Capital Confectioners,

I have loved being a Capital Confectioner (almost) from the very beginning! I’ve been decorating, teaching Wilton, and a club member for 8 years now, and I owe so much to the club and the WONDERFUL and incredibly (unbelievably, really) talented and generous people I’ve met through the club.

Alas, it’s [...]]]>

Capital Confectioners,

I have loved being a Capital Confectioner (almost) from the very beginning! I’ve been decorating, teaching Wilton, and a club member for 8 years now, and I owe so much to the club and the WONDERFUL and incredibly (unbelievably, really) talented and generous people I’ve met through the club.

Alas, it’s time for me to leave Austin where I’ve called home for 20 years. If you haven’t heard, we’re expecting our third boy(!) in August, and we’ll be moving to Andrews, TX (near Midland) this summer. That means…

I have to part with much of my cooking, baking, decorating, serving, displaying, etc. tools before we move. We will have a series of yard sales, eventually selling almost everything, but this wkd., I’ll be clearing out most of my extra cake stuff at good prices. Many Wilton and other brand products, cake dummies, some stands, NICE kitchen stuff (crystal), some appliances. The Yard Sale is Sat., 4/21 8:00am-Noon, but you are invited to a special Open House “Pre-Sale” this Fri., 4/20 11:30am-1:30pm & 6:00-8:00pm South Austin (off William Cannon near Manchaca).

It will be like a fun party where you can shop, too… I want my stuff to go to good homes! I’ll have tea, coffee & dessert ready. Kids are welcome. Hope to see many of you there so we can catch up… rsvp for the address & so I have enough sweets. Thank you, and I’ll miss you very much!

Theresa Pipes
text or call (512) 293-7476
theresapipes@hotmail.com

I’ve posted a slightly updated version of my gummy tutorial/recipe on my food blog (it used to just be on my website), including a photo-free version for easier printing.

Basic Gummy Recipe and Tutorial

RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/cakedecorating-132/events/54137192/

Capital Confectioners Club Monthly Meetup
Tuesday, April 10, 2012, 7:00 PM
Make it Sweet
9070 Research Blvd, Austin, TX

The meeting starts off with introductions and club business and ends with a dessert and a demonstration.

This month’s demonstration will be by Ellen and Chris [...]]]>

RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/cakedecorating-132/events/54137192/

Capital Confectioners Club Monthly Meetup
Tuesday, April 10, 2012, 7:00 PM
Make it Sweet
9070 Research Blvd, Austin, TX

The meeting starts off with introductions and club business and ends with a dessert and a demonstration.

This month’s demonstration will be by Ellen and Chris Cantrell: techniques for wedding cupcakes.

Dessert will be brought by Suzanne Sabin.

PLEASE NOTE THE NEW LOCATION! Henceforth we’ll be meeting at the new location of Make it Sweet (formerly All in One BakeShop) at the Crossroads Shopping Center, 9070 Research Boulevard, Austin, TX 78758-7004. This is just down the street from their previous location. They are located between Pluckers and Tabu (if you look on a Google Street Maps view, it’s where the furniture store used to be).

New folks always welcome! We’re okay with people checking us out a few times before signing up for membership, so come on by and see what we’re up to.

Looking for more photos from our recent show? We collect visitor photos in our Flickr pool each year. This year’s link is here:

2012 – Cake-a-lot

Pools from previous years:

2011 – Superheroes and Super villains

2010 – Cake Odyssey

General Capital Confectioners Pool

The 8th Annual “That Takes The Cake”
Sugar Art Show & Cake Competition
February 25th – 26th, 2012
Austin, Texas

The 2012 Show Theme:
Cake-a-lot: Knights of the Turn Table
All things Renaissance!

I think most people would agree [...]]]>

The 8th Annual “That Takes The Cake”
Sugar Art Show & Cake Competition
February 25th – 26th, 2012
Austin, Texas

The 2012 Show Theme:
Cake-a-lot: Knights of the Turn Table
All things Renaissance!

I think most people would agree that 2012 was our best show yet!  Capital Confectioners would like to thank all our guests, vendors, sponsors, instructors, judges and volunteers for making that happen.  We’ve heard so many positive comments from our attendees, we’re all still glowing!  Now that we’ve had a few days to recover, we’d love to share our experiences.

Volunteers

This event could not be a success without our small army of dedicated volunteers who put in so much time, love, and care into making this one of the best cake shows in the nation.  Club and non-club members, local and not-so-local people … we love you all!  Thank you so much for giving your time and talents.

