Le Cordon Blue Cake Decorating Programme 2 - It's a bumpy ride (part one)!

My first visit to the new Le Cordon Bleu London campus on 15th January 2014 was not exactly a smooth one. It was easy to find the campus but I arrived when the next wave of classes were about to start so everything was rather chaotic. The receptionist didn't even get to store my fingerprint to their system which is required to gain access to the classrooms - luckily it was sorted at a later stage.

Chef Julie (one of our programme instructors) was able to fish me out of the million other students waiting in the narrow campus corridor for their next classes to begin (well it was not a hard thing to do as I stood out for not wearing the full body chef's outfit) and led me to a lecture room for our first lesson. There are 9 of us on the programme in total - including 2 full-time students who are doing their intermediate patisserie diploma. It tool chef Julie a while to finally gather the full crowd before we can finally begin the lesson. Chef Matthew prompted joined the lecture room and the two of them talked for a few hours on course content, health & safety and then a tour around the campus followed by a 45 minutes break.

My classmates also include a Le Cordon Bleu cuisine diploma graduate, a business woman from India who owns a little bakery shop back home, a full-time mom from Malaysia who would like to continue with the Sugar Artistry Programme afterwards, an audiologist and a DJ who would both like to venture into the cake decorating world, and finally a girl from Nigeria who simply wants learn something crafty. Everyone joined the programme for different reasons.

After the break, we regrouped again in the 2nd floor patisserie kitchen for our first practical lesson - making royal icing and piping it on a dummy cake. It is rather nice that you get to actually make things you are going to use for cake decorating in the programme. We all had our own ingredients, kitchen bench and equipments.

Chef Matthew demonstrated how to make royal icing and then it was our turn. It was my first time using a Kitchenaid mixer but things proceeded without issues (though my royal icing was a tiny bit too thick to be piped in the end). Chef Matthew then showed us how to make piping bags using baking parchments. I had learnt how to make them before from other cake decorating courses but Le Cordon Bleu really taught it the best - simply explanations and I am finally confident to make one without getting lost!

Now it is time to get piping! We were each given a no.2 piping tube and practiced piping basic things using templates from our course book. It was not the most confidence boosting thing to do as the piped patterns seem of have a will of their own......most of the time! As my royal icing a bit too thick my thumb was in pain after rather quickly so I had to take breaks a lot.

Chef Matthew then showed us how to pipe loops on a dummy cake with equal spacing. This took me a while to get to as marking the dummy cake with naked eye was simply too difficult - I ended up with markers that are not equally spaced so I had to wipe them out and then restart again. Luckily chef Matthew came to the rescue and showed me how to make a round parchment paper with equally spaced creases to make things soooo much easier for me.

We simply practiced piping for the whole night. When and my hands were absolutely sore and it was reaching the end of the class it was time to stop. The dummy cake was still covered with amateur-level piping patterns but hey practice makes perfect so watch this space. Below is a picture of my dummy cake:

(Note to self - must also practice piping shells at the bottom rim of the cake)

Chef's piping:

 Chef Julie also showed us her skills and these swirls are simply divine!

One lesson down, 9 more to go!!

Sparkling Piggy