished! And now, it's the Basics Marathon time, oh, how I dread those corners! Are you ready for this journey? Well, hold on tight as things are about to get real serious here!

Basics 101:

I couldn't sleep last night due to a number of reasons. Firstly, I have finally reached the halfway mark and I wasn't sure whether to be excited about going home or sad to leave. Secondly, I just could NOT stop fretting about having to ganache and cover those rounds!!! Yeah, yeah, I know what you're all thinking. Rounds = EASY PEASY, right? And the rest of you must be thinking that I had nothing to worry about because I've done "LOADSSSSSSS" of those novelty cakes, right? WRONG! Hey, this is a really big deal for me. I've never ever done a round before and it's got to look neat and perfect, and it's not as if I could just 'patch it up' like when I was doing those novelty cakes. And for some strange reason, I felt really pressured to get it exactly right! (I think this might have something to do with Jess and her 'great expectation') Anyway, every time I closed my eyes, I kept seeing those crooked edges, torn icings and horrible colour combinations, and no matter how hard I tried the images just would not go away!

Having been dreading the Basics 101 all night, I walked into class filled with misery. Most seats had already been taken but I spotted an empty one at the back of the class. Perfect. Just as I was starting to blame the world for every bad thing that's ever happened, I looked up and there it was - that friendly, familiar face. One of Planet Cake's most renowned and experienced teachers, Jess, was sitting there with her cheerful smile and the sort of look that says 'I believe in you, you can do it!', which immediately assured me that I was in good hands and that the world wasn't going to end if my edges were a little crooked. We started off the usual way - everyone introduced themselves, a series of demos were shown, followed by us students getting our hands dirty! (No, literally, they were full of ganache!) By lunch time, everyone's cakes sat beautifully on the benches, neatly ganached with clean edges - ready to be covered.

Then it was time to ice our cakes! I think that most of us must have forgotten to breathe during that demo, while Jess carefully recited her numerous tips and tricks of the trade. I hate it when teachers make everything look so easy and simple. It always seems as if nothing could and would ever go wrong with their icing, no matter how hard they stretch it or how long they let it sit uncovered! I just don't understand why whenever I leave my RTR unattended for 2 seconds, it ALWAYS dries up and cracks! The next thing I knew, Jess was done explaining the steps (I swear the whole process only took her like 30 seconds or something!) and it was finally our turn to cover our cakes. Miraculously, I managed to cover my cake without much trouble and with those beautiful, sexy sharp edges too! Hooray!!!! (Let's not mention the bits under the decorations.. Ahem.) My first round ever - mission accomplished!

I would like to think that I will be able to go home and get a good sleep tonight but, unfortunately, I've now got Basics 102 to worry about (trust me, squares are like my worst nightmare!)! So I better sign off and get some rest before my big day tomorrow! Have a lovely weekend. everyone! xx

Basics 102:

Happy Fathers' Day! While everyone was out and about enjoying the day with their friends and family, I was in a constant state of panic and found it difficult to concentrate. Today is the day. Today is corners day. Today is sharp edges day. But if Planet Cake has taught me anything, it's that life is no fun without challenges!

Unlike the Basics 101, today's class is all about how to achieve those infamous sharp corners and perfect edges. Ganaching is the secret. Since you need to apply a fair bit of pressure on the cake, it is very important to give the ganache some time to set properly as this will provide a solid foundation for the icing (it's why this would never work with buttercream). For the first time, I learnt that it is much easier to over-do the ganaching at the beginning because you can always scrape off the excess later on in the process. Oh, and don't forget to keep your temp board dry and clean as moisture may cause moulds to grow in your cake (GROSSSS!!!!!)!

Jess told us that the two key things to remember when icing cakes with corners are: (i) SECURE THE TOP CORNERS before you do anything else to prevent tearing; and (ii) Spread equal love and attention when you're smoothing the surfaces. As I watched Jess work effortless on her cake, my heart was filled with envy. How long would it take me before I could get my cake to look as perfect as hers? How many damaged icings would I have to throw away before I could ice a square without causing those horrible, annoying cracks? As I started rolling out my icing, I quickly ran through the steps in my head: get rid of air bubbles, secure the corners, do all the edges, smooth flat surfaces, cut off excess icing, sharpen the corners. By the end of the lesson, I've come to appreciate those cute little cherries and ribbon decorations - what a fantastic way to hide misfortunate flaws and unattractive pin pricks! I must say that I'm not 100% satisfied with the result (yes, I am always very hard on myself!), but I guess that it's not bad for my first! Here it is!

So 2 down, 8 more to go! I can't wait to see what the Basics 103 will bring! Until next time! xx

TWEET TWEET

2011-09-05T16:35:00.000+10:00

You can now follow Paris (Queen of our planet) on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/paris_cutler Paris is updating from Planet Cake HQ every 2 hours, keep updated with the tears, tantrums, bridezillas and of course cakes!

Novelty Marathon 2011

2011-08-17T11:26:00.001+10:00

Those of you who follow our blog regularly will know that my favourite (okay, my only!) kind of exercise is a Planet Cake marathon. After another successful Basics Marathon series this June/July, I can hardly believe that we are almost half way through the novelty version. It's been a while since I've shared some pics of the classroom, and with all this amazing work being produced I thought it was about time:

Novelty 102 - Designer Handbag

Novelty 103 - Glitter Pump and Shoe Box

Novelty 104 - 3D Teapot

Novelty 105 - McDonalds Cake

And I just couldn't help but share these photos from Anna Maria's private lesson yesterday, how cute are these dogs?!

A new look for PC

2011-08-06T13:47:00.001+10:00

People are often surprised to hear that cake decorating, like many creative pursuits is one which follows current trends and fashions. Even more surprising to many is that the major source of inspiration for cake design comes from what is happening in stationary, homewares and fashion. Because being at the forefront of the design world is important to us, our artists are continually coming up with new, original designs. Here are just a few from this week. Love the teapot? This is one of the new designs being floated around for our novelty 104 class.

We love the the challenging here, and so we were pretty happy when approached about making a realistic Madonna cake for a serious fan. Recreating the Queen of Pop herself from icing? No problem for Margie:

In fact, novelty cakes certainly have been the flavour of the last couple of weeks, from toy trucks to corset's...

Matt Preston Cake

2011-07-23T12:46:00.001+10:00

What does one do when asked to make a cake for renowned foodie Matt Preston? Create a crevat cake of course! Based on a variety of crevats from Preston's own personal, named collection, Ritzy and Naoko made this woden case entirely of cake. Yep, NO styrofoam whatsover, making it absolutely a two man job to carry it to the car.

Realistic Animals

2011-07-20T11:07:00.001+10:00

It is so rare that we get the chance to see our cakes once they zoom out the gates in Carlos’ trusty van, and so I always get a thrill when clients email us photos from their big day. This week newly weds Lexi and Tim sent us these beautiful pics of their very quirky wedding cake, courtesy of Welsch Photography

Margie is well-known for her super-realistic animal figurines, and believe it or not, this is far from the first pet wedding cake we’ve been asked to do!

Creating a realistic animal cake involves several tricky steps and up to three days of labour, even for someone as experienced as Margie. While the main body of this cat is made from choc mud (most other flavours are not stodgy enough to mould into organic shapes) more delicate areas such as the head and tail are carved from Styrofoam.

Once the body is covered with one large piece of icing, it is important to work quickly in order to prevent it from hardening, making it difficult to create detail. Margie always covers the head last, using a thinner, single piece of fondant, working quickly with her thumb and frilling tool to get into the tiny facial details. If you’re attempting a realistic animal at home, using the jaw line/neck area is a great way to hide your joins.

