My first Newsletter

Hello everyone,

It's been a long time, hasn't it? Too long... I had a bit of a rough year. Read about it in my very first Newsletter!

I am posting the english version here, but you can subscribe to my german one directly on my website www.thatbakinggirl.com

Thanks so much for reading :)

Making Memories

A little piece of info about moi... making cakes for clients scares the bejeezus out of me.

I am a nervous cake decorator and having strangers count on me to give their big day that extra special touch is very daunting and I see it as a great responsibility. 

No order is a breeze for me, ever.

I really want these people to be happy they chose me to help them celebrate and for them to remember my creations as an integral part of what made their day perfect.

Pressure much?

I am my own punching bag, I do realize. 

My clients have expectations...but my interpretation of what they could be probably reaches farther dimensions of one's imagination. 

Like Alice's wonderland...the scary bits.

Client expectations as interpreted by me : 

-Has to be incredibly tasty and amazing 

-Cake has to be perfectly executed

-Colors have to match invitation perfectly (or if given free reign on colors, have to combine them amazingly)

-Idea has to be original especially if the theme is common

-Has to have as many details as possible, without looking overdone

-Has to create a lifetime of memories

Actual client expectations : 

-Please make me a nice tasty cake

Um, what? 

But I saw the little girl's face when her parents came with her to pick up the goodies. Wonder.

I think this could be a memory making cake.

Hello 2017!

2016 was quite a year, wasn't it?

It has become quite popular to say it was the worst year ever. It is plastered all over the internet, let's drop kick this year out of our memory and start over fresh in 2017.

Can you remember a year in which so many horrible things happened, inexplicable things, downright alarming things? I certainly can't. But then again, I can't remember what I had for supper yesterday.

So like everyone else, I let myself be swayed by this point of view.

Bye bye 2016, you sucked!

In fact, much like my bear sister here, I felt that it was a year in which not only bad things were happening in the world, but also one in which I personally was tripping over, falling flat on my face, at every corner. A frustrating, difficult year.

It wasn't even June yet and I was wishing 2016 was over.

Everything I did was just to make myself a step closer to "getting it over with". Do you know what I mean? 

In short, I wasn't really enjoying the present.

What a mistake. What a waste.

Really, if I stop for a moment and look at 2016, I could say it was actually one of my best years ever. Not only that, this was the year in which I put my big girl pants on and started making real decisions about how my life should play out in the future.

In 2016, I took risk after risk.

I cried a lot. Like buckets. I had headaches from the crying. 

I was scared all the time, unsure of my decisions.

Overworked and massively underpaid.

But... 

...and let's stop for two seconds here and think about it...I, Heidi, me, am now in charge. 

I have my own business and place.

I made my first little cake movies and over 30000 of you actually took the time to watch them.

I had the privilege to go to Birmingham and meet some of my cake heroes, while making wonderful friends to accompany me on my cake journey.

I have wonderful clients who order from me, amazing students who want to actually learn from me, incredible readers who follow my Facebook page and support me with all their lovely comments.

And I have a wonderful husband who supports me in all my decisions (and also made my studio look awesome), a super amazing little girl who gives me the best hugs and kisses and a great family that believe in me.

I am blessed.

So 2016 actually kicked ass and I am grateful for all the opportunities and pitfalls it came along with. It made me stronger.

So hello 2017! I am ready for anything you throw my way and I will appreciate you knowing how you will help me fulfill more of my goals and lay the foundation for a great life.

New beginnings

New beginnings.  

Those are two heavy words aren't they. They are filled with expectation, excitement, joy...but also with fear, doubt and panic.

I feel all these things.

I am a woman and I multitask. 

Even feelings and emotions.

I am getting ahead of myself now. 

Long before this, there was another, lingering, annoying feeling. Longing.

The longing to have a different life. Longing to find my purpose.

Do you sometimes get the feeling that you are somehow wasting your life?

I certainly did. 

But, like anything in life, I needed a nudge.

I am lazy after all, and I had a comfortable life.

5 years ago, I got my nudge. Well, it was less of a nudge and more like a bulldozer making its way across my life.

I was pregnant.

