The ISAC Family must say goodbye to a big part of our team this week. Larry Hunn, our General Manager, is retiring to spend more time with his family. While we are so very sad to see him go, we know that he will be enjoying his grandchildren and the sunny weather in Florida!  Larry has been instrumental in helping ISAC to grow as a business, that we wanted to pay tribute to him in our blog this week.

2015 National Showpiece Championship Winner. Team Kengo Akabame and Toshinori Akishiro won "Best Overall," "Best Chocolate," "Sponsors' Choice," and "People's Choice."

It's that time of year again folks- Pastry Live! In just one month, August 20-21, 2016, the kings of pastry will be visiting our hometown of Atlanta, Georgia for a weekend of competition, seminars, and shopping! Chef Nicholas will be back as a judge again this year, and Renshaw is one of the event sponsors! Yay!

Chef Nicholas' 2015 seminar sponsored my Nielsen-Massey Fine Vanillas & Flavors.

Greetings from Tokyo, Japan!! Just kidding- I'm not lucky enough to be in Japan, but Chef Nicholas is that lucky! Last week Chef Nicholas flew out to teach two weeks of classes at his school; The Nicholas Lodge International Sugar Art Collection Japan. We've been missing him at lot here at ISAC in the good ol' USA, but it looks like he and his students are having the time of thier lives from the photos. I normally only do photoblogs after our Open House events, but I thought I would make an exception for our fantastic Japanese students! Hope you enjoy seeing everything they have created so far!

Bryson Perkins will be visiting ISAC this August and teaching a two-day class in Studio B! Originally from Kailua-Lona, Hawaii, Bryson dove into cake decorating as a hobby to fill his void of homesickness while living in New Hampshire.  Shortly after discovering his talent for cake decorating and sugar art, he was hired as a cake artist at a well know pastry shop. Bryson set off on his own and opened Triolo's Bakery in December of 2012.  Although his cake career is still relatively short, Bryson has had the pleasure of creating one of a kind cakes for, "celebrities, politicians, charitable foundations, and everyone in between."

Earlier this week the Cake Masters Awards opened their nominations for the 2016 awards! In 2015 Chef Nicholas was honored to be a finalist in the Cake Hero category. This year we are hoping that Chef Nicholas will be selected as a finalist (and eventual winner!) of the Best Learning Experience Award. With 38 years of experience, Chef Nicholas has reached an innumerable about of students around the world. On Facebook, Chef Nicholas shared the highlights of his teaching career, and I thought I would do the same here. It's our hope that you will consider nominating Chef Nicholas for the Best Learning Experience, especially if you have had the privilege of taking one of his classes!

Chef Nicholas at the ICES Convention

Guess what happens on Monday? Chef Nicholas will debut his 11th Craftsy class! How amazing is that? Sweet Seasons: Fall Foliage is the last of four seasonal floral themed classes that Chef Nicholas created with Craftsy. Unlike the previous three class (Poinsettia, Cherry Blossoms, and Sunflower) this class does not include any flowers! I bet you'd love the chance to win this class for free! Keep reading to enter our contest!

It's that time of year again my fellow cake decorating friends! ICES CONVENTION 2016! We are less than two months away from bringing the cake decorating world to Mobile, Alabama. Chef Nicholas has already begun to prepare for the big weekend, and I am super excited to share some of what ISAC will be offering, as well as some of the activities at this year’s convention.

About a month ago, I shared Chef Nicholas' E-Z Product line here on the blog. Chef Nicholas has created a fabulous line of products that includes molds, glue, super bond, release, and acrylic holder. Today I'm excited to share that three brand new products have joined the E-Z Family!

In the ISAC family, everyone has their job. Chef Nicholas designs cakes and teaches classes, Scott takes beautiful  photos (and makes the best cookies), I write the blog, and Molly is in charge of making sure we have tons of fantastic products for everyone to enjoy. One of my very favorite things is when Molly tells me we have fun new products in the house. That means we get to try them out and tell you all about them! This is one of those blog posts- new product here for your cake decorating pleasure!