Lastly, the realistic color is achieved with the use of an airbrush, so it’s really important that the client has provided lots of detailed references in order to to get an exact match. The real secret trick, however, to making your animals look freakishly real, is the use of piping gel on the eye, giving it that naughty gleam

Planet Cake for Lady Gaga

2011-07-15T12:41:00.000+10:00

Sometime around midday on Tuesday we received the call asking us to provide a cake for Lady Gaga’s Sydney show. Um, can you say A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-Y?! For tomorrow? No problem! Everyone was way too busy trying not to jump out of their skin to worry about something as trifling as an unrealistic deadline, and Ritzy and Naoko were all over it like a rash in a matter of minutes.

Step one, design. With our resident Antony not in the office until Thursday, we were faced with the monumental decision on our own. Where does one begin to design a cake for an uber-celebrity who can consider herself a muse of John Galliano? Drawing inspiration from her dramatic arrival at Sydney airport, and the Monster Ball tour theme, a futuristic blinged out rocket was deemed the order of the day.

When paired together on a major project, Ritzy and Naoko are absolutely unstoppable, and didn’t blink twice at the notion of putting together this monumental cake in less then 24 hours. Like all big cakes, a large portion of this one was carved from Styrofoam, although, in this case both the top third of the rocket, and it’s yellow cloud were made from chocolate mud. Also, like all major cake undertakings, this one required somer serious engineering, and included a strong centre dowel, surrounded by another three for additional support, in order to avoid the entire thing caving in on itself.

In their usual resourceful fashion, the girls constructed the cloud from cotton stretched-out cotton wool, before pulling apart a disco ball in order to create the space-ship detailing. Gotta love the originality.

The entire rocket was then airbuished before being finished with loads of glitter, general bling (never ones to shy away from a bit of bling factor) and of course, Ritzy's realistic figurine. Thoseslightly stressed-looking guys you can see in the background are our delivery driver (it was seriously down to the wire on this one) and John, our PR guy, waiting to escort the cake to the Lady herself.

Weeky Update 11.07.11

2011-07-11T12:41:00.000+10:00

Brrrrrr, it is C-O-L-D in Sydney this week! I am happy to report however that I am rugged up and tucked away in the Planet Cake office this morning which I have turned into our very own sauna for the day! It's been a while since I've been in on a Monday and seen the place all abuzz with the new-week ganaching madness. With the Basics Marathon now done and dusted for 2011, we are taking a moment or two to catch our breath before we do it all over again with the Novelty series, beginning from the end of this month.

The marathon series coupled with this year's Majestic Sugar Flower festival, I realised there has been little space devoted to what the rest of our decorators have been up to of late. And so, I invite you to take a look at some of the newest designs to emerge from Planet Cake...

If you've been following our (very-soon-to-be-revamped) website you may have noticed a few new designs popping up on the online store. A couple of months ago, it was decided that the online cakes were in much-need of some general schoozing, and each of the artists have taken their hand to design in order to come up with some new ideas.

While our showroom is absolutely bursting at the seams with beautiful wedding cakes and sugar flowers galore, Antony decided a couple of weeks ago that it was need of a touch of quirky. With Margie on the task, it was only a matter of hours before this appeared.

And, the rest of the best from the last couple of weeks...

Final guest blog from Amanda Eising of Cake Delish - the Basics Masters!!

2011-07-07T17:06:00.000+10:00

Masters Blog by Amanda Eising of Cake Delish

Well… I did it! Last Friday marked my last day of the 4 days Masters Course – the challenging and mind blowingly awesome Topsy Turvy cake. This is the last in the Basics series and I can certainly understand why.

Aside from the challenge of structuring a cake with uneven tiers giving it that ‘toppling’ effect, we are encouraged to really put our signature on our creation in this final course. We are given 4 days to create any design we want. Square, round, the corset or a mixture of all 3. We can do 3 tiers, 4 tiers and as many different flowers as we like. In fact the first morning on day 1 is devoted entirely to designing our cake.

As you could imagine, this course is extremely challenging for the teacher. Not only is she advising us on whether our crazy ideas will work, but she is effectively overseeing the creation of 10 entirely individual designs from start to finish in just 4 days. A major part of the challenge is time management and at this level we are expected to know our capabilities and plan our design and days around getting everything done very independently, but the teacher also needs to keep tabs on each of us to make sure we are hitting the right stages each day.

As some of you know my passion is elegant cakes, especially wedding cakes. And there was never any doubt that I was going to go all out with a beautiful elegant design filled with flowers and piping as my grand finale. I have a love / hate relationship with sugar flowers. Love the look of them, hate the time consuming hours involved in achieving just one small sugar flower. So my goal during this course was to fall in love with making flowers. And I’m glad to say that’s exactly what happened. I went for a very simple piping design on my tiers, so the majority of my 4 days were filled with flower making. And boy did I need it!

Of course I had to go the overambitious 4 tiered cake, which apparently have never been finished in the 4 days because you need a ridiculous amount of flowers. I must thrive on making life difficult for myself as I just saw this as a challenge I had to tackle! (Well, it’s not called Masters cos it’s easy!)

140 hand made, individually wired sugar flowers and leaves later and it was time to assemble my cake and see if I’d made enough to fill all 4 tiers. I must admit I literally got goosebumps as I started to place the flowers. I adored the colour combination and the cake fully represented me as a decorator. 2 hrs later as I placed the last few sugar leaves in place, filling that final tier, I couldn’t have been prouder.

The Masters cakes are created as dummy cakes so that we can take them home and use them as a display (most students have started a business before they get to Masters). I live a couple of plane trips away from Sydney so suffice to say I was extremely nervous about getting my cake home! Not only with the possibility of damage, but also just getting it on the plane at all. I did my best to sweet talk my cake onto the plane at check in but no amount of smiling worked. I had to buy my cake a seat on the plane. Yep, it had its very own seat. The hostess even asked me if my cake would like to order anything (gotta love that Virgin humor!). And security helpfully pointed out that I needed to be careful as “a couple of those tiers are on a lean!”….

I also wanted to just quickly explain something about “Masters” for anyone who may be confused… attaining Masters means that you have completed every course in the PC Basics series. It is possible to skip a few courses along the way depending on your skill level, but you cannot actually get “Masters” until all courses have been completed. This is why there is often a class full of students in Topsy Turvy, but there have only ever been 9 people to attain Masters.

Our class was lucky enough to have 2 people achieving their Masters this year – myself and the very lovely, extremely talented quiet achiever Sarah. We were both so proud to be numbers 10 and 11 in that prestigious group and receive that little plaque and we’ll both surely treasure every moment we’ve spent learning between the very talented four walls of Planet Cake.

It was a whirlwind couple of weeks and I’m glad to report I’m typing this from the comfort of my hometown where I can smell the sweet baking aromas of this weeks orders. I feel very privileged to have learnt my skills from the best. I have loved sharing my Masters journey with you and feel very blessed to be so well supported in my home town so that I can continue to do what I am most passionate about.

Happy Caking everyone

Masters Topsy Turvy

2011-07-02T12:40:00.000+10:00

Yesterday we finished up our annual Basics Marathon with the creme de la creme of cake decorating, the one and only Topsy Turvy. A special congratulations to Amanda Eising and Sarah Lowe who have completed our entire series and now oficially Planet Cake trained. We wish you all the very best with your decorating ladies, and we look forward to seeing more of you in the near future.

The Madhatter! Amanda's Basics 109 blog

2011-06-28T18:16:00.000+10:00

Over the weekend I completed the 3rd of my 4 courses – the Madhatter. Being my 9th day straight of cake courses I was starting to feel a little caked out and slightly loopy, so the irony wasn’t lost on me, trust me. How very appropriate.

