Fondant flowers

I think the simplest way to learn how to use fondant is to start with basic shapes and learn how to manipulate the shapes into something else.

So, I brought in cupcakes, frosting, and fondant in a few different colors for the students to play around with. First they frosted the cupcake with frosting to act as a glue for the fondant, then they took a plastic IKEA kids cup to punch out a large circle from some fondant they had rolled out. This is the perfect size to top a cupcake, like a little lid. Then they took another color of fondant and cut it, or ripped it by hand, into 6 equally sized pieces. They rolled those pieces into little balls and flattened them into sort of little oval shapes, and used the fat toothpick to make an indentation down the middle. The shapes became petals for a flower, and after they arranged them on the cupcake, they rolled and flattened another little ball from a different color, for the center. They used the tip of the fat toothpick to make little holes on the flower center.

Very cute!!!

First Class!

I met all of my students in class A. They are all seventh graders, with the exception of one sixth grader. All of them seem to be friends, they get along pretty well. Everyone is eager to be here and learn, they are telling me stories of being gauged with pencils when the sign up lists were posted and people rushed to sign up for my class, pretty crazy. So, I know now that these are the toughest, fastest ones of the bunch, who made it on the list and in my class. Awesome.

For the first class, I gave each student a kit of their own (had a fun time at IKEA) which includes:
One roller (made of food safe PVC pipe cut to 8 inches in length), one pizza cutter, one large toothpick (sort of the size of a fat short skewer), and a few drinking straws of different widths.

I also bought flexible cutting boards for their work surfaces, but since I have two classes they don't get to keep these, they are shared.

Welcome to Cake Decorating Class

Hello, my name is Pam, and I teach a cake decorating class to middle school students. I have two classes, one with seventh graders, and one with eighth graders. In this class, I will teach my students how to use simple kitchen tools that you can find in your home, to decorate cupcakes, cookies, candies, and small cakes with fondant and chocolate clay.
In my class I start out with a short 5 minute demo or explanation of the technique that we will be using that day. for the rest of the hour, the students are free to use the technique in any way they choose, to decorate whatever item I've brought in that day to be decorated.
Most, if not all, of my students have had no experience in working with fondant, which is very exciting to me, because I learned how to use fondant by myself, which always requires numerous hours of trial and error, frustration, and patience. I can share all of my experience with my students, and also teach them little tricks I've figured out along the way.