Happy National Cupcake Day! I decorated these delicious festive cupcakes at the Georgetown Cupcake store in Los Angeles! Let me tell you about it…
A few years ago when we were in Washington, DC on a family vacation I made my manly traveling companions (husband and sons) stop at Georgetown Cupcake since I had watched the TLC show “DC Cupcakes”. The line was out the door, it was hot and humid so I didn’t insist on a sampling but I did pop my head inside the door. Everything was cute, fresh and clean from the decor to the presentation of the cupcakes. I was smitten from the first little fondant daisy I spied.
Being back in SoCal reality, Georgetown Cupcake was like a nice memory with the hopes of one day actually tasting a sweet bite, but recently I found out they have a live Cupcake Cam! Oh joy! I have to say, for someone who LOVES to decorate sweet things, watching them working online is addictive! Like binge watching addictive. I know. I did it one day – for hours – before I got a grip!! It remains my guilty pleasure (I have an open tab on my laptop) and my “I wish I was there” moment. π
If I *could* be there I know exactly what I’d like to do – work with the fondant – using the fondant sheeter to roll out the fondant, cut the edible images for custom fondant orders, embossing the fondant by stamping dry or with inked designs, using the paper punch, pushing a mini cookie cutter or plunger into the softness. You can see all this being done on the Live Cupcake Cam. As you know, I’m a big fondant decorator on this blog but there’s just something about their busy, buzzing kitchen that I wanted to be part of, if only for a day.
Then a holiday miracle occurred! About the same time I found the live cam I found out there had been a brick and mortar shop for the last couple of years in LA! Hello, Robertson Blvd! Not only had I found on their website that they overnight orders, I could also take a decorating workshop! I was all in!
When you walk in the shop you can see production in all it’s wonderful, creative glory from this window. If you notice a nose print and two hand prints on the glass it could be mine. That’s what I wanted to do but I did manage to control myself. π
I loved this Warhol-esque print.
Now let me tell you about the workshop….Look what I created!
I arrived a little early and was greeted immediately and offered a drink of my choice. I grabbed a coffee and walked down Robertson for awhile passing The Ivy restaurant slyly looking for a possible celeb sighting…none today. π
For the class, we worked at the “fondant table”. Boom! Fantasy #1 coming true. There, a pretty pink, glossy box held a dozen un-iced cupcakes for each participant.
Very full bags of icing in various flavors were laid out for us along with a “cheat sheet” of which icing is recommended for which flavor of cupcake but we could mix and match but I ask you, why mess with perfection?
Little dishes held various candies and fondant shapes already cut out for us. I was hoping working with the fondant would have been part of the class since I also did my remote homework watching the Cupcake Cam and felt I was ready for the big leagues but it was not to be this day. I know this would have been logistically challenging with everyone and not everyone is already experienced with fondant. Oh well. On to the icing…
I grabbed my corresponding bag of icing and did my “signature swirl” and topped it off with the decoration of my choice.
This went pretty quickly. I suggested scrapping off the icing so we could do it again because I wanted to do more and wanted to linger in the Georgetown Cupcake ambiance longer.
The class was slated from 2 to 4 but we were basically finished around 2:45 so I asked if I could just look around a little more. Our hostesses were very nice and said, “sure!”.
A little bird told me they had been working on some custom fondant cupcake decorations.
There were a couple moms and young daughters in the class. What a perfect introduction and a fun activity for them to do together. It was nice to see.
I found something for Santa to bring me…
Being a lover of all things paper, check out the seasonal bags with Rudolph’s nose as a cupcake swirl. How cute and clever is this? In our goodie bag was a traveling mug with the same design on it. How did they know I needed a traveling mug, seriously? Thank you!
I loved my day up in LA in the Georgetown Cupcake holiday workshop and getting to dip my toes in the behind-the-scenes waters, so to speak. It was a bucket list event for me. I told our lovely hostesses that if I lived closer I’d be happy to work on any shift that they needed someone. I was told that would be 4 AM. Hmm. That is early. At least I know there wouldn’t be any LA traffic.
π
Check out the class schedules here under Order-Merchandise