Now, madhatters scare me. Done badly they look like a total train wreck and I’ve never been brave enough to attempt one. But it was a skill I was itching to learn and no one does them better than Planet Cake.

You may look at our little 2 tiered cakes and wonder how on earth they could be harder than the Tapered Spheres and Squares cake, but let me assure you, it sits exactly where it needs to be in the Basics series level of difficulty.

Still, I was blissfully unaware of just how hard it was and I had all sorts of amazing design ideas running around in my head only to walk in on day 1 and be told very firmly that we had to stick to the set design and could only choose our colours. I couldn’t help but be a little miffed I must admit, but let me tell you – my attitude soon changed! That is one hard cake to cover!! There were screams and expletives coming from every corner of the room and we were all more than happy to be covering that bottom tier in stripes! What rips? What tears? Never happened.

Luckily I had much more success with my top tier but only practice, practice, practice will build my confidence on this one.

I went with a very bold colour scheme which came from by fascination with doing a peacock inspired cake this week (and yes, I had the Katy Perry song rolling around my head the entire time). I attempted to replicate the pattern on the tail in the balls at the base of each tier. Or as Anna Maria would say “I’m making an experiment” (in her adorable Austrian accent). Would I do a cake again in these colours? Probably not. But it was a fun experiment to make 

Having gleefully conquered that madhatter and after 10 days of caking straight, I had definitely earned a day off to rest, recover and psych myself up for the grand finale, the pinnacle, the piece de resistance of cakes – the 4 day topsy turvy.

And rest I did. My final Planet Cake course and completion of my Masters begins today and I am ready for it. Bring. It. On.

108 update from our guest blogger Amanda!

2011-06-26T11:07:00.000+10:00

Friday marked the half way point in my 2 week stay at Planet Cake completing the final 4 courses in my Masters, and also my completion of one of the most fascinating cakes in the whole basics series… the Tapered Squares and Spheres cake. I have always wondered how on earth this cake was done – is it really possible to construct a cake with the biggest tier at the top and smallest at the bottom? With no centre dowel?? I just couldn’t get my head around it. Wouldn’t it just topple over?? Well no… and yes. But more on that later.

I have to preface this whole blog by saying that this course has never actually been taught at Planet Cake before. So we were the human guinea pigs. Suffice to say Anna Maria was more nervous than us. Could we stick to the time line? Would our cakes align? Would our designs work? Could we assemble these cakes without them toppling over??

The most challenging part of this cake was the carving and ganaching of each tier. There is no room for error in ensuring that each tier aligns perfectly to the one below. At this point I’d just like to apologise to my high school maths teacher as it turns out that yes, I should have been paying attention, because yes, angles, gradient, algebra and the square root of pie are useful in real life, and really would have come in handy while carving this geometric puzzle of a cake! We had to have every measurement correct down to the last millimeter or it just wouldn’t work.

As I mentioned in my last blog, the most exciting part of advanced courses is having the freedom to design your own cake and effectively choosing what skills you want to learn. However you actually have the opportunity to learn endless techniques because everyone’s design is different and the teacher demo’s every skill for everyone to watch. I was absolutely blown away by the creativity of everyone’s design and could not wait for day 3 to seem them all come together.

Do things go wrong?? So glad you asked. On day 2 I somehow managed to flick a huge blob of brown colouring onto intern Shell’s beautifully covered white cake. I was waiting for her to call sabotage, as Anna Maria quite calmly whisked the cake away and washed it. Yes, you can a wash a cake. Great learning outcome. Ahem, yes, of course, I meant for that to happen.

But undoubtedly the most dramatic moment of this whole course happened in the last hour of our last day, as our assembled 3 day masterpieces were all lined up for the class photo. We were all gazing at our works of art in absolute amazement, when one of my fellow student’s cakes slowly started toppling backwards into my cake! There were gasps and screams and a massive scramble to the table to try and catch the falling tiers, but it was too late. Amazingly, my cake was the only one damaged and I was devastated, but I put on my bravest face, pulled up my big girl pants and just smiled. These things happen in the cake world and I knew it was only a matter of time before it happened to me. Luckily this cake wasn’t set to go anywhere so it didn’t matter that it was damaged.

The cake toppled because it had not been set up properly. It was stressed to us how important it was to have everything correct for this cake, and this is why. One measurement slightly out and the whole cake can crumble. On the bright side, the fact that my cake had been hit by another cake and didn’t crumble, is testimony to how stable the cake can be if done correctly. Luckily the lovely Shell was able to lend a hand to fix the damage on my cake and it was almost as good as new again. Almost.

Till next time!

Basics 108

2011-06-25T15:56:00.000+10:00

It is always with some trepidation that we trial a new workshop here at PC. This year, for the first time ever, our Basics Marathon included our new and improved Basics 108 - Tapered Sphere's and Square Cake. Looks easy? Think again. This modern inverted cake requires serious engineering techniques in order to insert the support poles, and if not executed with precise accuracy can look a total mess.

Yesterday, seven advanced students took the challenge, among them our own two interns, Neen and Shell as well as regular student, friend and guest blogger, Amanda. There were some pretty serious faces around the traps as the girls raced to finish these ultra-personalised cakes in time. The results, however, speak for themselves.

A Guest Blog from Amanda Eising of Cake Delish

2011-06-22T18:07:00.000+10:00

I am in Cake Decorator Heaven! 6 days ago I left my beautiful little country town in Central Queensland to soak up the amazing talent of Planet Cake and complete my Masters in cake decorating … and I’m bringing you all along for the ride. I will be completing the final 4 cakes in the series while I’m here, making me only the 10th person have ever completed the Masters series… and blogging all about it along the way!

But firstly, I have to admit…since I got here I have been nothing but star struck!

Aside from the usual talent you find walking the Planet Cake halls, day 1 began with me walking into the room and discovering that I’d be working alongside my long time idol Greg Cleary of Sweetums Designer Cakes! I did my best – failing spectacularly – to contain my excitement, but to have the opportunity to work alongside Greg during my first course was a major bonus to say the least.

Add to this the uber talented Jaqueline Butler from Petalsweet Cakes in America teaching in the next room, and I was finding it rather difficult to concentrate! But concentrate I must, as I was about to embark on the most challenging cake I’ve ever faced… the tapered vase cake.

This gravity defying cake presented a huge challenge. If we thought setting up, ganaching and carving the cake was difficult, day 2 – covering - was about to make our little minds implode. Under the experienced guidance of Anna Maria we all took a deep breath and dove into the challenge with gusto. Fast forward a few hours (and not as many tears as you might expect), we were all looking rather chuffed to have conquered the covering of that vase.

Once you reach the higher level courses with Planet Cake you are encouraged to create your own designs and day 3 had the room filling with ‘oooohs’ and ‘ahhhhs’ as we all saw each others creations coming together. There was lots of airbrushing, painting, flower assembling and lilly pad making …. meanwhile, I was piping, piping, piping.. oh, and did I mention piping?? It’s a skill I like to practice while learning under Anna Maria as she is the Piping Queen (in my opinion) and to be honest… piping scares me! But several hours and even more hand cramps later, I was done.

The end result was a class filled with AMAZING cakes that were by Anna Maria’s admission, some of the most creative vase cakes she’d seen. We won’t disagree!

I won’t be able to take any of my cakes home with me so I have decided to donate them all - my vase cake went to the South Coogee School to be auctioned off to raised money for their library – I hope it raised heaps!

Stay tuned for my next cake – the Tapered Square and Spheres Cake. Today was day 1 and just wait till you see the amazing designs everyone has come up with for this cake… it’s worth the wait!

Jacqueline Butler is in the building!!

