CHELTENHAM, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

Our venue is set in a beautiful Grade II Cotswold property with stunning countryside views.  We pride ourselves on our friendly informal workshops where students work side by side with us during the day.

We are located within a 15 minute drive from the centre of Cheltenham, Kingham railway station with direct fast 90 minute links to London Paddington is just 15 minutes away, and a 25 minutes drive of the M5.  In all workshops all equipment, refreshments and lunch is provided and all you have to bring to your class is yourself.

If you do not see the course or cake decorating skill you would like to learn, just give us a call or send us an email with your request and we will advise you how we can help you.

Creating beautiful celebration cakes is all about style and build.  We cover style in our Design Masterclass, but on this course this is all about how to build the most perfectly formed celebration cake.  You will work on pre-baked cakes to save time on the day but we will cover fully our tips on how to bake, syrup for moisture and flavour your cakes. How to carve and shape them ready to create the structure and finish of a very professional celebration cake.  We teach you the skills to create the modern taller style cakes, with straight sides, flat tops and lovely sharp shoulders.  This workshop is ideal for anyone wanting to create professional cakes for a living, or who are creating that special cake for family or friends because you just love to bake!!!  The course is suitable for anyone from absolute beginners to improvers to even Michelin star pastry chefs (we have trained four!!!)

In order to give our full attention to the student on this intense one day class, we run this course only on a one to one or two students sharing basis at our Cheltenham location - We offer flexible workshop dates to suit.  Just contact us by phone or e-mail  to express your interest and we can then advise you in more detail of the course content, costs and dates.

      Below is a list of what we will cover on the Celebration Cake Masterclass:-

• What works/does not in cake recipes for celebration cakes
• The principles of good design for celebration and tiered cakes - what works and what does not.
• Shaping, levelling, splitting and filling the cake - this is a key skill to help form a firm base for your cake.
• Crumb Coating/Finishing a cake in buttercream or ganache – On the workshop you will create a fresh cake with a professional layer of buttercream - the finish will give you a straight sided cake with a flat top and sharp top edges.  We train this using a method which is not widely known and not published in any books - it is a unique method.  The finish will give you a cake base as perfect as a dummy cake.
• How to create Naked, Semi-Naked and the Drippy Cakes.
• Creating an optional intermediate layer for an ultra-professional finish.
• Creating the perfect fondant top coat with straight sides, flat top, sharp edges to a high professional finish
• Covering a Cake Board
• Dowelling and stacking a tiered cake
• The professional way to finish each layer.
• How to move your cakes around to a venue safely if required.
• Guidance on costings if required for students who wish to sell their cakes.

The Celebration Cake Masterclass will teach you innovative ways to create the most perfectly formed modern styles cakes.  The image here shows a 6in cake x 10in in height covered in luscious Caramel chocolate ganache.  On the workshop itself you will create a freshly baked  6inch x 4inch cake from scratch using Buttercream to create the perfect finish and pin sharp edges as shown in this image, but we also teach you how to use chocolate ganache using the same methods to create stunning cakes in ganache.  We provide the full instructions and the recipes and formulas to be used when making ganache using white, milk or dark chocolate 

The class is all about structure and build to create the most perfect finish to your cakes, starting with the shaping and adding syrup to freshly baked cakes, which are provided, and creating a perfectly sharp top edge wth straight sides, a level top.  

The second image shows the option of an intermediate layer which sits over the buttercream coat and under fondant - this provides a very stable base for your fondant to adhere to and make it very sound, especially in warm weather.  This can be done in modelling paste or marzipan.

The fondant covering shown in the image has semi sharp shoulders for a softer effect, but the class teaches you how to build your cake very sharp top edges.

The final image shows how to create a semi naked cake and we give you detailed notes on the recipe and skills to create the super-sharp chocolate drip cake finish.

You will leave the class with:- 

• A perfectly finished double layer buttercream covered cake
• A fondant covered dummy cake finished with sharp top edges
• A covered cake board with ribbon trim.
• Very detailed workshop notes outlining all instructions of each stage of the day.
• A full equipment list, stage drawings to cover the techniques, recipe sheets
• Everything you will need to go home with confidence to create your beautiful cakes over and over again.

