Hopping and popping fun these school holidays!

Can't believe it's now Week 2, so the second term of school has well and truly started. Once again, as I sit here and reflect on the past school holiday program, I feel blessed to be doing what I do. What a wonderful school holiday program it really had been.

Personally, it was a tough fortnight as we farewelled our beloved family pet of sixteen years, but coming to class and seeing all of the smiling faces, the enthusiasm, excitement, anticipation and cheekiness, it really was a lovely distraction! I love teaching the kids to sugar sculpt and create something beautiful and yummy. It truly made me feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that I have made all these kids so happy.

Over sixty kids attended the school holiday program these holidays. As the Term One school holiday this year commenced with Easter, we decided to have an "Easter theme" for three of the four classes. The first session saw us creating a bird's nest. We created a rabbit in a hole for the second class, and in the final class, a gorgeous lop-eared bunny. By popular request, in one of the classes, we recreated the popcorn cupcake I taught at a recent Cake Me! kids birthday party.

There were so many highlights these holidays. It was so lovely seeing all the familiar faces and seeing how much they've grown since our last School Holiday Program. There were also so many new faces we met this time round. But to specifically name a few highlights: An eight year old student baked some chocolate chip cookies for me (they were delish!), one student travelled all the way from Traralgon just to attend my school holiday program, another student chose to celebrate her ninth birthday by coming to my class, and we were so lucky to have professional photographer Gavin Ferrier take photos of the kids in Session C & D (all photos have been made available to the parents and can be viewed in our gallery).

Finally, one particular highlight these holidays that I wanted to mention was that my daughter, who has been begging me to let her join our Cake Me! kids School Holiday Program, was finally old enough to participate. After attending the first session, she decided to come to all four sessions!! Since she had started Prep this year, I did feel some mummy-guilt thinking that I wasn't able to spend the ENTIRE school holiday with her - but in the end, I got to do just that :). What a bonus!!! My daughter loves cake and she loves fondant - given the opportunity, she would gladly eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. However she is also a hoarder, and will not eat her creations. So now on our kitchen bench are four new cupcakes that she's planning on displaying FOREVER.

What did your child do? Did they scoff their cupcakes down, or are they planning on saving theirs forever?!

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Special thanks to Lynn and Florence for assisting me with the School Holiday Program, and to Gavin Ferrier for the wonderful photos.

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Monkeying about with my minions these school holidays

Just over one hundred students attended our Cake Me! kids Term 3 School Holiday program, and what an incredible time we all had! The students ranged from five to 15 years of age, all with varying skills and abilities. A few students came with an impressive lot of experience with fondant, but mostly students had very little experience or none at all. It was lovely seeing so many familiar faces and also meeting a whole new bunch of wonderful kids.

As I explain to all my students, no matter if you're five years old, or eighteen years old, you can still attend these sessions and have so much to learn. Even for me, I find myself always improving upon my own skills. Whilst a five year old may be attempting to sugar sculpt a monkey's head, the eighteen year old could be making sure the monkey's head is smooth and wrinkle-free. Both kids might be creating monkeys, but they end up with very different results.

One of the youngest of the kids having a great time sugar sculpting

An eleven year old concentrating hard on perfecting his minion

A five year old proudly creating her minion

Week One of the school holiday program was so exciting for my cheeky monkeys and I, I mean, for my students and I. As requested by the students from my previous school holiday program, Week One saw us sugar sculpting monkeys. The class was quite intensive and we had so much we needed done in the ninety minute session.

One of my first-time students, C*, showed me a photo of an incredible animal cake she had recently made. Even though she was quite experienced with fondant, she was still blown away by the monkey she learnt to sculpt in our class.

Five year old K* with her seven year old brother

It was K*'s second time with us at the school holiday program, but this time she brought along her older brother. Although K* is only five years old, and her brother is 7, K was the "experienced" sibling, so she was even able to give her older brother some help with his monkey. Her skills had definitely improved since we last saw her, it is amazing how quickly these little ones grow and learn.

Eleven year old E*'s mum was hesitant when she dropped him off as she was worried he was too old for the class. I was so pleased that E loved the class so much that he signed up to a second class in Week Two and had an amazing time there too.

Minions were the theme for Week Two of the Cake Me! kids School Holiday Program.

The kids and I had a blast creating our minions - with the kids starting off following my instructions very carefully, and then giving their "Bobs, Stuarts and Kevins" its own personality. It was such a joy for me to see how confident the students were with experimenting and doing their own thing, after starting off being extremely cautious. By the end of the class, we had minions flexing their muscles, minions with their own bananas, afro-minion and minion girls complete with eyelashes.

My workshop series was small and intimate so I was able to give the students my undivided attention. As it was a workshop series, the students were able to learn from the very basics to more advanced sugar sculpting and cake decorating, and develop and build on their skills from the first class to the fourth class. I loved getting to really know these students. It was uplifting knowing that I had played a small part in their lives and inspired some of these young people.