2011-06-18T12:50:00.000+10:00

At long last, the month of the Majestic Sugar Flower has arrived. It is with very, very (did I mention very?) great pleasure that we welcome US-based sugar flower queen, Jacqueline Butler to Planet Cake, to impart her flower wisdom on us. Honestly, I have never seen our students arrive so early, so as not to miss a minute of the day! The girls are currently dusting away at their petals, and I can't wait to see the finished results. In the mean time, here's a little look at what happened in her yesterday...

The lady herself

Channel 7 Morning Show

2011-06-18T10:44:00.000+10:00

Each year I look forward to Margie's annual Channel 7 Morning Show birthday cake. This year was certainly no disapointment!

As always, Kylie and Larry were extremely grateful for the cake, which featured on air this week with a host of fabulous celeb's:

http://au.tv.yahoo.com/the-morning-show/video/

It feels like only yesterday we helped them celebrate their 1st Birthday, and I thought I would go on a little trip down memory lane of the cakes of Larry and Kylie, past...

Online Competition Hots Up

2011-06-11T15:08:00.000+10:00

I mentioned a few weeks back that we are running a competition here at PC, to design the new online best seller. After an initial slow start, the entries are now absolutely rolling in, with our crew of artists battling to outdo one another. From the novel to the classic, the guys have put forth a collection of cakes which range in inspiration from fabric and stationary to pop culture. While we're having trouble deciding which ones we love the most, what we're really interested in is what you guys think?

Basics Marathon Kicks Off

2011-06-04T11:58:00.000+10:00

There's only one kind of marathon I'm interested in and that is Planet Cake's annual Basics Marathon. Forget intense training and pre-dawn wake-up calls, get into excercise PC style. Each year, in June, we run our entire Basics series back to back. Kick of was this Thursday with Basics 101.

28th May, 2011

2011-05-28T15:10:00.001+10:00

In comparison with some of the seriously epic cakes of late, this week has been getting a little quieter. With wedding season well and truly behind us, our focus turns once again to our third annual Basics Marathon. Each year in June we run the entire Basics series back to back, followed by the Novelty Marathon in August. Those students who complete all ten workshops in the Basics series are awarded with a very special Planet Cake certification and some of our greatest teachers and decorators began life here as humble Basics 101 students. Before we jump head first into said marathon on Tuesday, we wound up our week with a very special workshop in aid of the Japan Relief Appeal. A very big thank you to Ritzy, who was the brains behind the concept, and to all of those who helped make the day so very special.

Now I would never leave you hanging without a sneak peak into the kitchen, so here's a look at what the guys have been cooking up. Not too shabby for a quiet week.

As someone whose birth date falls just between the cracks of Gen-X and Y, I must admit, I have a very soft spot for the rubix cube. I fell in love with this one in the show room this morning.

It's a Wrap

2011-05-28T14:33:00.000+10:00

It is officially a wrap. With the wonderful film crew from Freehand no longer documenting our every brush-stroke, ganache manoeuvre and (let's be honest) occasional whoopy na-na, it's feeling eerily quiet in here. It's been an unbelievable ride, and, amazingly the entire filming process has brought the team even closer together than ever. We celebrated the end of the eight weeks of filming on Monday with, youy guessed it, another oppurtunity to get into fancy dress. Thank you to the crew at Freehand for putting on such a great spread, and in particular, the Fantales, which are powering me through today!

2011-05-21T14:02:00.000+10:00

Like most of those in the artistic field, we like a little healthy competition here and there, and last week Paris put forth a new challenge to the team: design the new online bestseller cake.

This mission certainly got the creative juices flowing, have a look at some of our entries so far...

Well, I love them all, but we would love to hear what you guys think?

Be sure keep an eye out on our online cake store, where our entries will be appearing soon.

This week's treasure trove

2011-05-14T13:10:00.000+10:00

I have to say, Saturday morning is fast becoming the favorite part of my week. Despite my years here, I never loose that sense of amazement as I walk through the doors to discover the treasures of the week. With a life-sized orangutan, two-metre tall mad-hatters, high fashion replicas, various parts of the anatomy and glitter as far as the eye can see; one might think that I would be immune by now? Not so. This morning I was confronted with an absolute visual feast.

Anna Maria gets to work with the glue gun to create this realistic replica of the baths at Dee Why. We were thrilled to help the guys at Dee Why Ice Picks celebrate their 50th anniversary. The guys were fabulous hosts to Paris and tellie crew who headed to the northern beaches, one very chilly day during the week to meet the club members.

Antony's solution catering for a boy/girl twin christening.

On a completely unrelated note, I am just in love with this mug that found its way into the office, and have considered stealing it from Ant's desk on several occasions this morning!

Update 07.05.11

2011-05-07T12:30:00.000+10:00

It's been a while since we've made a graffiti cake, so I was really excited when we were asked to make this 21st cake this week. I wonder though, how the birthday boy will feel to see himself and his legally 'sensitive' activities immortalised in sugar?!

Next up, we helped Australian lingerie brand, Lula Starr celebrate with this fab corset cake.

Those of you who read the blog regularly will know that I just a love a wedding cake with a difference, and this couple chose to celebrate their special day with one of Margie's ultra-realistic 3D animals. Unfortunately I don't have a pic from the front, the eyes on this cake follow you, just like the Mona Lisa!

A big congratulations to our intern Neen, who made this absolutely beautiful cake this week. Just stunning. Also, a big congratulations to our newest intern Shell (below) who was totally under the pump this weekend with the cakes from our online store. Those of you who thought the intern role was all about coffee runs and anwering phones...think again!

THE Cake

2011-04-30T13:26:00.002+10:00

With much fanfare, nervous waiting and royal waving, I'm almost a little sad that the wedding has come to an end. While they clean the surrounding streets of Westminster Abbey, the party continues in Sydney. Anna Maria knocked out this royal tribute in just two days, which will stand as the centerpiece of the Victoria Room's royal wedding high tea this morning.

So while the rest of the world eagerly awaited first glimpse of the Duchess' Grace Kelly-esque dress, the PC crew were all about the cake. The level of detail which went in to the traditional white fruit cake, resplendent with almost 1000 sugar flowers, was unbelievable, yet I have to say I just love that William chose his childhood favourite, McVitie's chocolate cake as an accompaniment! A comfort classic, coupled with a modern design took this cake to a whole new level.

Royal Wedding Fever

2011-04-28T14:09:00.001+10:00

Being in the business of wedding cakes, it's little wonder that Planet Cake has found itself firmly in the grips of Royal Wedding Fever. While some wait, bated breath to catch the first glimpse of Kate's dress and others weep at Wills official jump off the shelf, we make no secret here of being all about one thing: The Cake.
Like just about every aspect of the royal extravaganza, speculation abounds in regards to the cake. With umpteem million guests, one assumes there will be tiers to the ceiling, however even we can only guess at what else it has in store. If past royal experience is anything to go by, we can expect the cake to be classically beautiful, towering in size, yet traditional in all the right ways. While fruit and marzipan are de rigueur, having broken so many conventions already, I can't help but hope for something truly unique and a little cutting edge. While I will have to wait, like the rest of us mere mortals for tomorrow, I thought I would devote today to some of the truly amazing cakes of royal weddings gone by.

For me, the wedding cake of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip is everything a royal wedding cake should be. Impressively classic, with just enough touch of Rococo pomp.

Prince Rainier of Monaco and Princess Grace, pictured on their 1956 wedding day with the wedding cake, as effortlessly graceful as the beautiful couple.

One of the chief cooks, David Avery is pictured here with one of several of Charles and Diana's 1981 wedding cakes. Only recently, a former royal servant sold a 9'' slice of the marzipan-based cake which she had stored, wrapped in cling film for 27 years, for around $1300AUD. Traditional fruit cake with marzipan, this cake extravaganza was covered in white icing with a sugared onlay which featured the royal coat of arms.

