Thursday, August 21, 1997 at 9 PM ET in the Kitchen Conference Room -- "More about the convention and what we learned there NEW - REAL TIPS" - And a few baking basics

MORE ICES: The only thing we haven't really reported back on here, from the ices show is our hand-outs.

OBJECTIVE is to "break the ice" and help get the fun started. As you may have already seen from some other convention, people sometimes trade little silly things they wear on their hats or a special ribbon etc. These items should be very inexpensive. You walk up to someone and offer them one of the items you brought (made/bought, whatever) and they may or may not have something for you in returen. It is vital that we share with first-timers even IF they don't also share with us. First-timers don't always have a way to know about this. It would make them feel awfully left out if we didn't also share with them! They'll see you exchanging hugs with your friends. At least, if you trade with them, they WILL feel better.

WHEN - These are mostly exchanged prior to the time the show starts. We don't have much time once it begins. (Do this on Wed., Thurs., etc). Once in awhile you will find people who have been late to arrive and still want one. This is apt to be someone who is NEW too! So be observant if someone looks lonely or doesn't have the mementos on!

HOW MANY - as many as you want or can afford. I try for 200 of whatever. Mine have never cost over a few pennies each.

WHAT: These items can be anything...attached too a pin or sticker to wear on your ribbon. As we register on arrival to a show, we are given a ribbon badge to wear. These items can be attached to it...some of them at least LOL. Some items I have exchanged different years are:

HELLO KITCHEN THIS IS THE CAKE DECORATING CHAT HOUR WELCOME TO ALL NEWCOMERS TO OUR LIVE CHATS! WE ARE CHATTING ABOUT CAKE DECORATING..9-10PM EST... ...HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY. FEEL FREE TO JOIN THE FUN...

DON'T FORGET TO TURN ON YOUR LOG TO RECORD OUR CHAT TONIGHT: TO DO: AT THE TOP OF YOUR AOL MENU, CLICK ON <<FILE>>, SCROLL DOWN TO <<LOG MANAGER>> CLICK ON OPEN LOG...... AND SAVE-AS ---ANY NAME ...CAKECHAT.LOG (ETC) IN A FOLDER (DIRECTORY) TITLED CHATLOG... AFTER YOU EXIT AOL YOU CAN USE ANY WORD PROCESSOR TO OPEN AND READ IT.

WE ARE TYPING IN CAPS AS REQUESTED. THIS MAKES IT EASIER FOR YOU TO FOLLOW WHAT THE HOSTS OF THE CHAT HAVE PREPARED FOR YOU. YOU CAN EASILY TAKE IT INTO YOUR WORD PROCESSOR LATER AND CHANGE THE FORMAT OF THE TEXT.

DOLORES' PART

Since I didn't attend this year's ICES convention and show, (but have attended many others), I thought I'd tell you a little about what I know goes on there in a few short words. There have been so many questions...I hope this answers some of them. Later on, I also have some baking/leveling wedding cake tips for you. I must add that I really feel it is important to every serious cake decorator to be a member of this organization...just for us! Its only $27.00 per year and you even receive a monthly newsletter with 12 color cake photos for that price.

HERE'S WHAT THE CONVENTION CONSISTS OF...WHAT 'IS' THE ICES SHOW:

All this is free to all registered attendees. Registration is around $100.00, which includes admittance to all aspects of the show, plus usually, 2 meals. For next year, plan to register by June 1 - and also to reserve your hotel accommodations as ASAP.

  1. CAKES: It IS cakes, cakes, cakes...about 1,000 of them. Many by world experts. You will see gumpaste flowers and little dolls, GB houses, and some really far out cakes. YOU are encouraged to bring a sharing cake. You will be glad you did and will feel more a part of everything. I have always brought a cake every time I've gone.
  2. SEMINARS: All day long on Thursday through Sunday, there will be hour-long demonstrations. Want to learn about gumpaste or rolled fondant...or some of the other wonderful techniques? Be sure to attend as many of these as possible. THIS IS a learning experience! Take advantage of it.
  3. MEETING: We have a General Meeting where next year's officers are chosen, plus other announcements. You can learn a lot about ICES just by attending this meeting.
  4. VENDORS: Wholesale (for shop owners) and retail for most people. You will find all the latest equipment and books...many you won't find anywhere else ever!
  5. BANQUETS: And other get-to-gathers are SO much fun! There is not a warmer, more friendlier, nicer group anywhere!
  6. LASTING FRIENDSHIPS: You will meet new friends in the elevator, at breakfast and everywhere all day long. Then, each year you will meet again. To me, this is the best part of all.
  7. AUTHORS: Meet the authors! Authors set up a table where you can buy their books and even get them autographed.
  • Jmp256: wish that I'd been able to have stayed for the night of sharing
  • Pwd Sugar: Lasting Friendships.......That is considered to be the best part of convention by a lot of people

