Lately there has been a bunch of buzz about knock-offs in the cake industry. A lot of buzz. You may be thinking to yourself, "Who cares if it is a knock-off? It's the same product for a fraction of the price!" That's not taking into account the entire picture though...

Chef Nicholas Lodge is widely accepted as a master in this field of cake decorating. He has been in the industry for over 40 years and has been teaching for almost as many years. People from all of the world have taken classes with him; Chef Nicholas has taught in 26 different countries. Not to mention the distance that some of his students have traveled to take classes with Chef Nicholas in his home classroom at ISAC in Atlanta. What kind of class would inspire someone to travel from an entirely different country, continent, or hemisphere? How about the first ever Renshaw Academy Master CLASS!!!

Just this week Chef Nicholas added one of his most popular classes to his summer class schedule: 5-Day Ultimate Gumpaste Flower Class! YAY! This is a class that consistantlygets requested, fills up, and sells out. What makes this class so very popular you ask? Well, buckle up, because it's a doozy!

It's June which means summer has officially arrived. In the cake decorating world, summertime brings the annual ICES convention! YAY! The ICES convention is an important yearly tradition for the ISAC team; Chef Nicholas first came to the US in the 1980s to teach and demonstrate at an ICES convention. Chef Nicholas has been a fixture at the yearly event since then. After opening the International Sugar Art Collection, there has always been a vendor booth at the convention as well. The 2018 ICES convention in Cincinnati, Ohio will be no different. Chef Nicholas is teaching, and we will have our world-famous vendor booth for loads of retail therapy. 

After two weeks of royal wedding blogs, it seems fitting that this week I get to introduce the third module of Renshaw Academy- Royal Icing! This is the third Renshaw Academy class being offered by Chef Nicholas Lodge this year. It is one of three modules needed to earn the Renshaw Academy Master Certification! This class offers two brand new techniques cakes, designed by Chef Nicholas specifically for this module! 

Last week I delved into the two ingredients that would star in the wedding cake made in honor of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle: lemon and elderflower. This week, I thought I was share some pictures of the simple, rustic wedding cake! The cake was a simple sponge cake, with elderflower and lemon syrup (the elderflower syrup was created at Sandringham one of the Queen's estates!). It was filled with fresh lemon curd, and iced with an elderflower Swiss Meringue Buttercream, and topped with fresh flowers, including peonies. Below you will find a cool video posted on The Royal Family twitter page; it is a Q&A with the cake's creator Claire Ptak. 

Have you heard there is a big wedding this weekend? Like a royally big wedding. Ha, you see what I did there?! All joking aside, Prince Harry (grandson of Queen Elizabeth II) is marrying Miss Meghan Markle (an American!). In Britain, fruitcake is the traditional choice for wedding cake flavors. In fact, When Prince William and Catherine Middleton married, they had an eight-tiered fruitcake with sugar flowers and royal icing. Harry and Meghan are breaking with traditional, and have opted for a sponge cake with fresh flowers and buttercream... and flavored with elderflower and lemon. When I was engaged and visiting bakeries for taste testing, I did not come across a single elderflower and lemon flavored cake. I thought it might be fun to discuss these flavors in today's blog, and in honor of the royal couple and wedding cakes everywhere!

Cake, cookie, cupcake, and candy making is our business at ISAC (what, you guys didn't know that? HA!!). You may have also noticed we sell a lot of tools to make all those sweet and delicious treats. To the uninitiated, a cake supply store selling floral tape is a bit confusing, but we all know that Chef Nicholas is the all time reigning champ on finding sweet related uses for ordinary everyday products. Because Chef Nicholas is so creative, he sees things like  ice cube trays as flower formers. Things we mere mortals would never be able to envision ourselves. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen Chef Nicholas pull out a mundane tool or household object, and then do something incredible with... the best part is hearing his students actually OOH and AHH during this mind blowing process.

