Please come see us. We have so much fun in our classes it borders on ridiculous!

The Pearland Cake Society will be having a Day of Sharing on May 3, 2009 in Alvin, Tx (suburb of Houston.)

On the 4th, I will be teaching 2 mini classes: a 2D carved fish and a stack of 2 books cake. You can sign up for one or both classes. Click here for all the info:

       http://www.pearlandcakesociety.com/

                                   Or email with questions: lopezclarissa2@aol.com

Please join us for the fun! I hope to see you there!

Sharon
www.sugaredproductions.com

I have finally gotten a chance to sit down and post pictures of the Flowers and Fancies class that Jen Dontzand I teach together all over this great land. We arrived in KY one week after they had a historically bad ice storm. Something like 20,000 power lines were out and many homes had tree damage. Donna, pictured below, just got her power restored a few days before we arrived.

Me (looking haggard after 2 days of teaching), Donna, and Jen.

Jen and I co-teach the class. We make a 2 tier fully decorated cake and 2 large gumpaste flowers. I teach the cake part and Jen teaches the flowers. And she rocks at gumpaste flowers. The “big” names have got nothing on her.

Here I am showing the gals how to put a tiny pearl edging on the sides of bow loops. What was I thinking picking that raggedy T shirt to wear? Make up stain on the sleeve and all. I need to stop getting dressed in the dark.

On the left you see Sheet Cake County Susan, who is trying to introduce new techniques and ideas to her clientele. On the right is Jennifer, who has a dessert shop/bakery and is expanding to custom cakes. I want to chop off her hair and transplant it onto my head. Think she will notice?

Left is Kentucky Megan (Mee-gan, not Meg-an). She is a doll and a cake making machine. You should see the wonderful cakes she cranks out every week. On the right is Jode. She is gorgeous, and has a daughter who is a Radio City Rockette. How cool is that? And guess what; Jode taught her how to high kick! Love it.

Susan: Please don’t hurt me with that thing.

Jen: It’s just a big clay gun.

Susan: Please put it away. It is scaring me.

 

 

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Let me tell you a little story of something that happened. On the first day, Jen starts teaching the gumpaste flowers. She calls all the kids to the back of the room, and shows them how to use the electric pasta roller to roll out their paste for the flowers. She makes a special note on cleaning it, and gives them a very clear warning not to try to clean the machine with a paper towel while the rollers are moving. It can very easily get sucked into the rollers, jam it, and break the pin on the inside. It happened the last time we taught the class. It was still under warranty and Kitchen Aid was kind enough to replace it. She wanted to make sure they were all especially careful not to have that happen again.

 

 

So she goes back up to the front of the class, the kids go back to their tables to work, and Donna and I are assigned to stay in the back and roll out all the pieces of gumpaste the kids will need to cut out their flower parts. So Donna and I get our groove going, a little assembly line, and we are kicking gumpaste butt. The pasta roller starts to get a little gunky from all the use. Donna turns it off, starts to wipe it down. There was still some residue hanging behind. I go wet a paper towel and the rest is a blur to me. Somehow that machine turned itself on, and the wet paper towel jumped out my hand right onto the top of the moving rollers. Before I could blink, the towel is jammed in there tight; the machine comes to a groaning halt, and is jammed.

 

 

Sharon in a panicked whisper: Shit!

Donna: What?

Sharon: Shit shit shiiiiiiiiiiit!

Donna: What happened?

Sharon: I jammed the damn machine. OMG she is going to kill me.

 

 

Then Donna and I circle the wagons around the machine so Jen won’t notice what we are doing. We try frantically to get the paper towel out of there with brushes, spatulas, wires. It ain’t budging. I drop a few F bombs under my breath, sweating bullets in fear and panic, while Donna and I try furiously to un-jam the thing. Of course a few stressed giggles leak out too, and we are certain Jen is going to call us out from the front of the class. But thankfully she just keeps teaching on.

 

After a few more unsuccessful minutes, I detach the roller from the KA machine, cover it with something lame I cannot remember, and casually take it into the enclosed kitchen attached to the classroom. Sharon thinks running hot water over the towel will help it disintegrate and come out of the rollers. Any idiot knows that water makes paper towels swell and expand, so guess what? That brilliant idea did not work. I am scraping and shaving minuscule pieces of paper out of the microscopic space between the 2 rollers for about 6 hours, with no success. Right at this time, a big burly plumber man comes into the kitchen. (We were in a pipe fitters’ hall). I immediately turn to the poor unsuspecting bloke who came in to refill his coffee cup and beg him to help me get this out or my friend is going to have my head. Since pipe fitter guys are so historically nice, he of course took over. He worked that thing over like nobody’s business. He scraped at it with a knife for about 20 minutes and slowly got tiny piece by piece out. He is doing this in the metal sink, and proceeds to make huge clunking and metal banging noises as the pasta roller hits the sink over and over again. A couple of times Jen calls in to me: “Hey, what the heck is going on in there?” I ignored her as sweat soaked my ratty, make up stained T shirt.

 

Soon it becomes evident, that even if Pipe Man gets the stuff out, the rollers are terribly scratched and I will have to replace the machine. No big deal. I will get her a new one. Just as long as we can still use this one for the next 2 days of class, all will be well. After about a millennium, the nice man gets all the paper towel out. The rollers are forever scratched, but I figure I can tell Jen about this later on and just buy her a new one. I give the man a big piece of pumpkin cake (that Jen made for lunch) and thank him profusely. I wanted to jump on his burly neck and hug him but I refrained.

 

Dead Silence.

Here is Jen at the “dusting” table with some students, applying dust to their flower parts.

Flower parts.

Beautiful expecting mom Starr with her beautiful peony.

Starr’s beautiful mom, Patty, who better have raised her prices by now. Or else!

And here we all are with the students’ beautiful creations. The only person you have not met yet is Rebecca, on the far left. She is a librarian. You know how anal librarians are. Rebecca invented the word anal. The reason she is not in any of the pics is because she was busy either transcribing notes in real time into her laptop or redoing something on her cake for the 5th time. All joking aside, she is a good pal of mine, and an impeccable decorator. Love ya, Reb!

And if you do join us, please bring me coffee. Hot coffee. With cream and equal. Make sure it’s hot. Dear Lord what have I gotten myself into?

Hope to see you there!

Sharon

http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

Student to bring some supplies

Email SugarEd for more info and full supply list!
szcakes3@aol.com