I'm so excited to finally share with you all the pictures from my very first teaching experience. In Orlando, Florida, I taught my first class: "How to Design with Sugar Flowers". It's been hectic, and I wanted to wait until I could upload the cake images I captured, along with some student work. Taking the cake outside the convention center to photograph made all the difference. Our cakes are intended to be viewed with natural light. This sugar flower wedding cake is an exploration in texture and color. In keeping with my message about not using fresh florals on cakes and designing with sugar instead, I thematically included many flowers that would be #poisonous if fresh, as I usually do. The anemones would go on that list, as would the bloom from a castor bean plant which includes ricinus.
Castor bean plants are ornamental in the garden, but as you may or may not know, they contain seeds that contain the poison ricin. Anyone watch the show Breaking Bad? I love Breaking Bad, and this poison did get some play on the show. Anywho, 3-4 of the seeds from the castor bean plant can kill you. Equivalent to the amount of salt you may sprinkle on an egg. Obviously, we would NOT use such a flower fresh on a cake, would we? BUT in sugar, we can, and it's just wonderful.
Meeting and interacting with so many students from around the world, some of whom came from Spain, Brazil, and Australia, and some who came specifically to take our class, was unforgettable.
I'm very thankful for such a kind and diverse group of students, and I'm so proud of their creativity in the class. Each cake and sugar flower arrangement made was entirely different. Considering essentially the same materials were available to each student, I'm so impressed by their creativity. Everyone wants to be creative, and often in these classes, you learn replication over creativity and design. I hope each of you was able to take something small away that will be useful to you going forward. Thank you The Americas Cake Fair for having us, and thank you so much to everyone who attended. I'm honored you'd want to take a class and meet us.
📸/Post Production on Cake Images: Natasha Raichel Photography. Follow Natasha on Instagram here.
I have included an image below of an iPhone image of this sugar flower cake taken outside of the convention center, just to show that the coloring/ color accuracy in the professional quality images is pretty spot on!
The whole team also enjoyed one night and a day at Disney World, while we were in town! We hadn’t slept much and had been working constantly for weeks, but Deron was determined to make an effort to visit. Deron and I also managed to make a quick stop at the beach on our drive home to Kentucky, where, upon arrival, we immediately started on Natasha’s wedding cake. To say this month was hectic would be an understatement. The quick hour of decompression at the beach was needed.
I've been waiting to wear this shirt for weeks! Seeing it laying there in between the last few cakes. I'm now #Halloween ready. Dinner with @deroneckert at #Disney, albeit exhausted or not after teaching our class was completely worth it! Reflecting on yesterday, teaching our very first class, this morning. I'm so grateful to have had students fly in from so many different countries just to take it. It's truly surreal and I'm honored. I will be uploading class pictures soon! • • • #hocuspocus #halloweencostume #halloween #disney #disneyworld
A post shared by Alex Narramore (@themischiefmaker) on Oct 14, 2017 at 7:42am PDT
The class and overall experience, while very tiring knowing that the next two weeks were going to be just as crazy as we traveled home to work on Natasha’s cake and wedding, was a sensory overload. Absolutely unforgettable. If you can manage to keep going and catch up on sleep in the weeks after the chaos, it’s without a doubt worth it.