Planet Cake Update - Week Ending 14.02.09

Hello Everyone

I hope everything is well in your world, it has been a really sad week in Australia and all our thoughts have been with our friends in Victoria this week as we have seen the fires unfold on the news. Fran McGregor who lives in Melbourne has assured me that communities and survivors are already working together and starting to re-build and go home, it is very uplifting to hear. On a far less dramatic note this week at Planet Cake, Handi & Anna Maria managed to teach 2 workshops.

I attended the opening of ESMOD a French fashion school opening in Darlinghurst in Sydney on Tuesday night. It was a great night, the school itself was fabulous and the opening event was attended by every fashionista in Sydney. Our cake (made by Anna Maria) was at centre stage and cut by celebrity fashion designer Akira Isagowa.

The cakes this week were absolutely sensational, Anna Maria surpassed herself first up was some corporate cakes for Westpac, travelling to Brisbane and Maitland, using a combination of cut-outs for the big cake and edible images for the cupcakes tags, Anna Maria did a great job and the client was thrilled. The double newspaper stack looked incredible, the client was delighted as it was for a 70^th birthday and the client loved the SMH. The vegetable cupcakes we so gorgeous I found myself cooing over the cupcakes we made for a Green Grocer, I thought the potato was by far the cutest. Then we moved on to our big cakes this week, both of which made me laugh a lot during the course of making them, Anna Maria did a fabulous job with these cakes, both in the detail and the difficulty, they looked awesome.

After making a few million cakes Anna Maria taught a piping workshop on Friday afternoon, I love the piping workshops b/c the students always get a thrill from all the different techniques AM teaches and how much they gain in such a short space of time.

Have a great weekend everyone, enjoy your decorating. Our new forum and members lounge is still being worked on and should be ready shortly, it is coming!!

It was wonderful meeting so many students this week, thank you for the magic.

Paris Cutler

PLANET CAKE UPDATE - WEEK ENDING 27.12.08

Hello Everyone

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas, I certainly did and my Christmas Lunch went like a treat, thanks to all my advisors! Please take note there that I have listed a new Foundation course in May for the disappointed students who missed out on the January one.

Planet Cake had a fabulous mention in arguably the biggest and most popular wedding blog in the world, Style Me Pretty, or to those in the know just SMP http://www.stylemepretty.com/2008/12/22/smp-lovesplanet-cake/ please feel free to post some comments!

We had a bit of an odd we this week as we only had 3 Days of production, Anna Maria and Jess made some gorgeous cakes and did some prep for next week, Anna Maria produced one of the most beautiful cakes we have produced for a while and also one of the most unusual!

If you want some cake inspiration check out Amy Atlas http://amyatlas.com/index.php/main/ only specializing in dessert tables, she does a really beautiful job.

Warm Fuzzy: Ronni Kahn the Founder of Oz Harvest in Australia, rang me to give me some feed back as to where our Charity Cupcake Drive cupcakes ended up. Ronni said she took 400 out to Macquarie Fields an outer suburb in Sydney, which has extremely high unemployment and poverty rate and distributed them to the local children as part of a little Christmas party they organized. She said that the children were just overwhelmed and loved them, they were a serious treat and guarded protectively, thank you again to everyone involved.

Have a great weekend everyone, see you next week!

Best wishes


Paris

PLANET CAKE - WEEK ENDING 13.12.08

Hello Everyone

Sydneysiders I hope you are enjoying the heat! It is about 34 degrees and windy, I think Anna Maria’s edible decoration students had the right idea and stayed out of the heat and in the lovely air-conditioned environment of Planet Cake making some stunning Christmas decorations with Anna Maria today.

While the class was going on I was charged with the responsibility of delivering the Paspaley Polo cake to Centennial Park, this is the part of cake decorating that most people don’t think of when you think of cakes – the logistics. On a scale of 1-10 this delivery was definitely a 9. John my delivery driver and I had to walk the cake in (it is at least 1.3 meters high) in the baking heat at least half a kilometer. Apart from the incredible distance and stunning lack of assistance or help, there were other matters to contend with such as the flies and mud! After getting through the flies and mud still carrying the cake we then had to walk past the VIP marquee full of VIP’s sipping Moet, I do fear that we looked very much like sweaty delivery people covered in mud with a monster cake (funny that).

This was also the undisputed cake of the week with an incredible figurine by Margie, I doubt very much where you would see work of this kind anywhere else, the cake was a joint effort of Anna Maria and Handi – Incredible work guys, you made that delivery a lot better than it could have been.

The cakes this week were excellent and they just kept coming and coming, a gorgeous four tier by AM and designed by Antony was adored by the bride, a gorgeous cartoon figurine by Margie and lollipop cake by Handi made a graphic designers dream come true by bringing her illustration to life. The crazy scuba divers were created by Margie and cake by Handi the cake was flown to Brisbane, and my favourite this incredible 3D banana made by Margie for 7yo Finlay’s gorilla party – just awesome! Margies realistic bicycle and rider, was absolutely incredible and perfect for celebrating this kiwis sporting milestone of riding with the Italian Cycling Team.

Charity Cupcake Drive: Next Sunday is our annual Charity Cupcake Drive, we have already received 60 volunteer registrations. On Tuesday the football players Ryan Okeefe (Swans), Anthony Watamough (Manly) and Jude Bolton (Swans) came to Planet Cake to promote the Charity Cupcake Drive to the Media.

Apart from the media coverage and the support from the likes of these fabulous 3 we have had an incredible response to the drive. This year I have started a Blog which will be covering the lead up to the drive and the results. Check out http://xmas-cupcakes.blogspot.com/

Apart from a busy week Anna Maria was giving a private Madhatter tutorial to our latest student Abby, who has travelled all the way from Ireland especially for Planet Cake’s teaching. A fine result from Abby and a big thank you to Anna Maria.

Next posting 20.12.08 - then CC Drive!

Have a great week