My title’s Lloyd and I’ve a confession… I’ve bought a significant candy tooth that simply received’t give up! And I do know I say downside however truthfully, its not one thing that I really feel the necessity to change. Chocolate is my kryptonite however within the absence of chocolate, I’ll take the rest that’s accessible!
You may keep in mind once we went to discover the gorgeous little villages within the Cotswolds (and staying on the impressively stately Wooden Norton Resort. Properly on one of many nights there, we stumbled (after a wonderful dinner) for cocktails on the bar the place we ran into Lisa. Lisa’s a Londoner who owns and runs Madeline’s Cake Boutique, a sugary heaven positioned in certainly one of London’s loveliest neighbourhoods.
We bought speaking about desserts, cookies and journey (however principally about desserts and cookies) and Lisa invited, nay challenged, us to return spherical to hers for a masterclass in cookie adorning! By no means one to shrink back from a problem (or an opportunity to work my approach via numerous cookies), I accepted and eagerly seemed ahead to seeing what she had in retailer!
Simply earlier than we visited, we’d been travelling for weeks on finish with little or no time in London and on this weekend, the solar was shining and we couldn’t have picked a greater day to do that! Granted we had been indoors doing this however all the things is best in London when the solar’s shining! Plus its not typically we get to spend time in London (and doing common ‘London issues’) so we had been grateful for the chance!
As quickly as we arrived, I immediately grew to become transfixed by the fluffy desserts and different scrumptious fragrances coming from the kitchen which I used to be solely too keen to assist discover even additional!
Oh and that is the place to seek out Madeleine’s by the best way…
Tackle: 397 Higher Richmond Street West
East Sheen
London SW14 7NX
Telephone: 020 8878 6194
E-mail: information@madeleinescakes.com
Web site: www.madeleinescakes.com
After a bit of look across the boutique, with some compulsory style testing ;-), we headed straight into the working kitchens of the boutique itself to get began on creating what I anticipated can be proclaimed the best masterpiece in cooking ornament!
All collectively, we had been a category of 6 equally keen cookie monsters (Georgia got here with) as we began studying all about the best way to turn into consultants at making the right cookies.
Random apart – I’ve by no means actually performed cooking or baking lessons. I get pleasure from meals a lot (as you’ll be able to in all probability inform from my pictures) and so I figured earlier this yr that I might attempt to make extra of an effort to simply merely be higher and I couldn’t have requested for a greater alternative.
Yaya alternatively is a way more expert cook dinner and baker (don’t ever inform him I mentioned this or I’ll deny it) and wasn’t too impressed with my culinary expertise (granted I attempted to do a ‘disappearing act’ on a few of the cookies even earlier than we began adorning).
I might need bragged rather a lot about how I might be significantly better at this than Yaya although I did take a bit of observe of Yaya’s method… There was no approach I used to be gonna let him depart with higher cookies than me! 😉
The very first thing I realized was to create some fairly neat traces with a thicker sugar icing that acted as a barrier as soon as we ‘flood’ the cookie…
Flooding a cookie sounding fairly traumatic to me… I’d by no means really heard the time period earlier than however it made whole sense – as soon as I’d created the define of the form I used to be making an attempt to create, I stuffed it with an enormous dollop of freshly made sugar icing! It’s additionally value noting that you just don’t want perfection at this stage as in case your icing sugar is finished proper, it ought to naturally unfold to fill in any gaps on the cookie.
After a bit of over an hour of icing and a gradual hand, I’d managed to create a reasonably ‘epic’ set of cookies. I exploit that time period evenly as you might need observed on snapchat how I managed to dent a few of the cookies… and likewise overlook so as to add a couple of bits on – seems icing sugar additionally acts as fairly nice cookie glue!
I genuinely had no thought how a lot enjoyable these lessons can be! In a world dominated by thrill-seekers everybody desires to be the one who’s climbed the tallest mountain or hiked the furthest distance and even been to probably the most nations, its so good to simply deal with the core on a regular basis issues that makes you actually pleased! One of the best half about doing this cookie adorning class was doing it with Yaya and Georgia as all of us have a lot enjoyable no matter we’re doing (plus, we’re all so aggressive with one another so this was an ideal alternative to get one over the opposite particular person). 😉 🙂
Ready for the icing to set, we took this chance to have a bit of lunchtime tipple of prosecco, Madeleine’s specialty tea, freshly baked tacky scones and an enormous slab of moist Guinness cake! (By no means had Guinness cake earlier than this – completely hooked on it now).
After our scrumptious lunch break, I headed again into the workshop to complete my epic cookie adorning battle in opposition to Yaya! 😉
Okay effective, this ‘battle’ was all in my head however Yaya’s had been significantly better than mine at this stage and Georgia was nailing it each step of the best way – then once more, given the halloween outfits she comes up with, its simple to see why.
I dotted, sparkled, dusted and textured my cookies – all whereas retaining a watchful eye on what Yaya was creating.
Someplace alongside the best way, and perhaps it was the prosecco… or laughing too exhausting whereas making an attempt to design the cookies however I ended up creating with some moderately wonky cookie traces, leaving Yaya with a transparent win!
These are his under and save from the atrocious Kanye-West-sunglasses blue costume one, he didn’t achieve this badly for a first-timer (once more, don’t inform him I mentioned any of this!)
Oh and that’s Lisa under, by the best way!
My subsequent aim goes to be adorning a cake like this unhealthy boy under… 😉
Given my not too long ago displayed (lack of) design ability, anybody wanna wager a guess on me creating one that appears similar to this? 😉 🙂
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