It was going to be a girl. A girl, looking up to me. Me as a role model. Me, shaping her personality, her confidence, her future.

I have to go lie down.

Which I did. And think. And panic.

Excerpt of my innermost thoughts :

"I am not a good example.  I am wasting my life. I am not good at anything! What kind of mom am I going to be?"

and

"Am I enough?"

That is when I started baking. 

I can't say why it was baking and not sewing, opening an online party supply shop, getting online classes to become ______ (insert any trade here).

I talked myself into the idea of this being something like a real goal, fairly quickly into starting. I guess the instinct part of my brain took over entirely, not letting me doubt for a second.

Baking. I never baked. Why baking??

It started with cupcakes, but quickly turned into a cookie decorating obsession, with occasional dipping into the cake pop world. Cakes were far away from my mind, I felt cakes were too difficult, too important. 

What if I produce a complete cake wreck for someone's special day?? I couldn't live with that.

My girl, Lily, was born and was the perfect baby. She slept and slept while mommy practiced and practiced. 

It was about 6 months until I started my Facebook page. And it wasn't long before I actually got orders. 

Facebook was, by far, the biggest help for me starting my business. It helped me connect to other bakers, it helped me see what others were doing, thus pushing me to get better. 

And strangers were even ordering things from me! (I still can't believe that...)

In June 2012, I made my very first cake. And it wasn't for someone I knew. I told her I had never made one, but she wanted a cake, and she even told me she had total confidence that it would be good.

I didn't charge her for it, because I didn't know what I was doing... 

But it wasn't bad at all! If I do say so myself, for a first cake ever...

First cake

A few months later I made Lily's first birthday cake and at the end of the year I had two other orders.

By summer 2013, I was almost only making cakes.

It took over my life. I spent all my free time looking through the internet for tutorials, ideas... I found everything I needed and more. 

Thank you world wide web.

I had found my passion. I had found what I was good at. 

Because even if I am not the most confident person on the planet, I believe I am good at this. I spend a lot of time and energy developing my own style, finding the right colors and trying to make my customers happy.

Though not everyone is always happy.

I am still just a person. And I can't please everyone. 

I wish I could though. And I wish everyone knew and understood what type of person that I am. I genuinely want everyone to be happy. I don't lie or try to hide things. I want people to see that I try my best with every creation.

So for the last few years, I have been creating. Teaching. 

But also otherwise working. Part-time jobs, and part-time cakes, full-time mom and housewife. Overtime stress and fatigue.

It was time for another type of new beginning. Not just finding my passion. 

Living it.

So I quit my part-time job.

And just weeks later, I found a cake studio. Coincidence? I prefer to call it fate. Somehow it gives me more confidence to think it was meant to be, that everything would be ok.

So, unless something unforeseen gets in the way, I have now baked my last cake ever, at home.

I am embarking on the last step of my new beginning. 

Complete independence. 

Joy! 

Mixed with fear of course. But that's part of growing. You can't grow, change or become better if you only go the safe path.

This is me, taking the scary path. So bye bye home kitchen. 

Hello cake studio! 

Be kind and patient with me. I hope to do wonderful things with your help and I hope that being there will inspire me to grow and become better. Everyday.

Welcome new beginning.

Don't worry, be happy

When I started making cakes, about 3.5 years ago, the giant cupcake cake was all the rage and I too thought it was awesome. So I jumped on the bandwagon and gave it my all.

I was tremendously proud of this cake I made about 6 months into my cake making venture. 

(By the way, do you like the picture? The lighting and the wall in the back are wonderful, aren't they? Chuckle.)

Still, I was quite surprised when someone asked me to recreate it. Shocked really, and also kind of scared...

I haven't make a giant cupcake in years. What if I didn't see an improvement in the characters or technique?

 What if the cake was actually LESS good than the original?

What if the client is super disappointed and thinks that the original wasn't even made by me, since I couldn't even manage a simple giant cupcake cake???

Breathing into a paper bag over here.

No pressure. 

Just, you know, my whole reputation resting on my jet lagged, haven't made a cake in a month, was enjoying myself on a cruise just a few days ago, why am I here, shoulders.

I got this, right?