Memorial Day is just around the corner, and that means summer fun is officially on its way! June is a BIG month at ISAC; Sidney Galpern is returning to Studio B with three isomalt classes, and Chef Nicholas has two classes (including a BRAND NEW CLASS)!

Today we are going to talk about what you can do with rolled fondant. And I'm not talking about covering you cake! Chef Nicholas has two techniques to change things up with rolled fondant that students just go bananas over when they learn them for the first time: modified rolled fondant and softened rolled fondant.

This past Sunday was Mother's Day in the United States. To celebrate, an extremely talented group of cake decorators (all "Mama's Boys) collaborated and designed and created cakes in honor of their mothers! Each cake had to include a sugar flower, so what would this collaboration be without our very own Chef Nicholas! All of the cakes were debuted this past Sunday, and each and every cake is so beautiful and different, that Chef Nicholas and I wanted to share the video with you. Some of you may know that Chef Nicholas was very close to his mother, and she always encouraged and supported him throughout his career; he credits her with making him the person his is today. 

"Life is fragile like a sugar flower: beautiful to look at, but broken in a second."

I hope you enjoy the stunning work of all the gentlemen in the sugar fraternity, and be sure to wish your mother a belated Happy Mother's Day from everyone in the ISAC Family! A BIG thank you to Sharon Spradley for putting together this fabulous collaboration, and reminding us how important mothers are!

Sweetly yours, 

Stephanie

Don't just follow our blog! Follow Chef Lodge on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Flickr, and Tumblr!

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

Hold on to your isomalt hats everyone! The ISAC team was excited to host Sidney Galpern for our Grand Holiday Open House this past November, and her two holiday themed classes filled up very very quickly. We decided to heat up our Hotlanta summer even more by inviting Sidney back to teach three incredible isomalt classes: Beer on Ice, The Shoe is on the Other Foot, and Dancing Dolphin.

Before I tell you more about each class, let me share a bit about Sidney: she is a Certified Professional Chocolatier, cake designer, sugar artist, and an ICES Approved Teacher. She graduated with honors from the prestigious Ecole Chocolat School of the Chocolate Arts (the youngest student to ever complete the program!). She has trained with top sugar artists and chefs in New York City, London, Orlando, and West Palm Beach. For the last eight years, Sidney has taught, demonstrated and judged sugar and cake decorating at venues such as Keiser University, The Cake Cruise, ICES Convention and Days of Sharing, The Festival of Chocolate, at cake clubs, restaurants and cake supply stores as well as teaching private classes... She is the owner of Simi Cakes & Confections in Melbourne, Florida. Oh, and she plays the drums. I met Sidney for the first time at our Grand Holiday Open House, and let me tell you. She is just as awesome as she sounds. She is a fantastic instructor and her talent is, quite frankly, indescribable. Since I cannot put into words how talented she is, let's just talk about the three classes she will be teaching in Studio B!

On Saturday, June 11, Sidney is actually teaching two half-day classes! From 9am- 12pm, students will be able to take Sidney's Beer on Ice class; and, as the title suggests, students will learn how to make a life-sized, 3D beer bottle and ice cubes! Oh, and every student will get to keep their very own beer bottle mold! Hooray! In the afternoon, from 1pm-5pm, Sidney will be teaching her The Shoe is on the Other Foot class! Students will be learning how to create a stylish 6-inch, free-standing, isomalt high heel shoe! The mold used to create this shoe offers a couple different elements so that you can create a variety of custom designed shoes. Very fancy. Students in this class are also lucky enough to be taking home the three-piece shoe mold Sidney uses in class. These classes will likely fill up very quickly, our half day classes tend to be extremely popular! Experience is not needed for either of these classes, but if you do have isomalt experience, it will be helpful.

On Sunday, June 12, students are in for a real treat; Sidney is pulling out all the stops for her Dancing Dolphin isomalt cake topper class. In this hands-on class students will learn how to cast isomalt pieces and techniques on pulled and blown isomalt. Using these skills, Sidney will teach students how to create a gravity-defying dolphin leaping over waves and coral, accented with beautiful pearl bubbles. As with the two classes on Saturday, no experience is required, and all skill levels are welcome. 