My eight year old workshop student, P*, who had also attended my previous holiday program, now dreams of opening up her own cafe one day. I felt this overwhelming sense of pride when her mum showed me a photo of the magnificent hamburger cake that the eight year old created after attending my session and she was able to use the skills and passion that we instilled in them. I know I didn't actually play a part in making the cake myself, but I felt so much pride. It was incredible.

A photo taken of the incredible hamburger cake hat an eight year old student created (photo courtesy of the child's mum)

Eleven year old workshop student, G*, has seen every episode of Cake Boss and all the different cake shows. This was G's first Cake Me! kids experience and she dreams of opening up her own bakery and has even named it "Sweets and Treats". After the 2D monkey cupcake session, she went home the next day and made another six monkey cupcakes. Her mum told her that they were good enough to sell. She asked her mum how much would people buy them for? She then decided that after four hours work, no amount of money would be worth her time, she would rather eat them all herself. I have to say, that I feel that same way all the time!

The third and fourth workshop in the series was dedicated to sugar sculpting Gemma the Giraffe. The word "amazing" just doesn't do it justice. I was totally blown away by how much love and patience was put in these giraffes and the end result was totally mind-blowing. These students ranged from eight to fourteen years of age, but if you saw their creations, you would not have known. I loved seeing the students utilising the skills learnt from the first three classes, in personalising their final showpiece giraffe in the fourth class. We not only ended up with Giraffes, these creative students also sculpted "zebraffe" and "gragon".

We look forward to seeing all your gorgeous faces again at the next Cake Me! Kids School Holiday Program.

Our School Holiday Program - a ROARING success!

Fifty three excited kids, three 90 minute sessions, fifty seven magnificent lions!

We've been a bit quiet on the blog scene these past couple of weeks as we have been juggling the huge interest in the Cake Me! kids Term 2 School Holiday Program, fulfilling cake orders, as well as enduring the wrath that is the school holidays on the home front ourselves!

Although I love my two babies dearly and take pride in being a mummy first and foremost, it is still a tough juggle, trying my best to entertain them and ensuring that they have a wonderful school holiday that is both fun and educational. We try to have a special activity for them every single day, not just to keep them out of trouble, but also because they are only kids once, they are growing up too quickly and we want them to have a memorable childhood. We have taken them to the movies, to the park, on the train to the city, the art gallery, to see the dinosaurs, a live performance, to the market, the drive-in, they've had play dates with friends, been to a couple of birthday parties, seen a magic show... And that was only three quarters of the way through the school holidays.

So today (Wednesday), they got to have a break from me and spent the day with their amazing and doting grandparents, whilst I entertained 53 (yes, FIFTY THREE!) other children!! We were ecstatic to hold not one, but three school holiday program sessions and that we had the pleasure of teaching such clever, creative and enthusiastic group of kids.

Held in the beautiful Art Studios at MC Square (Manningham City Council, on top of the Doncaster Library), our 90 minute sessions were intense and fast paced. There was no time to break, it was all GO, GO, GO! Amazingly, the kids stayed focused throughout the entire session and were all determined to complete the task of sugar sculpting their own 3D lion cupcake.

There were times during the session when a few kids felt some self doubt, "do you think my legs will be too big?" and "I can't imagine this to look like a lion", but eventually, even the disbelievers were blown away by their own masterpieces. We love how each child tried to make the lion "their-own". One student created a dress for her lion, another shaped her lion's tail into a perfect "s" shape.

Some of the kids came with five or six other friends from school, whilst others braved participating on their own. It really didn't make much of a difference as the kids all got along really well and made friends during the class. The only "bickering" we heard all day were kids on one table competing for the title of "Most Meanest and Ferocious Lion".

Although the sessions were aimed at kids aged five and above, we had children attend who ranged from three, up to 15 years of age. A few of the kids have had some experience with fondant and cake decorating, but most of the kids had never used or even seen fondant before. As I always tell people, no matter how much experience you think you've had with sugar sculpting and cake decorating, there is always something new you can learn and always room for improvement. We truly believe this, and even for us, we are always striving to learn new techniques or refine what we already do.

The pride on each and every child's face at the end of the class when they presented their cupcakes to the parents and all the "WOW, YOU MADE THAT?!!?!" that followed, was truly priceless. Thank you to all the wonderful kids who made today a truly ROARING success.

So... does anyone have ideas on what else I can do with my own kids for the remainder of the holidays?

A special shout out and thanks to Lynn, my wonderful assistant, we couldn't have done it without you today!

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“It was so much fun. My kids felt a sense of achievement in creating something so professional looking!!”

— Anonymous (from evaluations)

“Well done!! Definitely value for money & loved that the kids get to take creations home & also a cupcake for mum!!”

— Anonymous (from evaluations)