Ah, one of my favorite royal stories of all, Prince Frederik and 'our Mary'! Like Princess Mary herself, the cake was both classic and feminine.

Easter time at Planet Cake!

2011-04-23T10:50:00.000+10:00

Given what we do, it's no surprise really that we LOVE easter time in here.
Reason #1 Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate
Reason #2 We will use absolutely any excuse we can to get into the dress-up box.

With most of our crew at the Sydney Royal Easter Show this morning, I've turned our office into our own cosy little rabbit warren and am presently munching my way through a good portion of the bag of Cadbury eggs which have found their way onto my desk, while trying to resist the temptation to model my bunny ears yet again.

We received a phone call earlier this week for a seriously monumental cake, seriously last minute which saw half of our team pulled off their regular duties and thrown right into the deep end. While I am sworn to secrecy at this stage I can tell you this was probably the most exciting, stressful and ground-breaking cake we have ever made....trust me you're going to want to watch this space.

Until then however, I can tide you over with Margie's orangutan from last week. Made for a special benefit event, for which all attendees were required to don red wigs (Paris cut quite the image last week in a purple dress, bright orange bob, complete with leopard print heels I must say). The cake is a life-sized 3D baby orangutan which quite frankly, a mama orangutan could easily have mistaken for her own. I have to say this is one cake I am glad not to have seen cut.

After designing and completing 20 individual cakes for the 20 finalists of Cleo's 2011 Bachelor of the Year, this week we helped winner, Eamon Sullivan celebrate with this huge cake. It was really down to the wire with this one, with Emma and Ritzy still glittering the cake at 5pm as Carlos strolled through the doors to collect it. Time-consuming, yes, but well worth the effort. While Emma may still be picking glitter of various parts of her, the cake looked just stunning in all its glory at the venue. Oh, and the bachelor wasn't too bad either.

Luckily, it's a short day in here for the long weekend, or else I could well be in danger of death by chocolate! Wishing all of you a safe and wonderful long weekend, full of happiness and of course chocolate.

X

Japan Relief Cupcake Workshop

2011-04-21T14:36:00.000+10:00

In aid of the Japan Relief appeal, Ritzy and Naoko will be holding two very special cupcake workshops on May 25th, with $100 of each registration going directly to the Japan appeal. We will run a morning and afternnon workshop during which you will decorate and take home six very cute, Japanese inspired cupcakes. There are only twenty spaces available in each session of this one-off workshop, so get in quickly to avoid dissapointment.

http://www.planetcake.com.au/courses/cake-decorating-sydney-details.php?cn=Japan+Relief+Appeal+-+Cupcake+Workshop

2011-04-16T15:23:00.000+10:00

Believe it or not, we get our inspiration from all manner of sources when it comes to cake decorating and as such try our best to keep a constant finger on the fashion pulse. No surprises then that we were extremely honored to make this weeks cake for Leona Edminston's celebration of ten years in the business. Antony's design was based on one of Leona's newest season frocks, as seen below, and was made by the very talented Ritzy. A big congratulations to Leona Edminston and a thank you to Vogue Australia who were so kind as to post pictures of the cake on their Facebook fan page.

While they may not have the uber-cool factor, these two wedding cakes epitomize traditional beauty, with an elegance that will never go out of style.

Unfortunately the picture doesn't really do it justice, but this 3D speedboat was seriously big and it was very "interesting" watching Paris trying to get it from kitchen to car in one piece this morning, taking into account Sydney's torrential rain and her 6'' leopard print stiletto's. As always, she handled it like a pro and the cake has now made it safely to its destination.

Dessert Table Elements

2011-04-16T11:52:00.000+10:00

We have long been a fan of Libby Mariner's Polka Dot Cookies and were thrilled to welcome her aboard as our first guest teacher of the year. Like all things sweet, tables of delectable, bite-sized cookies and cakes have taken off as the latest must-have for all sorts of events from weddings and baby showers to corporate events and children's parties. The three day course covered Cookie Queen Libby's signature butter cream whip, cookies and cake pops, with a touch of PC figurine modeling taught by Anna Maria.

One of 'Those' Mornings

2011-04-02T15:02:00.001+11:00

This morning started out as one of those days. You know the kind I'm talking about. After a slight air-con mishap we walked in (veeeeeery early) this morning to find a majorly important cake feeling softer than Santa Claus' belly. Eeeeeeek! On top of that we had a visit from a lost local canine and a seriously stressed out delivery guy. Thank God Antony was on hand with his world-famous cake surgery skills and disaster was (narrowly) averted. I absolutely wish I could show pics of this cake of which I speak, at this stage however it's Top Secret...but trust me, watch this space! As for the puppy, it's family were located and said delivery driver is, I'm sure currently unwinding beer in hand. So all's well that ends well here at Planet Cake this week.

While I can't show what left our doors at the crack of dawn this morning, I am thrilled to bits to be able to share with you this truly unique wedding cake. I have been known to wax lyrical about my favorite cakes, however on this occasion I believe I will hold my tongue as I think this one speaks for itself.

Oh, and just a couple of other things the guys threw together this week:

2011-03-31T16:12:00.000+11:00

It's no secret that we're all huge fans of Manu in here, so you can imagine the squeals of delight which emerged from our office this morning when this pic came through!

2011-03-31T15:04:00.000+11:00

Our good friend, the very fabulous Anthony Del Col of Staging Connections sent us this gorgeous photo this morning from last weekends wedding. Just beautiful.

Cleo Bachelor of the Year

2011-03-26T16:15:00.000+11:00

I have to admit I get a little thrill out of making the Cleo Bachelor of the Year cake each year. This year was by the far the coolest so far, as we made twenty individual cakes for the twenty top finalists. The Ken doll which wound up on my desk a few weeks back makes so much more sense to me now!

Update 19.03.11

2011-03-19T11:09:00.000+11:00

Feeling uninspired by the rain? So were we. Instead of letting this damp weather get us down we decided on a little 'Springtime' this autumn. Get inspired by the gorgeous Springtime cake this week's Basic Intermediate class came up with!

If that's not enough to inspire you then hopefully these pics of our guys at the annual Taste of Sydney will! We had a fabulous time rubbing shoulders with some of Sydney's most famous chefs, oh and the food wasn't too bad either! Most of all though, as you all know, we love nothing more than converting the skeptical into total cupcake fans...mission accomplished.

Masterchef's Manu gets into the cupcake spirit

Anna Maria, Yasmina and Neen get ready for the masses

Anna Maria and Manu

Antony getting his cupcake on

Jess and I model our new outfits

A couple of weeks ago we made a fabulous cake for the launch of Maria Venuti's book, and this week we were thrilled when she also asked us to design her 70th birthday cake. Antony had a ball and absolutely went to town with this leopard print extravaganza, complete with bling microphone. Just faaaaaabulous daaaaarling!

This enormous cake, made for charity, Cycle for Smile was so big Margie had to accompany our delivery guy, Carlos to the venue!

Anna Maria is teaching the uber-popular Bride and Groom Figurine class as we speak, so stay posted and I'll try and get some pics of these very cute figurines out asap.

Update 12.03.11

2011-03-12T13:49:00.000+11:00

Last night I was lucky enough to help out on the Planet Cake stand at the annual Taste of Sydney festival. With balmy weather, cool beats and the most tantalising smells you can imagine, we had a fantastic night preaching the cupcake gospel! Emma, Antony and Neen are back for round three this evening, and I promise to post some photos next week as soon as I can get my hands on them.