If you would like to sign up for any, or ALL, of Sidney's classes in Studio B, just click the class names above to sign up online. Or you can call and sign up over the phone by calling 1-800-662-8925. If you missed out on Sidney's classes at ISAC in November, don't miss out on taking one of her classes with us this summer!

Sweetly yours, 

Stephanie

Don't just follow our blog! Follow Chef Lodge on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Flickr, and Tumblr!

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

Chef Nicholas has been in "the biz" for quite some time, and he is always on the lookout for tools or tricks to make decorating cakes easier, faster, or more efficient. If you have taken a class with him in person, on Craftsy, or watched one of his demos, then I am sure you have had a moment where he uses a cake decorating tool (or even a common kitchen tool) in a new and innovative way! I cannot tell you how many times I heard, "Oh, man! Why didn't I think of that?!" or "That's going to make things so much easier!"

Well, sometimes you need something that just doesn't exist yet- necessity is the mother of invention after all.  Well, Chef Nicholas has recently debuted three new items in his exclusive NL E-Z product line to make cake decorating easier for everyone! Oh, and there may just be a fantastic special offer in this blog as well!

Ok, I kind of lied. There are no planes involved in this blog. However, there are trains and automobiles! We recently got in some new cutter sets and Chef Nicholas made the most adorable cake! Basically, if there is a little boy you know who likes cars and or trains, we have got two new products for you! The FMM Car Cutter Set and the FMM Train Cutter Set!

Second view of Chef Nicholas' cute new cake! Photo: S. Ewing

Hello everyone in cake decorating land! I am back with another wonderful tutorial from Chef Nicholas Lodge! This one I am pretty excited about, I really love the design and how easy it is to recreate at home or in your bakery. Friends... I'm talking about the Rose Cupcake! Chef Nicholas has taken a simply cupcake and turned it into an incredibly life-like, edible rose. Bridal showers, weddings, Mother's Day, baby showers, elegant ladies lunches, gardening club meetings- these cupcakes are perfect for these occasions!  How about I stop with the chit-chat and just get to the telling you how to make your own rose cupcake part?!

Photo: S. Ewing

WAAAYYY back in 2015 ISAC held a little giveaway in which participants could enter to win a free four hour private class with Chef Nicholas. Not surprisingly, we had an overwhelming response from people eager to win this fantastic opportunity. Alas, only one winner could be chosen (to be fair, people could enter to win the class for themselves, or themselves and a friend); Ginia and Margery were selected as the class winners, and just a few weeks ago they cashed in on their winnings and enjoyed their private class! Margery was even kind enough to share her thoughts on her special class with me!

Attentive students ready for their private lesson to begin!

At our Spring Open House earlier this month we debuted some brand new piping tips by In2Food (you may be familiar with their spokesman, Joshua John Russell!). Joshua has been giving lots of sneak peeks at these tips on his Facebook page, and we were so excited to see the tips in action and share them with all of our favorite people (you!). Since not everyone who reads our blog could attend our event, I thought I would write up a little blog post about these fantastic tips and show them in action!

Just look at all those flowers! (Photo: Joshua John Russell)

Hey guess what?! Today's blog is a decorating TUTORIAL!!! Hooray! Chef Nicholas has decorated some really adorable cookies with an Easter theme, so I thought I would share them because Easter is this weekend AND the techniques easy! Best part, even though the techniques are easy the designs are sure to really impress all your friends, families and clients! Chef Nicholas demonstrated these cookies at our Spring Open House, and they were so popular among our guests, I knew I had to share it with all of you too!

We had so much fun at our Spring Open House this past Saturday! Thank you to Kathy Scott and Reva Alexander for being our guest instructors this year. And of course, thank you to everyone who attended! I hope you all enjoy these photos from this years event! Oh, and you can now sign up for our Grand Holiday Open House! If you are interested in attending, please give us a call at 1-800-662-8925, spots are already filling up!