To find out more about this class which is available on-going with a choice of dates - please contact us at info@creativecakeacademy.co.uk - you can do this by clicking the link on the Contact Us page of out website or just give us a telephone call to chat through the options and pricing.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The beautiful filigree work on this celebration cake shows how effective royal icing can be.  This masterclass teaches you how to create  perfect royal icing and then thin it down to create three strengths for piping, brush embroidery and flooding for use on cookies. The techniques you will learn on this workshop include detailed piping work, stencilling, brush embroidery, cookie toppings and the new modern techniques used on Wedding Cakes to create 3D overpiped flowers to resemble the lace of a bride's dress.

We run this workshop from our Cheltenham location on a private tuition or small group basis where we are therefore flexible on workshop dates with no set dates - just contact us to discuss your requirements.

Skill sets covered in this workshop:-

• How to create the perfect Royal Icing
• How to thin the icing to 3 consistencies for piping, brush embroidery, and flooding for cookies
• How to write on cakes
• How to create beautiful dots, pearls, hearts and filigree in icing
• Brush embroidery
• Flooding and piping on cookies
• Piping over 3D flowers to create a lace effect to match a bride's dress

Our Vintage Cupcakes Roses and Pearls has now become an iconic set that you will see many times on the internet, it has been shared, admired and attempts to copy on many occasions.  On this workshop you will create a set of 12 beautiful cupcakes with lots of decoration techniques including creating the perfect domed topped cupcake, stencilling, embossing, hand painting, creating lovely sugar roses, pearls and much more.  This is a workshop we would recommend as a Cupcake Masterclass to add to your cake decorating skills as this design has proved to be iconic and is well featured on the internet and sought after to purchase.

At the moment we only run this workshop on a private tuition or small group basis from our Cheltenham location. Just give is a call or e-mail us to chat through your requirements - again we are flexible on dates.

Skill sets included in this workshop:-

• How to bake an ultra light cupcake
• How to create the most perfect buttercream
• How to create a beautiful dome shape to your cupcakes in fondant
• How to create a range of sugar flowers and pearls
• How to stencil, emboss and hand paint on your fondant toppings
• Guide on pricing and marketing if you wish to sell your cakes

If you usually turn to the internet for cake design ideas from others before you make your celebration, mini or cupcakes, then this is the class for you.  It is aimed to help you have the confidence to create your own colour palettes and designs from scratch starting with a mood board of colours shapes and things you love.

People love the designs and colours used by The Creative Cake Academy and in this class we will teach you all of our secrets.  By the end of the class you will have created your own design board with a colour palette, a brand new cake design and fondant colour samples that you will use in your unique creation.

You need not worry if you feel you cannot draw, this workshop is all about getting you to indentify how to create a beautiful harmonising colour palette and also shows you where to get the most useful of inspirational designs, techniques and free software to enable you to expand your knowledge and skills. 

Understanding how colours harmonise together and work together will also help you create a palette of colours that form the colour structure of your cake design.  We also look at designing your cake, whether it be a tiered celebration cake, a single layer birthday cake, or a series of mini or cupcakes.

We are able to run this workshop on a one to one basis or small group on a private tuition basis at our Cheltenham location.  If you are interested in making an enquiry about suitable dates for yourself or with a small group of friends, please call us to chat through what options we have available..

We run a variety of sugar flower classes, all designed to create the most perfect lifelike flowers.  Classes include roses, peonies, lisianthus and much more.  Classes are for one or two day workshops depending upon the complexity of the flowers.  Please ask for for details of what is available.

Two images here show the sugar rose which is created in a one day masterclass.

The wedding cake image below is the stunning result of mother and daughter students who attended the Celebration Cake Masterclass to learn the skills to produce the perfectly formed wedding cake and then followed by a number of sugar flower workshops to create the beautiful array of sugar flowers that adourned the wedding cake.

A true masterpiece.