    • Next year's ICES show and convention: St. Paul Minnesota August 6th through the 9th, 1998 NOW is the time to start making you plans!

    NOW, I'M GOING TO TURN IT OVER TO PWD SUGAR NOW AND THEN I HAVE SOME BAKING HINTS FOR YOU LATER ON. 

    EARLENE'S PART

    Our family arrived at the Disney Contemporary Hotel and Convention Center on Monday afternoon and by the time we were able to get into our rooms and find something to eat the day was pretty well gone. (We thought) So we wondered around to get our bearings and find out just where things would be located. Road the Monorail that went right through the hotel to know how that operated and went to bed. If you have the opportunity to visit Disney - the best hours to visit the Magic Kingdom is between 7 -12PM if you don't have small children. The lines are much shorter and the temperature is much cooler. Wish we had know that when we arrived there.

    Tuesday we spent at Epcot - Honey, I shrunk the audience was the most memorable show we say. 3-D glasses and realism that really kept your attention. Fun but a little scary too. Wednesday we spent at Magic Kingdom and our daughter who is 37 and Down Syndrome enjoyed this day the most. She especially loved riding the tea cups and getting her mother dizzy.

    Wednesday evening was the demonstrators meeting and social time. I found out at this meeting that Disney was only going to operate the video cameras in the large demo rooms and that the smaller demo rooms were going to need several of us who had camera knowledge to operate those cameras. Virginia S. who was in charge of manpower also let several of us know how short she was on helpers and asked us for assistance. (Out the window went the plans to go to MGM on Thursday). As my family was tired and wanted to rest I just wondered around the convention facilities by myself that evening just to see if help was needed anywhere or just to visit with other cake decorators. I heard voices at the far end of the convention center lobby and wandered down that direction. The gal that had made the state show cake Mercedes Stradivosky, the FL show directors and some of Mercedes family were admiring her work. I stuck my head through the curtain and they invited me to come and look. I really could not believe my eyes. For the next two hours I looked at, studied, wondered how in the world, asked questions, got on my knees and tried to figure out and was absolutely flabbergasted at this must unusual piece of sugar art.

    It was about 8 ft across and 3 or 4 ft high and every inch was just beautiful crafted. There is no way pictures will ever do that justice. I just got my pictures back and wished I had taken many more close up pictures of the detail that was so superbly crafted. God really has given this young woman a tremendous gift. I am sending Dolores a series of pictures that I took at the show so maybe in the future she can share some of them with you on her web page. Even in our souvenir book they gave three pages to this most unusual sugar piece.

    Thursday morning the sugar pieces and cakes needed to be taken to set up in the cake room. Each person who brings sugar pieces to show has paper work that must be filled out and a registration process that must be followed. Dannie, D'Lene and I took down Shirley Manbeck's and my sugar pieces. It took around an hour just to get through the registration process to go to the cake room. The helpers in the cake room then directed you to a table to actually set up your cakes. Then you had to go to the front of the room, give them your name and where your cakes were located. (On the last day of the show I found the list of people who had brought cakes and the table numbers where they were on a bulletin board inside the cake room) Because of the confusion in the past the cakes are no longer organized by states. So this list was important if you wanted to find out where a friends sugar piece was located. Then I went to the manpower booth to let them know that I was available for where ever they need me. I was taken over to the registration desk. For four hours there were about 6 people behind that desk working as hard as they could go to make that process go quickly for convention attendees. This is one area I had never worked at a convention. After that day - I will make it a point to be available in the future to assist here. Friday morning was the business meeting breakfast and opening ceremonies for the show. My demo was at 1 so I was trying to get my brain in gear so I didn't forget to tell them something that was important. Friday afternoon was spent at demo's and in the vendors area. I try to go to the vendors area as early as I can on Friday because the things that are in demand go quickly and then you are out of luck. As my husband said it is a buying frenzy. The newest in equipment, tools and books are available here. Because this was my 19th show to attend I have much of the equipment that is offered - so my pocketbook doesn't suffer like some of the newer ICES members. This year there were two large rooms of vendors and you could buy everything from cake circles, textured rollers, cake ornaments, folding carts, chocolate to commercial ovens. Wilburs chocolate was there with a booth and they only sell to the suppliers like Country Kitchen and etc. They only sell with a minimum of 50,000 lb. of chocolate. But, they were there to pass out samples of their chocolates for us to know the quality, taste and texture of their brand. Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker both had booths and were giving away spatulas, cake mix, and wonderful big bags to collect all of our goodies in. Lots of new vendors were at this years show.

