Goodbye June. Hello July!

Boy oh boy, June was such a busy month for us here at ISAC! We had five different classes- New Trends in Gumpaste Flowers, Summer Gumpaste Flowers, 2-Day Ultimate Rose, Modern Marie Antoinette (with Chef Nicholas and Chef Lauren Kitchens), and Grand Master of the Jedi Order: Yoda with Lauren Kitchens! It was fun having all those classes, catching up with returning students, meeting new students, and having Chef Lauren was such a treat! Chef Nicholas, ever the dedicated teacher, hopped a plane to Japan last Wednesday so that he can teach at our sister school: Nicholas Lodge Sugar Art Gallery Japan. He will be teaching there for a total of two weeks. If you are one of our blog readers in Japan- I hope you are having fun with Chef Nicholas! We miss him here in the USA!

Lauren Kitchens = Cake Coolness

Ok, Lauren Kitchens is not my best friend (yet). I may or may not have only met her this week, but let me tell you something- she is awesome. She's friendly, down to earth, HILARIOUS, and she makes the coolest freaking cakes!  This week, Lauren graced ISAC with her cake making super-powers. She joined forces with our resident super hero, Chef Nicholas, to teach students how to make a Modern Marie Antoinette cake, and yesterday she taught 13 lucky students how to make a Yoda cake! I was able to sit in on both classes, and seriously... they were so much fun! I'm actually pretty jealous I didn't actually get to MAKE either the Marie Antoinette or Yoda cakes. Sad day. However, I got to hang out with Lauren, her assistant Jessie, and all of the amazing students in both of the classes, so I'm still counting it as a win! If you would like to see some of the process shots from the Modern Marie Antoinette and Yoda classes, please check out our facebook page: www.facebook.com/ChefNicholasLodge

A Day in the Life:

Cake Decorating Student

I know I mention it each week, but we really do have a huge, loyal, and enthusiatic fan base here at Nicholas Lodge's International Sugar Art Collection (ISAC). There are people we see all the time in our retail gallery, customers who regularly call in their orders because they love talking to our wonderful customer service specialists (Yay- Molly, Gretchen, Anne, and Molly. Yes we DO have two Mollys!), our facebook page is very active with an innumerable amount of positive and happy comments from our fans, and of course- the students in our cake decorating classes.

Welcome to Sweet Tricks and Cake Tips! This will be a short, periodic blog segment that will introduce you to cool cake related tips and tricks, fun instructional videos, and brand new tools from the Nicholas Lodge (NL) product line! What interesting item am I sharing this week, you ask? Well, all you gumpaste flower makers are going to love it! May I introduce:

Fondant: A Retrospective

I think it is a safe bet that nearly all the readers on this blog have used, or have heard of, rolled fondant. It is certainly a staple in all of Chef Lodge's cake decorating classes and a product that continually flies off the shelf in our retail gallery. The sweet marshmallowy taste and the stretchy, forgiving texture has made fondant wildly popular in the cake decorating world in recent years. I have used fondant to cover cakes and cookies, I have made fondant flowers and figures, I have even made fondant cameos! I've never questioned how this all-powerful substance came into being. Last week, I wrote about our new Jadeite colored fondant, and I wondered at the origins of fondant. Where was it invented? When was it first used to cover a cake? What makes it so stretchy? I am a researcher at heart, so I indulged my curiosity and delved into the deep, dark, sordid past of fondant. No, wait. Let me try that again: I indulged my curiosity and delved into the sweet, sugary, delicious past of fondant. Yeah, that's better. Fondant: THIS IS YOUR LIFE!

Nicholas Lodge and the

International Sugar Art Collection have a new blog!

Welcome to our blog! We here at Nicholas Lodge's International Sugar Art Collection (ISAC) are very excited to be connecting with our students, customers, and fans in this fun and informative way! Our goal is to share new and exciting products, tried and true products, quick demonstration videos, discuss upcoming events and classes, and maybe even some fun giveaways and contests for our readers. 

We are happy to announce the new blog for The International Sugar Arts!