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)

We were stoked to have been asked to make Miss Genevieve's eleventh birthday cake this year, and to also host her Cake Me! kids party, our FIRST official Cake Me! kids party!! This blog entry will be quite long as I want to share both the cake and the party with you, but if you don't want to read it all, click here for the cake, and here for the party. No hard feelings, I understand, we're all time-poor these days ;)

It's been five years since we made Genevieve's sixth birthday cake, how time has flown. To celebrate the beginning of winter, Gen decided on a Winter Wonderland themed party this year - and was very explicit when stating that it was a Winter themed cake and NOT a Frozen themed cake. We were told that anything to do with "blue, penguins, snowflakes, igloos are fine" ;) Clearly Frozen is for the younger crowd and Gen is now a young lady.

penguin iceberg cake cupcake cake me kids

Gen's sculpted iceberg cake was so much fun to design and create. I won't lie, for a moment there I did wonder whether I had been over zealous and had gone overboard with the sculpting, destroying an otherwise beautiful 5 tiers of white chocolatey goodness. But google images reassured me that icebergs do come in all shapes and sizes.

Images from Google Search : www.pixshark.com

My main priorities were for the penguins to have a slippery slide to dive head first into the icy turquoise water, and for the baby penguins to have a warm and cozy cave to huddle safely in.

Judging by the expression on the birthday girl's face, I'm ecstatic to say that the mission was accomplished :D.

We were so excited to hold our very FIRST official Cake Me! kids party after all the trial runs. Gen's Winter Wonderland theme was perfect. Using Gen's brief, we mocked up a sample cupcake and based our cake decorating and sugar sculpting tutorial on the sample. The 17 girls, ranging from four to 12 years of age, were so excited and couldn't believe they would be making their own version of what they saw.

The girls were so focused, attentive, enthusiastic and most importantly, they LOVED it. They themselves were in awe of their own creations. After our step-by-step tutorial, the girls were able to create their own masterpieces using the skills they had learnt from the session. It was amazing to see how none of these girls had prior experience with fondant before (other than eating it!) and how creative they could be when given some instruction. We were sooooooooo impressed! Here are some of the gorgeous designs they came up with.

I can't describe the feeling... watching the kids' eyes light up when they were free to experiment on their own, their fingers racing and not being able to catch up with all the ideas they had in their head, watching the dads relaxing on the couch deep in conversation with a coffee cup in hand, the mums snapping away with their mobile phone cameras... this is how parties are meant to be!!

We were so pleased to receive a text message from Genevieve's mum after the party. She said that this was the "first time it's taken less than 30 minutes to clean up after a party!" and that the birthday girl said that it was the "BEST PARTY EVER".

If you would like to read more about our Cake Me! kids adventures, please subscribe to our blog!

“A very happy birthday girl and a very happy mum. Genevieve said that this was “the best party EVER” and I agree. Liz had the girls enthralled and entertained for two hours with very impressive and creative results.”

— Diem

Our School Holiday Program - a ROARING success!

Winter Wonderland - Our first Cake Me! kids party