My favorite example of this was a few years back at our Grand Holiday Open House event. Chef Nicholas had a cake on display that had fondant in the exact same texture as a comfy, cozy thermal shirt. Many people were murmuring that there must be a new texture mat out, because how else could you achieve that look. When Chef Nicholas presented the cake during his demonstration he whipped out a piece of drawer liner. Yes you read that right. DRAWER LINER. He simply pressed it onto the fondant and voila! Instant thermal cake. I mean, come on man! 

Hey, hey, hey! Last month, Chef Nicholas kicked off Renshaw Academy; amazing and intensive cake decorating certification courses designed by Chef Nicholas exclusively for Renshaw. There are three different modules: Sugar Flowers, Sugarpaste (rolled fondant), and Royal Icing. In March, the very first Renshaw Academy class on American soil took at ISAC. This first class was the Sugar Flower module. In May, Chef Nicholas will be teaching the second module: Sugarpaste!

Many of our readers know that Sidney Galpern, of Simi Cakes, is a frequent guest instructor at ISAC. Sidney is a superb all around pastry chef, but she is best known for her isomalt designs. Many of our students have taken classes with Sidney in Studio B, and we are so excited to be offering two classes with Sidney this June. In the past, I had written a few blogs dedicated to different products that shape the cake decorating (and pastry) world. As I was brainstorming ideas for this week's blog, I reread some of these previous blogs for a bit of inspiration. I thought it might be fun to tell you all about this history and science behind isomalt. And, Sidney, if you are reading this- I hope I get it all right!

I don't know about you guys... but I am ready for some consistently warm weather! Normally, here in Atlanta, it is pretty hot my mid-April. I think in the last 7 days I have been turning my heat on, my heat off, my air conditioning on, my air conditioning off. I wear shorts one day, and a winter coat the next day. The weather here has been making me crazy, and I have been dreaming about summer weather and the beach vacation I have coming up this summer. I thought, what better way to shake off the last of the winter weather blues by chatting about MIAMI! Well, specifically everyone's favorite cake and candy expo in Miami: SoFlo!

Hello friends! I have fun and exciting news to share with all of you! Chef Nicholas will be at CookieCon! Hooray! Last year was the first time Chef Nicholas attended CookieCon, but I never mentioned it here on the blog. If you are thinking to yourself, Stephanie... why did you TELL US Chef was going to be at CookieCon? That my friends, is an easy answer. The 2017 CookieCon event sold out so quickly that I didn't even get the chance to write a blog about it. That's right... the event sold out so fast that the blog I was preparing became irrelevant by publication day! Yes, CookieCon is THAT AMAZING. 

If you follow us on social media or subscribe to our blog or newsletter, you must have heard about the brand new Renshaw Academy! Renshaw Academy is a certification program consisting of three modules: Sugar Flowers, Sugar Paste (rolled fondant), and Royal Icing. Each of these courses is one part of the Renshaw Academy Master Certificate; once all three modules are completed, a Renshaw Academy Master Certificate is awarded! This is a brand new program, with brand new course material developed by Chef Nicholas Lodge. Chef Nicholas will be teaching all three modules in 2018 (including a second Sugar Flower module), as well as a Master Certification class. Oh, and good news if you are Canadian; Chef Nicholas will be teaching a Renshaw Academy Module in Ontario!

March Madness usually refers to the big college basketball tournament here in America. I am using it to discuss the class schedule at ISAC this March! We have three guest instructors in March teaching a total of five classes, Spring Open House, one Chef Nicholas class in Texas, and two Chef Nicholas classes at ISAC. AND, one of the classes at ISAC is part of the BRAND NEW Renshaw Academy series! Let me tell you about all of our March classes, and hopefully you will find a class that you'd like to register for. 

