Lazy, rainy day

It is raining here today...again, our summer here has been quite soggy and dreary. I am still taking it easy and so have spent the whole day darting from site to site on the net.

I started fixating on cake decorating half way through the day. As a child, I wanted to become a cake decorator, and the other day, I saw a course was being held at Lismore. I was  in a crazy, risk taking mood and told myself that I would pay up to $150 for the course.  However, I was in for a surprise when they told me it was $300 for an eight hour lesson, plus I would have to supply, cakes, biscuits, icing, icing colours, gum paste, rolling pin, measuring cups, spatulas and other items. Anything else?

Of course that prompted me to do a little research. Being of a thrifty nature,  I am fully capable of learning cake decorating from the internet! In my perusing, I came across somebody that has been described as the Manolo Blanik  of cake decorators, Ron Ben-Israel. Really his skill and vision belies belief!

All of the flowers are sugar! Most cakes I found that were comparable used fresh flowers, nobody came anywhere near the skill of this man!

These are both cakes! The first is part of a Mad Hatters Tea Party range of cakes, the other, a massive cake urn with a gorgeous cascade of flowers, complete with green frogs and butterflies.

Oprah and Martha Stewart are his mates. He is the darling of the New York entertainment scene.There is also a blog by his off-sider, NY Cake Girl which has lots of fabulous behind the scenes tidbits for cake decorating wannabees like me, including tutorials. I particularly like the process pictures on his facebook page.

I started off thinking I could make a (daggy) rose or two to adorn a sunken cupcake, but ye gods, the bar has risen so high, I think I shall give up before I even start. 

Hmm he makes it look so easy