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Day of Sharing 2012
Capital Confectioners would like to thank all our demonstrators, vendors, donors, volunteers, and audience members for making our 2012 Day of Sharing so wonderful! Our 2012 theme was Holidays. Here’s a re-cap for those who had to miss out (we missed you too!):
First up was Austin’s own Yvette Humbert, who shared her techniques for making “New Year’s Eve” party heels using tulle. This kit and several more are available on her website here.
Next was Dawn Parrott from Houston and her filigree Christmas ornaments piped with Royal Icing. Be sure to check out her new dvds!
Kathleen Lange showed us several Lambeth techniques to sweeten up any Valentine’s day. Kathleen travels throughout the country with her special Lambeth Boot Camp classes.
For a special mom-to-be, here is Ximena Sempertegui‘s chic baby carriage cake topper. Her kits are available through her website here.
Last but not least was Alan Dunn‘s Fall Floral display. We were thrilled to have Alan visit from across the pond. Alan introduced us to working with cold porcelain.
For lunch we had some absolutely scrumptious tacos from the Peached Tortilla. If a craving hits you, check out their website for their food truck locations!
Thank you to all the club members and volunteers who contributed to the holiday treat filled dessert table!
Congratulations to our own Ellen Cromwell for winning this year’s “Heart of the Club” award! Ellen, thank you for all that you do for us!
Thanks again for all who attended! Here is our photo slide show:
Silly.
Cake Wrecks Book Tour
November 15, 2011
Austin, TX
Austin, TX
Cake Wrecks, the famous blog of professional cakes gone bad, finished up its second book tour across the USA. They were promoting their latest book, Wreck the Halls, just in time for the “Hole Days”. Capital Confectioners was there to make sure we represent.
We had a gut-busting good time! Jen and John Yates, authors of Cake Wrecks, had several slide shows of unimaginable cakes and fun stories to share with us. Each book tour stop involved a cupcake wreck-plica contest and a local bakery that volunteered to feed the masses. There were so many fantastic cupcakes! Here are a few:
Blue Note Bakery from south Austin shared her “cake bars”, showing some true Austin colors.
The entire night, this handsome guy kept staring back at us:
This is Hugh Jackman’s head by Kimberly Chapman over at http://www.eat-the-evidence.com/. Pop over there for a better back story!
This really was a fun night, lots of laughs and sugar! We’re hoping Jen and John will be back in town in February for our annual “That Takes The Cake” Sugar Art Show & Cake Competition. Here’s the entire photo gallery:
As promised at our last club meeting and in my previous post, here’s a tutorial on how to make a really gross zombie-skin cake:
Capital Confectioners’ volunteers are still busy wrapping up Day of Sharing details and already on to planning for 2012′s That Takes the Cake! Show, and I’m plugging away at a booklet and other details for my Gummy class in a week and a half, so there’s no time for a themed post right now. So here are some fun links I found today in no particular order:
- She Wears many Hats has a fun, summery entry in the Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Treat Challenge with her Fruity Rice Krispies Kebabs (via bakingaddiction on Twitter).
- Sweet Sugarbelle has yet another genius trick to share: using a pin to mark placement of Hello Kitty eyes and mouth. She also previously shared this technique with her Lego Man cookies. For the record, you can use a similar technique to transfer patterns for carving Jack-O-Lanterns for Halloween: print out your pattern, then use either a pin or a sharp-pointed pounce wheel (that’s the tool name for a toothed wheel on a stick, usually metal, but there are plastic ones for gumpaste used to mimic stitch lines) along the edges of the pattern over your pumpkin to transfer the design in a way that can’t be seen once it has been carved, lit, and put out in the dark night. I use this technique every year for my Jack-O-Lanterns (and yes I’ve neglected to update that page, more recent ones can be found on my blog with the jackolanterns tag).
- BrownEyedBaker posted a recipe for S’mores Cupcakes.
- Celebrations.com has a summery faux-food take on cupcakes by Dollhouse Bake Shoppe: Snow Cone Cupcakes (via CraftGossip).
- Jote of Bless Her Heart posted a recipe for Mrs. Medford’s Ginger Creams. I think I just revealed my Austin Mama affiliations with that link!
- Lastly, the dessert that made me squee with delight when I saw it on CraftGossip this morning: Weelicious has the most darling little peek-a-boo Strawberries and Cream “Elves”.
PS With peaches in season, I’ve been gathering a list of peach recipes. If you’ve got one, email me or post a comment here and it might get featured on a later post! Friday’s post will feature recipes from Day of Sharing, so if you donated a dessert and want to share your recipe, send it to me at press AT capitalconfectioners dot com.
I need to put in some serious hours today towards a collaborative showpiece cake and my demonstration for Capital Confectioners’ Day of Sharing but I saw two more fun Fourth of July treats I just had to share, both via CraftGossip:
- Marshmallows, fruit roll-ups, and Starburst candies become Patriotic Pops in the hands of Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons.
- Nifty Red, White and Blue Raspberry Candy Bars by Cherry Tea Cakes.
Also, Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canucks! This also marks the third anniversary of my family’s arrival in Austin. I shall now celebrate both by going into the kitchen to make a bunch of fondant monkey torsos and some more gummy goodness, all for Day of Sharing. Hope to see you there!
I found more Fourth of July goodies to share, and I’m sure more will come over the weekend as well. However, since all of the core volunteers at Capital Confectioners are working like crazy to present an amazing Day of Sharing, blog posts are going to be a little less frequent as we approach that date.
For now here are some more Independence Day desserts:
- First, the amazing Sweet Sugarbelle shows you how to make plastic templates to make fun little rocket cookies. She also partnered with Glorious Treats to whip up a tutorial on making star-shaped stained glass cookies. Both of these techniques are widely adaptable, so bookmark them for future use!
- Apparently featuring the irrepressible 1 Fine Cookie in the previous Quick Bites post inspired her to look into Canada Day desserts along with more Independence Day fun with Pop Rock Cupcakes with Fireworks Truffle Toppers.
- Going for a beach picnic this long weekend? Take some of Munchkin Munchies’ cute little Burger Bites Cookies or Bake at 350′s nifty Fried Chicken cookies. If you can’t go to an actual beach, you can still use that theme at your party with help from Diamonds For Dessert’s lovely Sand Dollar Cookies (via CraftGossip).
- If you’d like some healthier fare, Bakers Royale made some Fruit Dessert Pops with creative use of cutters (via CraftGossip). If you’d like to start out with healthy fruit and then do things to it that make it less healthy but extra fun, fANNEtastic Food has a great suggestion for strawberries at the bottom of this post and Tidy Mom shows you how to make Red White & Blue Candy Apples.
- Lastly, check out Sweetology 101′s adorable School House Rock I’m Just A Bill Cupcake. I love that song, and being the awful nerd that I am, I love some of the parodies even more. But I’ll let interested parties look those up themselves…
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