To all of our Melbourne fans, it is with great sadness that we have come to the end of our workshops for this year. While we love holding our workshops in Melbourne, at the moment we are just up to our eyeballs in classes, cakes and general ganachey stickiness here in Sydney that we have had to put them on hold for the time being. We did go out with a bang however, with Anna Maria making a last-minute dash to take over the Handbag, Teapot and Shoebox course. Gorgeous work guys, we can't wait to see you all again soon, and hey this could be just the excuse for a girlie trip to Sydney?!

A MASSIVE thank you to our fabulous Melbourne facilitator's, Katrina, Heather and Noor, we just couldn't have done it without you.

Aside from running around like a bunch of chook's with our heads cut off, preparing madly for Taste this weekend, it was also a chocca's week as far as cakes go. While Margie and Ritzy worked their novelty magic, Anna Maria made one beautiful wedding cake after another. Our newest intern Neen, has been nothing short of a God-send, and this week made her first complete cake, unaided from start to finish. This is a name to look out for, believe you me.

Ritzy (painstakingly) hand-made these individual miniature wedding cakes. People are often surprised to learn that these cakes can take up to two hours to complete, and require mucho patience!

A fairy castle fit for a princess

Antony had an absolutely fabulous time designing this cake for the one and only Maria Venuti's book launch last week. From all reports the party was certainly one to remember and the cake was a huge hit!

Ah, Margie at it again making these terrible cakes, just laziness really!

I really do love this job sometimes. When else would you get the chance to help celebrate Ken's birthday?! This Barbie cake was featured on Channel 9's today show for Ken's 50th birthday (which coincidentally falls on the same day as Alice Cooper's birthday!)

5th March 2011

2011-03-05T16:22:00.001+11:00

With minimum staff (again!) and a squillion events on the horizon, it was no easy feat this week to get all of these amazing cakes out. There were some seriously late nights, a lot of coffee and diet coke and some slightly stressful moments, but as usual we pulled it off with aplomb. Ritzy was at her novel best this week with Thomas the Tank Engine and a very cool iPod for a very lucky 15 year old, while Margie's 'The Thinker' was just stunning. Unfortunately the photo doesn't really do it justice, as the face was in the exact likeness of the client!

As you know, last-minute is our specialty and this week's drop-of-the-hat cake was this cakextravaganza made to help iconic band The Wiggles celebrate 20 years in the business (I know, could anything make you feel older?!). Don't worry if you missed out on seeing it, we'll have some shots of the cake on air up soon.

We've undergone some pretty tremendous changes over the last couple of week and appear to have emerged relatively unscathed at the other side. Last week we were very sad to say goodbye to junior decorator Adam Cremona. A very talented up-and-comer, Adam first came to us as a shy student who was snaffled up immediately by Paris who saw his potential. A fabulous decorator and human being, we wish Adam all the very, very best and know he will be successful wherever his career leads him.

While we said goodbye to Adam, we are super-excited to have 'Lovely Linda' back teaching at PC on a more regular basis (in between jetting across the country as a Qantas flight attendant). You will also be seeing a whole lot more of Queensland based decorator Danielle Talbot, as teacher here. I've received nothing but wonderful feedback about these two very talented ladies, so if you've been wondering whether or not to take the plunge into the addictive world of cake decorating now is a great time.

Now, those of you not in Sydney will be delighted to know that not only will we be attending this years Taste of Sydney show, but Paris will also be in Melbourne the week after next as a part of the Food and Wine Festival. Showcasing alongside the likes of Nigella Lawson, we were abso-freak'n-lutely excited to say the least! For more information on the event, check out their website:

http://www.melbournefoodandwine.com.au/

Also, fresh in the doors of Planet Cake, is our newest intern, Jhanine Love. We were absolutely flooded with emails when we advertised the intern position on Facebook and we are thrilled to have Neen on board. Follow her journey over the next six months on her blog: http://theplanetcakeapprentice.blogspot.com/

Check out Antony and I goofing around this morning. This is what happens when you leave us alone with the dress up box on a Saturday morning! (Yep, we really do have a dress up box. Dangerous, very dangerous)

Wishing you all a fabulous Mardi Gras weekend and I will see you all next week.

Thea x

PC Design Competition

2011-03-05T14:42:00.000+11:00

Each fortnight Planet Cake will hold an in-house design competition based on an inspiration board from the uber-talented cake designer Antony Bullimore. This week Anna Maria took out first place with this very cute three tier wedding cake, while Thea came in at second with her Mexican-inspired damask cake. Stay tuned for next fortnight's winners.

PC Back at Taste of Sydney

2011-03-05T11:43:00.000+11:00

After the huge success of last year, we are thrilled to be returning to Sydney's premier food expo, Taste of Sydney.

Our crew will be there each evening holding cupcake decorating workshops and there will be plenty of us on hand to chat to you about our courses.

For more info head to the Taste website: http://www.tasteofsydney.com.au/

Weekly Update 26th Feb

2011-02-26T14:37:00.000+11:00

This week's standout cake was certainly a labour of love, just ask Emma who was in here until 8.30pm last night finishing it off. Four magnificent extended tiers hand piped and then painted, finished off with huge sugar flowers. This is one impressive cake, and well worth the effort to see that priceless look on our long-suffering delivery driver, Carlos' face.

This week we made the super-exciting purchase of a brand new camera, as most of us have phones that take better pictures than our poor old one! It took a while to get the hang of it, but I must say I quite like what happened by accident in this one,very arty-like.

This race track was over a meter in length and 30 kilo's in weight, and I have to say, in my humble (yet correct) opinion this is an absolute winner!

Good friend of Planet Cake, Lauren spent two days working with Ritzy this week in our kitchens, honing her skills and I just had to share with you this fabulous bag she made on Tuesday. Souber-realistic I can barely contain the urge to sling it across the back of my chair and fill it with endless old receipts, pens that don't work and half-used lip gloss'!

Last Saturday Antony spent the afternoon adorning this wedding cake with fresh roses (he smell was just divine). With just a bud and a few leaves left over, the cake was absolutely transformed and became the centerpiece for a Renaissance-themed wedding at Sydney's State Theatre.

We all get a little stressed from time to time, and with the aftershock's of last Saturday's full moon still echoing, there were a few tense moments in here this week. So rather than run to the choccie stash (which is far too accessible for anyone's good around here) I decided to take these pictures of a very flexible Ken as a reminder that no matter what's going on, sometimes we all need to take a bit of an Om-moment. The question still remains however, just how or why he landed on my desk???

The Lotus

The Warrior

2011-02-19T13:08:00.001+11:00

Ooh la la, love was in the air this week at Planet Cake. Alas no roses turned up on my desk come Monday morning (hey a girl can hold out hope) but our Valentines Day cakes helped to soften the blow a little, not to mention Anna Maria's home-made nougat. Ah if only all men were as sweet as AM's baking...

What happens when you are asked to make a cake for a Vegas-themed wedding on Valentines Day? We weren't sure either and we took to the drawing board several times before we got a design we were all happy with. This cake is the fabulous love-child colaboration from Paris and Antony. The lucky couple were winners of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor's Authority competition 'How I met my Partner' and the wedding was held on Monday in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens. Very cool.

Sigh, I l-o-v-e this one. Channel 7 asked us to create something spectacular for the Valentine's Day edition of the Morning so we created this design, inspired by the fabulous Paper Eskimo Stationary. Yummy vanilla cupcakes baked in Paper Eskimo cupcake holders were finished off with meringue icing and a love heart made from sugar roses. Think romantic meets Alice in Wonderland.

Fellow office gal Cat and myself are known for our not-so-secret infatuation with the heart-achingly addictive Angry Birds, and were thrilled on Monday to discover this special Valentines Day edition.Once again, it was no bunch of roses, but it definately made us smile!