Maybe I was overreacting.

I actually quite like how the cake turned out. I was able to add more figures and they have more character, more of a story to tell than the old ones.

And the crocodile. I kind of love him. He knows what he is doing. He's holding the happy sign up.

He gets it. 

Don't worry, be happy.

O Canada...and a beaver tutorial!

I was born in Canada, just outside of Montreal. I grew up there, went to school there, fell in and out of love there. I had my family and friends...

...and a feeling of national pride. To live in such a great, safe, beautiful country.

Not to mention we have one the cutest national animals, like ever!

Beavers.

What, I didn't want him to get cold!

We also have a pretty awesome national symbol.

The maple leaf.

People of less popular countries even stick it on their backpacks to get better treatment abroad. Not pointing any fingers... I get it. I like us too.

The maple tree (I realize my interpretation is botanically incorrect, but I don't care, I just wanted it to look cute) is not just absolutely gorgeous, especially in the fall, it also produces liquid gold. Ah, not REAL gold, but close enough! 

You haven't had REAL maple syrup if you are disputing this by the way.

Maple syrup. You can eat it with everything. This cake, incidentally, is a Maple Syrup cake with Maple Syrup Buttercream and Maple Sugar Chunks. Drool.

Plus, you can eat it on snow. 

How practical...since we have a lot of it in Canada.

I miss Canada, my family and friends, the gorgeous fall colours, our amazing maple syrup from Quebec. 

I don't miss the snow.

Beaver Tutorial :

Take some sugarpaste (I use Massa Ticino, best thing on earth), and mix it with CMC. 

The color for his belly is Autumn Leaf by Sugarflair.

Roll a ball into a teardrop and pass a skewer through it. Shape a tiny teardrop out of your golden sugar paste and roll it out flat.

Put it on the belly with a bit of water.

(You can add a belly button if you wish)

Roll up two tiny balls into teardrops for the arms.

Roll up two slightly larger balls using your small finger to make an indentation over the foot. Flatten the shape and pinch the toes. Stick on the side of the body.

Roll up a nice sized ball for the head. Make indentations using your cone tool for the eyes. Fill with a tiny ball of black sugarpaste.

Roll two tiny balls and fasten them to the side of the head using the small side of your ball tool.

Roll a cylinder of the golden sugarpaste and use your dresden tool to make a line through the middle and little holes where the whiskers would be.

Roll up a tiny ball of white sugarpaste into a teardrop shape and make an indentation along the front with your dresden tool.

Last but not least, dye your brown sugarpaste with Dark Brown from Sugarflair. Roll out flat and roll over with a weave rolling pin.

Cut out the shape and size you like, with a pizza cutter.

Stick everything on, and voilà! A cute beaver!

You'll feel Canadian instantly!

Thanks for reading!

xx

My inspiration

I have a lovely client who has trusted me to make her Nonna's birthday cake 3 years in a row. It has been a pleasure... 

...and a bit of a dread.

Every year, I have had sleepless nights thinking about how to make it, so that it is clean and classic, not too flashy or silly, and especially, not old fashioned! 

(The pressure all those voices in my head put on me is just stifling really)

But the thing is, it's not JUST a cake now, is it? It's a token of appreciation... a way of letting the person know that you love them.

But I don't know this Nonna, I don't know how to show her love.

So I calm down and I think of my favorite grandmother...Lily's Grand-Maman, my mom.

The best person I know. 

And I think, how would I make this cake if it were for her? How would I let her know how much I love her? 

And so, every year, despite my panic attacks, a cake is made.

And every year, Nonna is happy.

And why not, I had the best possible inspiration. 

xx





Here is how I made the heart, in case you are interested :)

I bent 2 pieces of 18 Gauge Wire, which I then covered in brown florist tape.

I then used my Sugarcraft gun (One of my favorite tools of all time) to squeeze out some Sugarpaste snakes.

I stuck those under and over the wire shape, twisting them in areas, to give it a bit of a tangled branches effect.

I then squeezed out thinner snakes to wrap the ends with. You don't need those, but I think they give it a more finished look.

I let it dry and then airbrushed it dark brown and added some gold leaf effects.

Hope this helps!