I.C.E.S 2012 - Part 1 of many

I had such a fabulous time at ICES in Reno, I hardly know where to start with my coverage. I packed so much in to the 5 1/2 days I was there, met so many people, saw so many things. I guess I should start at the beginning. I'd been planning my trip to ICES since last year, I wanted to be sure I could wring the most fun possible out of my visit. I would have liked to have stayed longer, but I had my family & staff to consider. The ICES convention was held at the Hotel Grand Sierra in Reno. The size of the hotel is beyond our imagination in NZ, this hotel had room for 1300 conference attendees, vendors, demonstrators and yet we still did not dominate the number of people in the hotel. The resort boasts many restaraunts, shops, a bowling alley, cinema and so much more. It is definitely a great place for families. it is essentially a casino - but the size of which I've never seen anything like (I've never been to Las Vegas however)

I didn't manage to get a photo of the exterior of hotel, darn near impossible due to it's size, so here's my postcard from the hotel gift shop - I'm sending it to you all!.

This was the view from my hotel suite window. For me, the price of just over $100 per night for a luxury suite, with marbled bathroom and butlers pantry was a bargain. In the city itself - everything is rather brown in apperance but Reno is in the middle of the desert. Some days the view was a little hazy, I was told this was due to wild fires burning over the ranges in California.

The ICES Convention itself, was organised by the ICES show committee and an army of volunteers who did an amazing job.Each show, a show cake is designed and displayed for the length of the convention, this years cake was made by Roland & Marsha Winbeckler (more about Roland to come in future posts)

The theme for this years ICES convention was the "Old West". Roland hand sculpted the figurines of the time using modelling chocolate and fondant. The gorgeous saloon girl is the spitting image of Marsha - and during the awards banquet night Marsha posed in her costume next to the cake for people to take photos. Sadly I didn't have my camera with me. The Bald eagle on top of the cake is life sized and has 1000 feathers. Generous donations were made from Satin Ice, Choco-pan, Deseret Designs, Earlene's cakes, Ck Products and A-J Winbeckler Ent, to allow this cake to be made.

During the course of the convention, I saw many non ICES members staring at the cake in disbelief. It sure was a work of art. The picture above and below is from our show magazine and copyrighted to ICES - it was darn near impossible to take a photo of this cake!

To many of the cake decorators delight, one of the shops within the hotel was "Candy Barrell" - I really like Salt Water taffy and we don't get it here in NZ, they had every flavour imaginable

I always thought a huckleberry was a fictional thing (until I was proved wrong)

I struggled to get the "cupcake flavour" in this candy - but it was still tasty. There is no SALT taste to salt water taffy by the way.

It is hard to imagine looking at these photos below, but this is a photo in the Grand Crystal ballroom, I couldn't get a wide enough photo in any one direction, this is breakfast for 1300 ICES members, I don't think many locations in NZ could cope with setting out breakfast for 1300 people and get them all fed simultaneously - the hotel can be proud of their kitchen and servers, they pulled it off effortlessly, as though they do it every day (I think they actually do mutiple times per week)

During my stay, I was lucky to make some firm friends, that I will stay in contact with for years to come. I arrived in Reno on Wednesday afternoon and took the hotel's shuttle from the airport arriving mid afternoon. By the time I got my bags dumped in my room, it was straight off to the first timers orientation. We received a run down of all ICES offers during the convention and were also treated to a free tiara mould from Carol Scott, who did a lovely demo using it for us. Once the orientation finished, I popped up to registration. It was whilst I was standing in line, I met my new friends Lori and Linda. They had travelled by car from Modesto California. In just a few minutes we were firm friends. I mentioned to them I was intending to head over to "The Biggest Little Cake Shoppe" during my stay - Lori was very quick to offer me a ride the following day - and Lori, Linda & I teamed up for many such jaunts over the course of the days following.

It was fun to visit "The Biggest Little Cake Shoppe" - it was my first visit to a cake supplies store in the USA. I discovered not everything is easy in the USA - just because they can have items shipped across country (where as we are stuck importing most things). Due to their soaring desert summer temperatures, they have to order all of their chocolate based products prior to summer - IMAGINE! having to predict how much chocolate you might use for a 3-6 month period. I had a blast shopping here and got a great selection of discontinued Wilton novelty cake pans (which you'll fin are on the Kiwicakes website now)

Deb & Diana were awesome I saw a lot of them over the course of ICES, coincidentally I even had seats next to Deb in some of the demos. On the last night, they treated me out to dinner. When they asked where I like to go, I said please take me somewhere outside the hotel (honestly you could live inside that huge hotel for a month and never need to go outside) They took me to Ruby River for an awesome steak dinner (and a margarita or two)

We had to race back from dinner to make the ICES - "Night of sharing", but they made a point of driving me down through the city and under the "Biggest Little City" arch. It's just like people say a mini Vegas - with everything lit up like a Christmas Tree.

Cupcake decorating for kids - Upstart magazine

I was honoured to be asked by Upstart magazine to create a bullet point article aimed at kids aged 7-12 years for cupcake decorating.

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I had fun creating the cupcakes in the article. The article forms part of a combined giveaway with Whipple & Bell Tea. There's a big Kiwicakes prize pack too!.

Upstart magazine has a circulation of 20 000 copies, distributed via retail outlets & primary/intermediate schools. It is also the inflight magazine for children on Air NZ domestic and trans-Tasman flights.

