My title’s Lloyd and I’ve a confession… I’ve bought a significant candy tooth that simply received’t give up! And I do know I say drawback however truthfully, 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 anything that’s accessible!
You would possibly keep in mind once we went to discover the gorgeous little villages within the Cotswolds (and staying on the impressively stately Wooden Norton Resort. Effectively on one of many nights there, we stumbled (after an excellent 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 positioned in one in every of London’s loveliest neighbourhoods.
We bought speaking about muffins, cookies and journey (however principally about muffins and cookies) and Lisa invited, nay challenged, us to come back 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 by a lot of cookies), I accepted and eagerly appeared 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 have been indoors doing this however all the pieces is best in London when the solar’s shining! Plus its not usually we get to spend time in London (and doing common ‘London issues’) so we have been grateful for the chance!
As quickly as we arrived, I immediately grew to become transfixed by the fluffy muffins 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 search out Madeleine’s by the best way…
Tackle: 397 Higher Richmond Highway West
East Sheen
London SW14 7NX
Cellphone: 020 8878 6194
E-mail: data@madeleinescakes.com
Web site: www.madeleinescakes.com
After a bit of 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 could be proclaimed the best masterpiece in cooking ornament!
All collectively, we have been a category of 6 equally keen cookie monsters (Georgia got here with) as we began studying all about the right way to turn out to be consultants at making the right cookies.
Random apart – I’ve by no means actually carried out cooking or baking courses. I take pleasure in meals a lot (as you’ll be able to most likely inform from my pictures) and so I figured earlier this 12 months 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 however 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 abilities (granted I attempted to do a ‘disappearing act’ on a few of the cookies even earlier than we began adorning).
I may need bragged lots about how I’d be a lot better at this than Yaya although I did take a bit of word 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 discovered 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 truly heard the time period earlier than however it made complete sense – as soon as I’d created the define of the form I used to be making an attempt to create, I crammed it with a giant dollop of freshly made sugar icing! It’s additionally price noting that you simply don’t want perfection at this stage as in case your icing sugar is completed proper, it ought to naturally unfold to fill in any gaps on the cookie.
After a bit of over an hour of icing and a gentle hand, I’d managed to create a reasonably ‘epic’ set of cookies. I take advantage of that time period evenly as you may need observed on snapchat how I managed to dent a few of the cookies… and in addition overlook 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 courses could be! In a world dominated by thrill-seekers everybody needs to be the one who’s climbed the tallest mountain or hiked the furthest distance and even been to probably the most nations, its so good to simply give attention to the core on a regular basis issues that makes you actually pleased! The perfect 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 bit of 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 fantastic, this ‘battle’ was all in my head however Yaya’s have been a lot 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 simple to see why.
I dotted, sparkled, dusted and textured my cookies – all whereas conserving a watchful eye on what Yaya was creating.
Someplace alongside the best way, and perhaps it was the prosecco… or laughing too onerous whereas making an attempt to design the cookies however I ended up creating with some fairly wonky cookie strains, leaving Yaya with a transparent win!
These are his beneath 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 beneath, by the best way!
My subsequent objective goes to be adorning a cake like this unhealthy boy beneath… 😉
Given my just lately displayed (lack of) design talent, anybody wanna wager a guess on me creating one that appears identical to this? 😉 🙂
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