Cake Camp 2015 Las Vegas

Cake Camp, the name alone excites me.  Cake, shopping, Vegas... What's not to like?  Green Valley Ranch was a first class resort and everything was very easy and convenient. But I'm most impressed with the California Cake Club for putting on such a high quality and low stress conference!  The ICES convention had, in my opinion, gotten too hung up on protocol and the quality of the demonstrations suffered. Cake Camp was so much more professional and offered almost exclusively hands-on mini classes (3-4 hours) with 8-12 students, rather than 1-hour demonstrations with 50-75 people. The instructors were all world class sugar artists and the best in the business. Plus, the vendors were all decorators themselves and sold only high quality products. I am already looking forward to (and saving $ for) the next cake camp in 2017! 

Another trifecta on the way to Vegas...two bakers baking at our stop in Baker. My assistant Emma was a great travel buddy! 

Ruth Rickey provided an awesome class making gum paste plumeria flowers (obviously, a favorite around here). Thank you for the game-changing tips on assembling sugar flowers!

Below, Ruth's suggested "basic kit" for petal dust. I loved that this is the same way that I store all my colors...I thought it was brilliant when I came up with it. Ha ha! 

My most helpful class was a discussion about booking wedding clients with my new hero Lauren Kitchens from Fancy Cakes by Lauren. She is so inspiring, yet real, honest and down to earth.  Poor Emma got tired of hearing all the advice from Lauren that I plan to implement in the studio this year!  I think I have a little crush. 

We also loved the wafer paper flower class using printed wafer paper and heart shape cutouts. Why didn't I think of that? 

Marina Sousa today from Just Cake instructed us on making a "Chalkboard Cake."  Not a bad first attempt with "Fondarific" fondant made with buttercream... tastes pretty good, but hard to work with.  I can't wait to start experimenting at home. 

The last class was from my local hero, Lindsay Sinatra from A Wish and a Whisk bakery in Costa Mesa. We made a darling mini cake with a ballerina theme: 

Cake Camp was a sugar-coated blast! I am thrilled to be back home, armed with some new tricks to practice in my own bakery. Until next time!