This client is a serious Hello Kitty fan and not only did we create this specially-themed Madhatter for her wedding, but matching Hello Kitty and Daniel cupcakes as bon boniere's. It was goodbye computer and hello Apron for me yesterday as I helped our QLD recruit Danielle ganache and box all 164 of them. A little cross-eyed at the end, yes but I reckon it was all worth while for the end product. They looked A-mazing. Oh yeah, and Ritzy's cake wasn't too bad either.

It was a serious week for cupcakes this week and this gorgeous rabbit cupcake tier, for a 6th birthday party takes out my personal fave of the week. Oh, to be six again...

Last week I showed you a sneak peak of these Funky's, still in the delicate process of creation. Check them out in all their compelte glory this week.

This cake will leave all you fans out there in little doubt that Margie is back in the Planet Cake house, bringing a little inspiration to this awesome cake, from her latest hiking adventure. Check out what she gets up to when she's not making cakes - Margie not only roughs it in royal icing, but in the great wilderness too!

February 11 2011

2011-02-11T14:58:00.000+11:00

It's been one of those rare, peaceful weeks in here and for the first time in I don't know how long there are (almost) no drama's to report. With Adam and Jess both in Melbourne and Margie trekking through Tasmania (literally) it's been pretty quiet in here. Emma has left the phones for fondant this week and there's been some serious girl power going on in the studio...go girls! My personal fave this week was this fab Hawaiian shirt (I just love the simplicity and clean lines). We had originally planned to use digital images of the pineapple print, but Ritzy decided to hand-paint them in the end. So very. very cool.

To infinity and beyond!

There's just something about seeing funky's hanging out in the studio that gets me every time. I can't help but wonder what they get up to when we're not around...?

This photo may not look like much, but it's a miracle that Anna Maria is smiling, after receiving about 24 hours notice to add an additional tier to a madhatter. Luckily our AM is a total professional and took it all in her stride.

After a long week, Cat took some time out this arvo to listen to some 90's tunes on Paris' dancing bunny stereo....this thing never gets old!

2011-02-11T10:35:00.000+11:00

Yep, sometimes even we get it wrong. On Wednesday Danielle tried out a new cupcake recipe but our fan-forced oven had other plans it seems. So, what does one do with fifty dodgy cupcakes? I'll let you take a guess at how we 'disposed' of these...

Bootcamp (Planet Cake Style)

2011-02-09T12:15:00.000+11:00

While we certainly promote healthy living (I know I've exercised at least once this year), let's face it, when it comes to bootcamp we do it one way and one way only...with cupcakes! So if those new years resolutions have fallen slightly to the wayside (totally acceptable in my book for the record) maybe you should consider Bootcamp...Planet Cake style!

This weeks Bootcamp team were so utterly engrossed this morning I struggled to get anyone to actually look up from their work. This morning's challenge...buttercream.Hmmm, think it might be about morning tea time...

Back to Cakes

2011-02-07T14:45:00.001+11:00

Well it appears that life post, world’s-biggest-freak’n-Opera-House-cake does indeed go on here at Planet Cake! I’m sure that most of you have followed the journey of the cake, its tears, tantrums and tiara’s (and if you haven’t then get out from under that rock! http://www.youtube.com/user/PlanetCakeTV ) so I thought I would just take a quick moment today to show you some of the other things that have been going on around here lately.

Last week was equal parts challenging and rewarding and we’re still chasing our tails this week trying to catch up (you should see Emma’s inbox, scary doesn’t even begin to sum it up). Never ones to be slowed down by something as trifling as twenty volunteers packed into the studio and a full classroom, we even managed to squeeze out a cake or two. It was a little like trying to eat a meal on an airplane with the lack of elbow space but the guys were their usual brilliant selves and produced maximum results with minimum complaining (you’ve got loads more patience than I do guys!).

We're also back in Melbourne this month for one last hurrah before we wind-up our interstate workshops for 2011. Last week Adam managed to not melt into a pool of ganache while he taught Basics Foundation, and this week Jess has landed to some considerably cooler weather this week.

In Sydney last weekend we held the uber-popular Shoe box and Stiletto workshop, with none other than the shoe-mad Anna Maria. Fabulous work gals!

The year of the flower

2011-01-31T16:38:00.000+11:00

It is the year of the flower here at Planet Cake and we are really excited to announce that renound sugar flower artist, Jacqueline Butler of Petalsweet, San Diego will be making a special guest appearance here at Planet Cake later in the year.

We are in the process of finalising dates as we speak to keep an eye out over the coming weeks because these are going to sell out fast!

Holy Cow it actually worked!!!!

2011-01-28T15:27:00.001+11:00

Yep, it happened....it really, truly happened!!!!

After just a few short hours of sleep, Paris was back in the studio, Australia Day morning some time around 6am. While the rest of the country enjoyed a sleep in, blissufully unaware, we struck yet another hiccup, one which we had most certainly not bargained on. After hours spent trying to find a refrigerated truck big enough to ferry 800kg of Opera House cake extravagance, we faced the very real possibility that the cake would not actually make it inside the truck. But fit, it did and so began the final step in our most monumental project to date.

For those of you who weren't in Sydney, Australia Day morning, much to our dismay dawned much the same way as the entire last week, that is: hot (REALLY hot) and muggy. Or in other words, total and utter cake kryptonite. Against all odds, the cake actually made it to Sydney City's Martin Place in one piece (I'm attributing it to some higher cake power looking over us) where it appeared on Chanel 7's Sunrise.

HUMUNGOUS (think bigger than the cake) thank-you's to everyone who was involved. It truly was the most spectacular and magical experience Planet Cake has ever been involved in and none of it could have happened without the following people:

No.1 Our Volunteers!

Abeni Lawback, Amanda Eising, Belinda Smith, Deanne Cesario, Elizabeth Wright, Gemma Jennings, Jade Nguyen, Kate Jordan, Katrina Baldwin, Leticia Euston, Linda Hemmert, Marnee Pirri, Merlinda Montano, Meysienti Supandi, Michelle Arvaj, Morina Sutedja, Razilla King, Shannon De Costa, Trudy Harris, Vicki Keith and Laura Smith

And of course the entire PC crew who you know and love...together we really did make magic!

Some of the final moments of production

Just four of the hundreds of miniature people

A very special volunteer whom we were very sad to say goodbye to

Margie helps Betty to relax ?

A tired, yet VERY happy Paris

Finally making it into the truck

AM, Margie and Paris discuss the possibility of the cake not making it out of the truck!

At last...eating the fruits of our labour!!

Special Delivery

2011-01-24T15:09:00.000+11:00

That's right folks, Planet Cake is now available in German!

2011-01-24T13:42:00.002+11:00

Check out all the mayhem on Planet Cake TV

http://www.youtube.com/user/PlanetCakeTV

This cake really just might work!

2011-01-24T13:41:00.001+11:00

We are heading into the pointy end of things and as we speak the magic is taking place. It's that special moment when we go from chocolate blob to seriously cool cake.

Yep, it really just might work out after all...now if only we could find a truck big enough to carry it...seriously!

World's largest Opera House cake ganached? Tick!

2011-01-24T12:49:00.000+11:00

I was greeted by some seriously wan faces this morning when I came into the awesome sight of what looks like it really could become the worls'd largest Opera House cake. The whole crew was here until late into the evening and back for a 6am start, but the fatigue has paid off (I'm not game to tell them that just yet!) and they are already underway with the covering.

I love these pics of the guys in their overalls, the place really does look like a scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and with the amount of sugar I've comsumed already I'm beginning to feel a little like I'm in one myself!

Kind of like a grown up version of making mud pies?

