Global Sugar Art

Through a local community college, I recently signed up to attend a basic fondant and gum-paste flower class. I've followed the Cake Journal for a few months and drooled over the stunning roses and adorable bunnies that could be made to decorate cakes with. Artist-meets-Cook has a huge amount of appeal to me.

The class was held last night, and I came home full of ideas and excitement and wishing someone had a birthday soon so I could make them a cake. Oh wait, someone does... me! Haha! *ahem*

I managed to take some pictures after another student asked if it was alright. Most of the time I forget to even take my camera with me, so this is a big deal. Or something like that.

Our teacher:


Alex.... Something-or-other. I couldn't quite read the name on his uniform from where I was sitting. I believe that he's the owner of Global Sugar Art. He was fun, easy to learn from, down-to-earth and certainly knew his stuff.



Here's the cake he made for us! This is not a display piece; rather, he used as many basic techniques as he could fit into two hours on this one cake.

Pretty! Sparkles! Flowers! Yay!

Alex really likes his pearl dust. He claims that he collects pearly dust on a cold, cold night during a full moon in January when there is at least two feet of snow on the ground... either that or he finds it in his bath-tub. (You just had to be there I guess...)

A few of his many, many 'toys'. I am now convinced that I need one of those giant blue silicone mats. *sigh*



And we ate it! Fondant and all! Interesting fact: Wilton is the most commonly available brand of fondant here in America, and according to him (and others who I've heard talk about it) it gives fondant a bad name. Apparently it's hard to work with and tastes just plain awful, so if it ends up on a cake it's peeled off before anyone eats it. Umm, that's appealing. The fondant that he used here was a butter-cream flavored fondant, perfectly edible and actually yummy. It tasted just like frosting, only chewier.


It wasn't until I was nearly done with my slice that I realized I'd gotten some pearl dust! Frankly, I'm hoping he collected it during the full moon in January, because eating something from someone's bath tub does not appeal to me.



After that class, we had a chance to take a look at some of his display cakes.









Then we got to go out back to the warehouse. That's what Global Sugar is, a warehouse for a mail-order company! I didn't even know it was there, in a city where we regularly shop. I only had a few minutes to look around, but I already know I'm going back to do some serious shopping soon. They have everything you could think of for making cakes, candy, decorating everything... I saw some food items that I would call professional grade and started to feel giddy. Years of frustrated Wal-Mart shopping melted away in an instant...

He also said that they hope to find a teacher to come and teach regular classes there. Hopefully they will keep their web-site up to date so if they do I'll hear about it! Sign me up!


So check out their web-site. A lot of what I looked at seemed very reasonably priced and he also has useful basic information and recipes for various home-made pastes.