Wednesday 15 February 2012

A short course

Decorated cupcakes
Recently I have undergone a short cooking course in Cupcake decorating and Macaroon making. A wonderful gift from my sister at Christmas. Perfect in all means.

A rainy Saturday in Melbourne proves to be the perfect day to set foot in a kitchen and take part in a 6 hour short course at Carrick Institute to learn how to decorate cupcakes, and how to ultimately make macaroon's.

Setting foot into a class of 20 with my sister and Mum in toe, we choose our bench and don our Aprons ready for what lies ahead. An introduction into what the course entails and we are ready to get cooking.

Sorry did I say cooking?  To my disappointment, there will be no real cooking in this course, but more demonstrations on how to create. But no worry it will sure to be interesting to listen to different techniques in baking or decorating.

 
Chocolate Decorated Cupcakes
A demonstration of how to make our chocolate ganache and lemon curd for the fillings of our macaroons, giving a more understanding of   chocolate and the better temperatures that chocolate should be melted and used. Of which I have taken a lot of information with me to try out on my confectionaries. 

With the fillings a side and setting we are then shown how macaroons are made and what to look for to make a perfect macaroon. Although not doing it ourselves we were provided with the recipes to take with us and use at home.  Given the mixtures of lemon and chocolate we are sent to our benches to pipe onto our trays and rest to form a crust prior to baking.


Lemon & Chocolate Macaroons

A selection of Red velvet cupcakes and lemon curd cupcakes left naked for our artistic flare, getting our hands dirty and create designs made with chocolate and combining colours to icing.

Macaroon piping


A quick demonstration on how to work with icing and colours, along with a more practical way to use chocolate and we are ready to get into designing. Although pushed for time, and sharing with 20 students cutters and sharing coloured icing, the three of us combine together and create our iced and chocolate decorated cupcakes. Proud of our accomplishments we put them aside and get into our Macaroons.

Our Macaroons were placed in the oven and times by our teacher, although I am still clueless on the length of time they were cooked for as whilst they were cooking we were occupied with our Cupcake decorating. Once cooked and cooled, we shared through the class  shared around the piping bags of chocolate ganache and lemon curd that we were shown at the beginning of the class.

The course was not a fail, however I think the three of us were expecting to get more hands on action for the day. learning to actually do it our selves rather than to watch. But we did each come home with something to show and some extra information that we can utalise in the future.

Also I can't complain about someone else who made the mixture of the cupcakes or the macaroons, as they were pretty damn tasty and were devoured. So I am pretty wrapped that the recipes were provided so I can go and make them myself.
My cupcake design inspiration 'Chubs"