If you'd like to win a copy of this issue for your child. Leave me a comment here on this blog post, with the age of the child you'd like to give it to. Make sure I have a way of contacting you, if you win.

ICES Live cake challenge Reno 2012

I have my youtube video channel up and running, this short wee video of the live cake challenge at ICES in Reno will be the first of many. The live cake challenge was held over 8 hours, with teams of three competing. As ICES members we could come and go through the course of the day and watch the progress.

ICES - My favourite cakes

I know so many of you are waiting for my updates from ICES - I arrived home late Wednesday night, after 3 flights to get to Auckland only to discover my flight to Whangarei had been cancelled, due to mechanical problems. I got a shuttle to Whangarei - but hey at least I made it home, only a few hours late. Thursday/Friday I was knee deep in messages from my absence. I finally caught up with myself over the weekend and am finally feeling like my old self again

I thought I would start my ICES trip posts with my favourite cake. I took over 650 photo's whilst I was away (not all of them good photo's though - so there's some sorting to do). When I was walking around the cake pavillion (which is the display cakes, that ICES members brought with them to ICES for display) I thought to myself  "which is my favourite?" This cake below is my favourite for many reasons. It is extremely well executed and I'm a huge fan of corals, anemones and sea life. Whilst I can appreciate the skill of the mermaids, it's the sea life on the cake I adore. The isomalt Jelly fish really are cute too!.

This cake of cowboy boots would be the cake I would choose if I had to pick a cake for my birthday. I'm a big fan of cowboy boots. 

In fact I had on my list of things to do in Reno to visit "Boot Barn" - I got quite excited when I checked out their website, sadly for me, my intentions of bringing home a few pairs was thwarted when the selection in store, was so much smaller than their website (particularly in my size). However I did bring these beauties home.

I'm still working on my other 640+ photos and will get them to you soon!

Kiwicakes goodies in 1st episode of new series of cafe Secrets on TV

The brand new series of Cafe Secrets starts on TV3 5pm Sunday July 29th. The very first episode sees host Julie Le Clerc visiting Great Barrier Island and the Wild Rose Cafe For those of you that haven't watched the first series, Julie visits cafe's around NZ, cooking some of the cafe's specialities along with the cafe's owners (or chef's/cooks)

During her time on Great Barrier - Julie gets some "Barrier Blokes" decorating cupcakes using Kiwicakes products

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Knowing what goodies I sent the team at "Cafe Secrets" I can't wait to see what the "blokes" created. Kiwicake's features in another episode later in the series as well, which I'll update you on, closer to the time.

Lego party for my 6 year old

Last Sunday was my little boy's 6th birthday. He decided on a Lego theme for his party. I had an idea in mind for his cake, which I did get to do. However I had originally intended to make the minifigures from icing, seeing as I had a mould for it. This was not to be, when my soon to be 6 year old started naming all of the Star Wars Lego characters he wanted on his cake. I knew I didn't have a spare 20 hours to make them from icing - let alone the artistic skills to draw those faces!. Realising in the grand scheme of things I wouldn't lose any Mummy points if I used real lego (which I think my wee man actually preferred) - I made the decision to cut myself a break for once. My wee man was proud to have created the spaceship on the cake board himself.

To make matters worse - my wee man does not like cake at all SHOCK HORROR! - so I made his cake from "Lolly Cake" below is a photo of how I cut the area from the NO#6 to allow for the Lego bricks. I made the lego bricks using this building block mould  they are made from coloured Satin Ice fondant. The cake is covered in White Satin Ice fondant. Being lolly cake, it was a little hard to get a smooth surface.

My wee man adores all things Lego, so we had a mixture of Lego City party ware and Star Wars Lego party ware

I realised sadly when I saw the boys sitting at my miniature retro formica table, it may be the last party where my kids can use it - by the time he turns 7 they will be too big. I guess I'll have to store it for a decade or two until I get some Grand babies

I love some of the lego party tables I've seen on blogs and magazine layouts recently. I would have loved to have created a larger (fuller) table, but in reality with only 3 guests coming to the party. I had far too much food as it was.

The left over cookies (there were more than this) went to school the next day, as his actual birthday fell on Monday).

I love the Tovolo cookie cutters, they emboss as they cut. These rocket ship peanut butter sandwiches were a hit. Cutter can be bought here.

The building block candy was from Kiwicakes, as was the candy jars & tongs. I was thrilled to recently find the "Jelly Joiners" at the supermarket. They look like building blocks and the kids can have fun joining them together to create new flavours (per the instructions on the pack). They are from the Natural Confectionery Company.

The Lego man, I downloaded from the winksanddaisiesblog I also used them for the treasure hunt, taping a Fruit Burst lolly to the rear of each. Be warned they take a while to cut out, if you use a lot of them.

I didn't stop to get a photo of the ice cream AFTER it went in the ice cream cups - but you get the picture.

July is never great weather for parties, so I planned ahead and bought 4 Ninjago Lego sets at 50% off when Farmers had a sale. It's just as well I did as the weather was terrible. After the food was eaten, the treasure was found and the Pinata had spilled it's guts, the party guests had a quiet - almost hour putting their Ninjago Blacksmith shops together. Which for 4x 6 year olds, I thought was pretty amazing to sit quietly for so long.

I bought the small crayons on Trademe and packaged up using tags, also from winksanddaisies blog and the lego Star Wars stickers are from Kiwicakes for take home gifts for the guests.

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