Big news everyone! The incredibly talented Ceri Griffiths is coming to ISAC this November, all the way from the UK! Chef Nicholas and Ceri have known each other for years, but this will be the very first time that Ceri will be teaching at ISAC in Studio B! Ceri Griffiths, author of the award winning book "Border Inspirations 1&2" and internationally recognized English over-piping expert, will be teaching his English Over-Piped Elegant Wedding Cake class. This is an intensive 2-day royal icing class.  Ceri will share with you several of his piped borders, his method of creating toothpick roses and many hints and tips to achieve beautiful work in royal icing.

This class is aimed at students who have previous piping skills due to the volume of piping involved and the pace of the class.

THIS IS NOT A BEGINNERS CLASS!!!

I always get excited when Chef Nicholas has BRAND NEW classes on the schedule! Yes, that means Chef Nicholas has two new classes for you all to enjoy: Gumpaste Wedding Flower Spray and Springtime Gumpaste Flowers! 

In less than two months ISAC will host our 2018 Spring Open House on March 10, 2018. This year we will have two guest instructors that we know will be crowd pleasers: Chef Joseph Cumm and Chef Sachiko Windbiel! As many of you know, Chef Joseph is a frequent guest instructor in our Studio B. Just this past December he taught several French Macaron classes; we started with one, and it sold out so quickly that we ended up adding additional classes! Earlier in 2017, Chef Joseph had taught a chocolate bonbon class and a chocolate showpiece class! All of his classes were very popular, so it was only fitting to invite Chef Joseph to be a part of our Spring Open House this year. 

Chef Sachiko is a Renshaw Brand Associate Partner, or as Chef Nicholas likes to say, "BAP." Chef Nicholas has worked with Chef Sachiko quite a bit in recent years due to their Renshaw Americas association. Sachiko is also the designer of the Chef Nicholas Lodge page picture! She has not taught at here in our school with us yet, but we are all huge fans of her work. Yesterday, we received her demo project and the plans for her classes after the Open House... wow! You are all going to be amazed! 

Yesterday, Katy Sue Designs debuted its Seaside Collection! I am so excited for these new molds; they are a mix of realistic designs as well as some whimsical ones! There are eight great molds that you will all love!

In 2017, we had the pleasure of hosting many fantastic guest instructors in ISAC's Studio B. I am excited and pleased to share that 2018 will be no different! As we are finalizing the ISAC 2018 schedule, we have been updating our online class registration page. This week, we were please to finalize all the details for one of our guest instructors- Dot Klerck!  

You may remember Dot from her Clyde the Giraffe class that she taught in Studio B back in May 2016. Well, this time she will be teaching something a bit more magical: a beautiful flying Pegasus unicorn! This whimsical flying unicorn is taking off from the ground, and has a beautiful golden horn. Dot will be instructing her students on how to  create this fully 3D, gravity defying cake! 

This class will be held on March 17-18, 2018 in Studio B. The cost for this class is $550.00. However, if you register for this class before 2/1/2018, you will receive $50 of the total price! So, that means if you register now, before February 1st, you will get the special price of $500! Um, yay!

Please remember that Dot Klerck is coming ALL THE WAY from South Africa. It's not easy to get a class with her in the US, so take advantage of the special pricing we are now offering and sign up for this magical flying unicorn! We are so thrilled to be hosting Dot again, and we know that this class will be just as popular as her last class with us! 

Sweetly yours, 

Stephanie

2017 Finalist for the Cake Masters Cake Hero Award

WINNER of the 2017 Golden Tier Educator of the Year Award

Winner of the 2015 Craftsy Blogger Award for Best Craftsy Cake Decorating Instructor Blog

Chef Nicholas Lodge: 2015 Finalist for the Cake Masters Cake Hero Award.

Now that the holidays are over, everyone is settling back into the groove of everyday life. Kids are going back to school, adults are going back to work,and life is back to normal. But... did you get everything you really wanted for Christmas? Or maybe you got some money as a gift that is just burning a hole in your pocket? Well, then you just come on by our retail gallery or our online shop! ISAC is having our 2018 New Year Sale!