Vendors

We are very fortunate to have such a variety of cake-related vendors attend our show.  We hope our attendees loaded up on goodies and toys!

Raffles

Speaking of goodies, who went home with all the raffle prizes I wanted?!?  There were so many wonderful items this year, I’m sure everyone had a hard time choosing which to put their tickets in.

Classes

If a meteor hit Austin, the cake world would be devastated!  We had so many talented instructors bring their tips and tricks to our show.  We hope you enjoyed the many available mini and celebrity classes with world-famous sugar art instructors.

On-site Events

2012 featured our first Texas Cake Club Challenge!  We invited teams of 2 from Texan cake clubs to compete in a Royal Wedding themed on-site event.  This year showcased the Dallas Cake Club, Friendly Frosters (Lubbock), and our own Capital Confectioners.  Each team had 3 hours to create a wedding cake fit for a king!  The special twist was that each team got the assistance of a local Connally High School student with remarkable experience in cake decorating.

The Celebrity Panel Demonstration on Sunday featured Mike McCarey, Lauren Kitchens, Marina Sousa, Jay Qualls, James Rosselle, Roland and Marsha Winbeckler.  The Panel theme this year was “Cake Wrecks to Sunday Sweets”.  Each demonstrator was challenged to take a popular cake from Cake Wrecks and show the audience how to turn it into a fabulous looking cake.

Tasting Competition

Our special sponsor for 2012 was King Arthur Flour.  Winners of our tasting competition enjoyed several prizes including gift certificates to purchase King Arthur Flour products.  Competition categories included: birthday cakes, cupcakes, Renaissance cakes, and cookie.

Best of Tasting Competition
Angela Pineda

Divisional Competition

We had over 300 competition entries this year!  Here are the “Best of Division” winners:

Best of Division: Teen
Evelyn Santos

Best of Division: Culinary Student
Shana Newell

Best of Division: Adult Beginner
Natalie Elliott

Best of Division: Adult Intermediate AND
Best of Divisional Competition (overall)
Palma Felicias Iacobellis

Best of Division: Adult Advanced
Diana Parrish

Best of Division: Professional
Joy Iverson

Best of Division: Masters
Michelle Foster

Show Cakes

There were so many exciting Show Cakes this year.

Show Cakes: 3rd Place
Sylvia Wilson

Show Cakes: 2nd Place
Burton Farnsworth

Show Cakes: 1st Place
Elizabeth Rowe

 You can view all of this year’s winners on our slide show here:

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddfwq3tp_7gw7hgxf8

Hope you had a great time!  We’re excited to announce next year’s theme:

Cake to the Air

All Clear for Cake Off!

I happened to be looking for something else on CraftGossip and accidentally lingered looking at some lovelies. So even though I rarely have time to post Quick Bites anymore (since they turned out not to be very quick on my end!), here are a few gems:

What a whirlwind the last few days have been!  We hope everyone enjoyed our annual That Takes The Cake Sugar Art Show and Cake Competition.  In the next few days we’ll be posting all about the fun we had and the friends we made.  Here’s just a quick note about the raffle prizes for [...]]]>

What a whirlwind the last few days have been!  We hope everyone enjoyed our annual That Takes The Cake Sugar Art Show and Cake Competition.  In the next few days we’ll be posting all about the fun we had and the friends we made.  Here’s just a quick note about the raffle prizes for those that might have missed out.

All of the unclaimed raffle prize winners have been accounted for and have provided their contact information on the back of their winning tickets.  We have already contacted the majority of our unclaimed prize winners.  Thank you so very much for participating!

FYI, I just made a blog post about eye placement on snowmen cookies, and they happen to be the cookies I brought to the Capital Confectioners holiday party, so you all ate these crazy things.

The Subtleties of Eye Placement

The following is a request from club member Angela:

Oakleaf Cakes made a life-sized Storm Trooper cake for a sci-fi convention. Even better, they photographed many steps along the way so if you’ve ever wondered what kind of structures are inside one of these amazing cakes, go check out their blog entry and photo slideshow here.

I considered sharing an image but [...]]]>

Oakleaf Cakes made a life-sized Storm Trooper cake for a sci-fi convention. Even better, they photographed many steps along the way so if you’ve ever wondered what kind of structures are inside one of these amazing cakes, go check out their blog entry and photo slideshow here.

I considered sharing an image but a) I’m lazy b) I’m busy and most importantly c) I really want you to go look at their page!