I decided to take up a Sugarpaste Masterclass at Artistiq Sugarcraft to upgrade my fondant skills as I have been getting more fondant orders nowadays. It can be a little stressful as I am more specialised in buttercream cakes. In my opinion, fondant cakes tend to be more unforgiving than buttercream cakes as there are problems with humidity, fondant tearing and storage difficulty. Tier cake is also another challenge.
Last year, I contemplated between Bake it yourself (BIY) and Artistiq Sugarcraft. I chose the Wilton 1-3 courses at BIY because it was cheaper, but they have already closed down recently. Artistiq seems to have more variety of courses and since there were no better alternatives, I decided to go for Artistiq’s Masterclass in Sugarpaste. I initially wanted to go for Sugarflowers but Sugarpaste was actually a foundation course in fondant cakes.
The team was also very patient in answering my enquiries on FB, and they would send me the course information via email. The 4-day Masterclass is $1150. This might seem like a huge amount of money to invest but if you break it down, it’s really reasonable. All ingredients and materials were provided for the class and we get to bring back a huge bag of tools! The class was only limited to 4 pax, which was a priority for me because I’d prefer if the instructor is able to focus their teaching on just a few of us.
Sorry if this post is quite wordy, but I hope it will be useful for those who are interested to take up some baking/decorating courses!
Day 1 was relatively simple with some introduction in fondant (Sugarpaste) and gumpaste. It’s good to go through some foundation skills even though I already have some experience with doing fondant cakes. You might never realize that you are making some kind of mistakes along the way (no matter how minor it seems).
I have never covered dummy cakes before and I always thought it would be more challenging as the dummy cake is made from styrofoam and is so light to deal with. Turns out that it is actually more forgiving than it seems! And I’m surprised that it can create such a smooth texture even without the use of ganache or cream.
Day 2 was the most interesting for me as I was able to decorate my own mannequin 3d cake! I tend to freak out with 3d cakes and hence I never really made 1 before. Time to step out of my comfort zone!! The whole dress looks complicated but breaking down it is actually not too difficult after all! As I have already made my teddy bear cake pink, I chose blue instead. Blue dresses reminds me of Cinderella!
Only the mannequin cake was made of real cake and I was glad to be able to try out some slight carving techniques (although the cake was already in dome shape).
There were still some untidy details that didn’t make the dress so complete, but practice makes perfect! And it’s only my first try 😉 My fave part of the cake is the bow!
Day 3 and 4 involves making of our Finale Cake. We spent the whole Day 3 covering 3 dummy cakes. It is really not easy trying to roll out such a uniform flat piece of fondant for a big cake! I was actually amazed by myself being able to pull it off somehow, with the help of my instructor to mend some parts of the pink cake.
The ombre watercolour fondant design was really fun to make! I love how every cake is so unique and the colours will not turn out like what you expected. And yes I was expecting my cake to be a little more pink than red.
We learnt how to make figurines on Day 4. I am usually more comfortable with making some types of cartoon and animals, but not so much with humans. For some particular reason, I find it difficult to master the proportions. As you can see below, I’m still new to some techniques, for e.g. the boobs HAHA. So much creases that I have to modify the wedding dress to cover the flaws.
I enjoyed making the bride’s hair and honestly I am tempted to make her hair longer. Her arms are a little awkward but I think so far so good? What do you think?
I really hope to be able to make a 3 tier cake of my own in the future to come!
If you’re interested in their courses, do read up more here: http://www.artistiqsugarcraft.com/
I hope to join their Sugarflower course soon when I have the time!
Artistiq Sugarcraft
37 Niven Road
Singapore 228384
Tel: +65 62388806
(Short walk from Bencoolen or Little India MRT)
