My title’s Lloyd and I’ve a confession… I’ve bought a serious candy tooth that simply gained’t give up! And I do know I say drawback however actually, its not one thing that I really feel the necessity to change. Chocolate is my kryptonite however within the absence of chocolate, I’ll take the rest that’s out there!
You may bear in mind after we went to discover the beautiful little villages within the Cotswolds (and staying on the impressively stately Wooden Norton Resort. Nicely on one of many nights there, we stumbled (after a wonderful dinner) for cocktails on the bar the place we ran into Lisa. Lisa’s a Londoner who owns and runs Madeline’s Cake Boutique, a sugary heaven situated in one in all London’s loveliest neighbourhoods.
We bought speaking about desserts, cookies and journey (however principally about desserts and cookies) and Lisa invited, nay challenged, us to return spherical to hers for a masterclass in cookie adorning! By no means one to shrink back from a problem (or an opportunity to work my approach via a lot of cookies), I accepted and eagerly regarded ahead to seeing what she had in retailer!
Simply earlier than we visited, we’d been travelling for weeks on finish with little or no time in London and on this weekend, the solar was shining and we couldn’t have picked a greater day to do that! Granted we had been indoors doing this however every little thing is best in London when the solar’s shining! Plus its not typically we get to spend time in London (and doing common ‘London issues’) so we had been grateful for the chance!
As quickly as we arrived, I immediately grew to become transfixed by the fluffy desserts and different scrumptious fragrances coming from the kitchen which I used to be solely too keen to assist discover even additional!
Oh and that is the place to seek out Madeleine’s by the best way…
Handle: 397 Higher Richmond Street West
East Sheen
London SW14 7NX
Cellphone: 020 8878 6194
E-mail: data@madeleinescakes.com
Web site: www.madeleinescakes.com
After a little bit look across the boutique, with some compulsory style testing ;-), we headed straight into the working kitchens of the boutique itself to get began on creating what I anticipated can be proclaimed the best masterpiece in cooking ornament!
All collectively, we had been a category of 6 equally keen cookie monsters (Georgia got here with) as we began studying all about how you can grow to be specialists at making the right cookies.
Random apart – I’ve by no means actually performed cooking or baking lessons. I take pleasure in meals a lot (as you may most likely inform from my pictures) and so I figured earlier this yr that I’d attempt to make extra of an effort to simply merely be higher and I couldn’t have requested for a greater alternative.
Yaya alternatively is a way more expert cook dinner and baker (don’t ever inform him I stated this or I’ll deny it) and wasn’t too impressed with my culinary expertise (granted I attempted to do a ‘disappearing act’ on a number of the cookies even earlier than we began adorning).
I may need bragged loads about how I’d be significantly better at this than Yaya although I did take a little bit be aware of Yaya’s approach… There was no approach I used to be gonna let him go away with higher cookies than me! 😉
The very first thing I realized was to create some fairly neat strains with a thicker sugar icing that acted as a barrier as soon as we ‘flood’ the cookie…
Flooding a cookie sounding fairly traumatic to me… I’d by no means really heard the time period earlier than but it surely made whole sense – as soon as I’d created the define of the form I used to be attempting to create, I stuffed it with a giant dollop of freshly made sugar icing! It’s additionally price noting that you just don’t want perfection at this stage as in case your icing sugar is finished proper, it ought to naturally unfold to fill in any gaps on the cookie.
After a little bit over an hour of icing and a gradual hand, I’d managed to create a reasonably ‘epic’ set of cookies. I take advantage of that time period calmly as you may need seen on snapchat how I managed to dent a number of the cookies… and in addition neglect so as to add a couple of bits on – seems icing sugar additionally acts as fairly nice cookie glue!
I genuinely had no concept how a lot enjoyable these lessons can be! In a world dominated by thrill-seekers everybody desires to be the one who’s climbed the tallest mountain or hiked the furthest distance and even been to essentially the most nations, its so good to simply deal with the core on a regular basis issues that makes you actually pleased! One of the best half about doing this cookie adorning class was doing it with Yaya and Georgia as all of us have a lot enjoyable no matter we’re doing (plus, we’re all so aggressive with one another so this was an ideal alternative to get one over the opposite particular person). 😉 🙂
Ready for the icing to set, we took this chance to have a little bit lunchtime tipple of prosecco, Madeleine’s specialty tea, freshly baked tacky scones and a giant slab of moist Guinness cake! (By no means had Guinness cake earlier than this – completely hooked on it now).
After our scrumptious lunch break, I headed again into the workshop to complete my epic cookie adorning battle towards Yaya! 😉
Okay effective, this ‘battle’ was all in my head however Yaya’s had been significantly better than mine at this stage and Georgia was nailing it each step of the best way – then once more, given the halloween outfits she comes up with, its straightforward to see why.
I dotted, sparkled, dusted and textured my cookies – all whereas protecting a watchful eye on what Yaya was creating.
Someplace alongside the best way, and possibly it was the prosecco… or laughing too exhausting whereas attempting to design the cookies however I ended up creating with some quite wonky cookie strains, leaving Yaya with a transparent win!
These are his under and save from the atrocious Kanye-West-sunglasses blue costume one, he didn’t accomplish that badly for a first-timer (once more, don’t inform him I stated any of this!)
Oh and that’s Lisa under, by the best way!
My subsequent aim goes to be adorning a cake like this unhealthy boy under… 😉
Given my just lately displayed (lack of) design talent, anybody wanna wager a guess on me creating one that appears similar to this? 😉 🙂
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