Jean Michel and his reference, roughly one millionth of the size of our cake

Our youngest volunteer, the very lovely Laura

Ganache -tick!!

THANK YOU!! Model-Tech 3D

2011-01-24T10:43:00.001+11:00

Planet Cake would like to thank specialist architectural model makers Model-Tech 3D based in Surry Hills Sydney for their help and support in making the Worlds Largest Opera House Cake!!

THANK YOU Russell! http://modeltech3d.com.au/

2011-01-20T13:37:00.000+11:00

KATRINA BALDWIN (left)

Where are you from? Manly, Sydney

How long have you been decorating for? I discovered my passion for decorating when I bought Planet Cake's first book about a year ago and after completing Basics 102 last year am now totally addicted!

What inspired you to join the Opera House team? Basically I saw the whole project as a really great learning experience...and for free...who could say no?!

Favourite Simpson's character? Definately the Comic Book Guy

DEANNE CESSARIO (right)

Where are you from? Sydney's eastern Suburbs

What possessed you to get involved this week? I made the decision this year to take part in a once-in-a-lifetime experience, be it hanging from the Eiffel Tower or trekking the Himalaya's. When I saw the project advertised I jumped at it, knowing this is something I will definately never have the oppurtunity to take part in again.

The biggest challenge you've faced this week? Finding a babysitter!

Definately no 'piece of cake'

2011-01-20T12:29:00.000+11:00

For those who think cake decorating is all sugar, spice and all things nice, think again....

Did we mention that it's about a thousand degrees outside this week?

Betty and Margie trying to hide from us in the 'Styro Cave'

Meet Team "Soprano"

2011-01-20T11:54:00.001+11:00

Quite frankly I'm a little sick of all these photo's of us and I'm sure you guys are too, so today it is with great pleasure that I present to you, our fabulous volunteers!

First up, let me introduce to some of the gals from group 1, 'Team Soprano'.

http://www.sopranofamily.com/sopranos_wallpaper.html

Meet Kate, Amanda and Belinda. While chatting to them this morning, I learned that these three QLD babes met via the social cake network (including our own Tea Party forum) and have since become firm friends. In fact Kate and Amanda were great mates before they even clapped eyes on each other! Stories like this absolutely thrill this little vegemite...let's stick together fellow cake-lovers!

AMANDA EISING (middle)

Where are you from? Boyne Island, Central QLD

What possessed you to volunteer with our crazy lot? After completing several courses with Planet Cake I was just so excited to have the oppurtunity to work alongside such a talented group of decorators.

How long have you been decorating cakes? Actually I'm relatively new to cake decorating and only began about 12 months ago after enrolling in Cupcake Bootcamp in Brisbane. After three days of cupcakes I knew this was exactly where I wanted to be and enrolled in the Basics Foundation and Intermediate quick-smart! I now run my own decorating business on Boyne Island, Cake Delish (sorry I couldn't help myself from a bit of shameless self-promotion!)

What has been the most challenging part of this week so far? To be honest I think I'm still in the honeymoon phase and just so excited about being here that I feel completely relaxed about the whole thing (although that could be because I know if I get lost you guys will tell me what to do!)

KATE JORDAN (left)

What's been the biggest challenge for you this week? There's just no room for nerves this week and to be totally honest we're just so pumped to be here! But that said I have to admit I found working with styrofoam for the first time really difficult, who knew sawing through even just squares of styro was such hard work?!

Claim to Fame: Kate came up with the team name (love it) and labelled our store room the 'Styro Cave' (very apt I must say...I know my locker is in there somewhere!)

Day 2 - Get Your Ganache On!

2011-01-19T19:23:00.000+11:00

Our volunteers get a glimpse of what is to come... these fab PC recruits literally spent hours today making the ganache for the Opera House Cake which weighed roughly the same amount as 5 Kylie Minogue's!

Adam, Margie, Betty, Stuart and Anna Maria enjoy what could possibly be their last glimpse of sunlight for the week!

It is highly possible Adam and Paris are actually sleeping on their feet behind those glasses...

Day One - Kick Off!

2011-01-18T20:51:00.000+11:00

We've been talking the talk for months now and today was the day to walk that walk! Dressed kill and ready for action (well as ready as we will ever be) the official Opera House team met our 20 fab volunteers today whom have flown in from all over the country to be part of the project.

We were mega excited to meet our group of uber-talented volunteers, all of whom have been painstakingly, hand-selected by team leader, Betty (above). After an initial meet and greet, thankfully, during which no one ran screaming from the building (and yes we were prepared it) we surprised the guys with a field trip to the Opera House itself. While we're all familiar with iconic landmark, to actually visit it is truly something spectacular. Our aim, besides an oppurtunity to sing bus songs, was to get the guys to really appreciate just how epic this project is and get a sense of the absolute magic of this architectural masterpiece.

With our mission accomplished it was back to PC to really get cracking on the nuts and bolts of how the next week is going to go...that said, we still have absolutely no idea ourselves!

It was definately one long, red bull fuelled day, only the first of many, and I know for a fact there are more than a couple of staff members at home this very minute quietly sipping a strong drink or two, but I for one know I will sleep well tonight knowing that our coolest, craziest, by-far-the-most-ambitious project to date has begun!

Meet the team !

In an effort to keep herself sane, Cat dons Margie's latest souvenir from NZ (yep they are what you think they are...AND they're made fromp possum fur)

1 Sleep to Go!

2011-01-17T13:32:00.002+11:00

Adam & Ritzy get a first look at the size of the cake boards for the Opera House cake. Did we mention it's going to be BIG?!

Wallpapering our office

Even my desk has turned into a bit of a tribute

Yep...this is actually the floor plan

Margie and Talin get busy

The Project Opera House seems to have snuck up on us a little bit the way Christmas tends to, one day it's three months off and before you know it there's only one sleep to go! Here is the first sneak peek at what's to come! I. Am. So. Excited!!!!

2011-01-15T15:06:00.000+11:00

Basics Foundation Day 1

You know those weeks that come along every now and again that literally knock you sideways and leave you grasping for the pinot? Sound familiar? Well, even we of the cake world have weeks such as these, with this one being the shining example. Not that anything went wrong, or even got close, it was just one of those times when the fruits of much labour all seemed to culminate at once in an almighty bang! But if you follow us regularly you'll know that this is pretty much how we roll and we wouldn't have it any other way (okay maybe not ALL the time!) I see weeks like these as a great example of just how tight our team is, and I love watching the magic that can all too often come from chaos...not too unlike the Big Bang Theory really.

Amid the madness of deadlines and melting cake (this humidity is pretty much cake kryptonite) we also held our first Basics Foundation for the year, with one of the lovliest groups I have had the pleasure of meeting. I have a love-hate relationship with our foundation course, in that I love the oppurtunity to get to know our students a little more over the course of a week, but I then hate it when they go! This super-talented bunch were treated to lessons from Stuart and Adam and produced some truly great work. Can't wait to see you guys again soon!

Day 2 with Stuart

Day 5 and the Magnolia Cake with Adam (looking at this photo we all realised just how tall Adam is!)

...And someone not so vertically blesed - Ritzy and her larger-than-life cake

As always however, the Dream Team came through with their usual brilliance. I am in love with this Elvis cake!

No we're not employing minors, the fabulous Betty's youngest stopped by this week for a lesson from Adam

Seven Sleeps to Go...

2011-01-10T15:07:00.002+11:00

There's only seven sleeps to go until commencement on the world's biggest Opera House Cake. Nervous excitement is rising and we're all a little curious about just how this thing is going to go, but with some of the world's finest decorators, a staff 'Dream Team' and twenty enthusiastic volunteers, how can we go wrong...right?!