Fair Cake, Greenwich, London

I went to a "Tricks of the Trade" class at FairCake. The class was held in Shikhita's AMAZING kitchen in her lovely house in Greenwich. The class was all about the business of cake making - I won't give it all away here, but suffice to say that Shikhita really knows her stuff and is a real inspiration. We had a gorgeous spread of food for lunch, plus 6 awesome cupcakes to take home.

Oh, and she has an adorable dog called Jack who kept licking my elbows when I wasn't looking, so don't go if you're allergic!

I came today from a cupcake basics class at Shikhita's so-nice-and-shiny-and-lovely-and-I'm-so-jealous-of-it kitchen in Greenwich.

Born and raised in Spain, cupcakes were absolutely unknown to me before a holiday trip to New York, where I fell in love with those colourful and little cakes that tasted so good. Since I've been living in the UK, where all ingredients to make and decorate them were available to me, I've been spending my free time trying to learn all the secrets of cupcake making. When I first discovered Fair Cake's website and day courses, I didn't wait to book the first I could find that wasn't sold out. It was amazing!

I learn a lot of stuff about icing, sugar paste and flower making and I feel confident to try everything myself at home. It was amazing to realise how you can achieve astonishing results that seems even professional just within one day.

I absolutely recommend these courses to anyone that loves baking and want to learn or simply spend a very pleasant day, thanks in no small part to Shikhita's good sense of humour, kindness and enthusiasm :)

An absolutely delightful class to organise and attend, for a more detailed tale of flowers and fondant check out my easy-to-digest blog here:

http://london.blog.qype.com/?s=cupcake&submit=Go

What an excellent class - great place, great teacher and great cupcakes! We started off learning about fondant, how to colour and shape little decorations and before long (stopping for a taste along the way naturally) we were piping swirls, flowers and even a grassy look on top of pre-prepared cupcakes. Fair Cake's founder and cupcake whizz Shikhita was warm, funny and helpful throughout. It's no wonder her classes and cakes are so popular, they are both fantastic! As was the box we got to carry our creations home in, the perfect end to the perfect event - along with the actual eating them afterwards of course... I just made my first set last night all by myself and they turned out perfect. My fellow cupcakers would be proud :)

An amazing host and a wonderful personality accompany the fab cupcakes and cupcake class that we attended. Patience and kindness were all part of the evening and decorating and learning tips and tricks from a pro on how to decorate a cupcake in various ways was great fun. I recommend the cakes and the cake maker as she is a lovely lady! She has a perfect space for learning and great music to make the evening a pleasure.

Entering Shikhita ‘s kitchen was like walking into a meditation parlour. Calm music and white light filled the air and the smell of sweet cupcakes made me start drooling as soon as I put my foot in the door.

After a quick introduction to her business and her family, we began by dying the icing used to make the sugar shapes for the fairy cakes. Shikhita shared every important detail with us to make sure that we got the most from our course, including what we needed to add to the icing to stop it sticking to our hands and how we should work the dye into the icing.

Once the shapes were all created (and there were multitudes of cutters and moulds to choose from), we left them to dry whilst we were shown how to prepare the butter icing into the piping bags and taught the best techniques for holding the bags and squeezing the contents onto the delicious cupcakes.

Decorating the cakes was one of the most satisfying things I have done in years and I was surprised at the artistic talent that I had never found within me, appearing before my eyes!

Having said that, I think that, with the right materials and ingredients, this is a hobby, or even a career, that many people could take up and enjoy, as long as they have a little patience.

I took the cupcakes home in a beautiful pink box with a ribbon around it an posted a photo on facebook of my creation – with most people sounding astonished that I had made such a beautiful creation and questioning whether it was really my own work!

Unfortunately, the cupcakes were all finished within a few days, thanks to a cake loving boyfriend and a few lucky work colleagues, but it has certainly inspired me to make more cakes like this in the future.

I had no idea what to expect when I went along to this cake decorating class as I've never attended such a tutorial before. However, Shikhita explained everything carefully and logically - and before long I was somehow magicing butterflies, flowers and stars from shapeless lumps of icing. Having somehow made sculpting geniuses out of us all, she then demonstrated the best way to pipe frosting onto the baked goods. All of us managed to neatly shape a layer of the fluffy stuff onto each cupcake, and then adorned them with leaves, sprinkles and glitter. Amazing!
Shikhita's class was excellent - not only could we then take these beauties home, we also got to eat throughout the lesson: scrumptous. Highly recommend!

Myself and a bunch of other cupcake loving Qypers descended upon Fair Cake and its awesome owner Shikhita on Monday evening, for some fabulous fun with fondant, fairy cakes and the most amazing buttercream.

You see, Fair Cake is not just another cake selling company. The Greenwich based business also offers us mere mortals the opportunity to learn the secrets of perfect cake baking and decorating and if you want, Shikhita will even advise you on how start up a cup cake business like hers!

The girls and I were attending a Roses and Buttercream cream class, which was absolutely delightful! We were welcomed with an offer of tea (which I took advantage of) and a gleaming, perfectly set out kitchen with the accruements that we would need.

Shikhita put us at ease with her bubbly personality. And her knowledge of cake decorating and professionalism in leading the class gave me the confidence that I would indeed succeed in my quest to create gorgeous cup cake decor!

We began by making fondant flowers, using a huge variety of colourings and eventually creating various shapes. Later, Shikhita showed us how to fill a piping bag, which nozzles to use and how to combine colours for a marbled effect. After demonstrating how to successfully handle a piping bag(and believe me, it's important!), we set about piping swirls on our freshly made (by Shikhita earlier) cupcakes. With the different nozzles, we were able to achieve different designs, including a seriously cool grass effect! During the class, we were offered cup cakes to eat and I have to say, biting into that soft sponge and tasting that velvety buttercream was like devouring a little bit of heaven!

The cakes you decorate during the class are yours to keep and I couldn't wait to get mine home and show them off! I had expected a typical cardboard cake box (like the ones you might get when buying a cake/pastries at a supermarket or bakery) to put our fancy handy work in, but Fair Cake does not give you anything typical or cheap! Instead, we were given beautiful gift boxes, with nine compartments, to fill with our delicious creations. And on getting home (after a train ride and two tube rides), the cakes were still in absolute perfect condition.

If you're looking for someone to create the perfect cake for you, go to Fair Cake - you won't be disappointed! And if you're wondering about taking a class in cup cake baking or decorating, quit wondering and get in touch with Shikhita!