    The best new books for this year were Scott Wolley's - Cakes by Design - I saw a poster for this book but never saw any of the books actually out at any of the booths. Those of us who have bought them from Amazon are probably some of the lucky ones who already have them in our possession. I hesitate to buy a book unless I can see what is in that book. One thing you can do at convention is open those books and flip through them so you know what you are getting. Because I was familiar with Scott Wooley's work I knew that would be a good book without previewing it.

    Roland Winbeckler has a brand new book out called Airbrush Techniques for Cake Decorating. Excellent instructions for the beginner to the accomplished user of an air brush. Good pictures and step by step instructions. He also has a pattern book that can be bought to use with the instruction book. Norm Davis & Jaci Salisbury have a new book Called Wedding Cake Ensembles Cakes For All Seasons in a new series of books they are calling The Sweet Life Series. Some new ideas, clever applications, techniques and a fresh look makes this book a good addition to my library.

  • Cakestmper: I met Eunice Borchers, and she was very sweet, and willing to share her ideas.
  • Cakestmper: 42 people in this room!!!
    • New Wedding Cake Designs by Linda Pawsey also has some new, clever ideas and beautiful cakes Then I found some older books that I did not have in my collection at one booth with lots and lots and lots of books. Sugar Modeling (Published in 1994) by Kate Venter & Eunice Borchers. Nice Instructions on making sugar figures, furniture and buildings in this book. Eunice was attending this years convention and was gracious enough to autograph my book. That is the one thing I really love about buying my books at convention. Those personal autographs mean a lot to me. It really is one of the perks at convention to be able to have a conversation with some of the most talented people in the world - who are willing to share their knowledge.

    Lesley Herbert from England was also at this years convention - I carried two of her books around until my arm and shoulder got tired of the weight hoping I would be able to get her to autograph two of her books that I also purchased.

    Lesley Herbert's Complete Book of Sugar Flowers (Published in 1995) and Professional Touches by Lesley Herbert (Published in 1991)

    New tools The texture roller from Rosa (Peru) was a must for me. She was in the booth with the Orchard Products which is Pat and George Ashby's line of decorating tools. Rosa showed us how she uses this wonderful texture roller and creates her bows and drapes that have that really neat fabric look. This roller was about $20

    Rosemary Watson at the Sugar Bouquets booth had some new silicone molds and I made a list of the ones I felt I couldn't live without. LOL I love her molds because of the wonderful flexibility and the variety of ways they can be used.

    After running the video camera for the Gumpaste figure demo by June Twelve's I made my way down to Nicholas's demo and purchased some of the texture tools she used. She had some little ceramic tools she used and they have dots and lines on them. She said she also uses these to create some of the unusual textures for her flower petals. Then there were two sets of embossing tools she used for the trim on the dress of the bride. Couldn't live without those either. LOL

    I have never liked the seams on the side of the heads when making the gumpaste figures and she had a new way to prevent these. She had a marble sized ball (she called it paper filler) that she pushed the gumpaste into the face mold with and then the gumpaste was wrapped back around that ball - leaving the ball inside the head. Decreases the weight and makes the drying time much faster. Clever idea. Her demo sheet had everything drawn out to scale for those who were new at making the figures. Excellent demo for beginners as well as those of us who have done a few of these in the past.

    In the past someone asked just how much they would need money wise to go to convention. Our room this year was about $100 per night. ($700+) But, if you do like we usually do and buddy up in the room - four people splitting that is not a bad deal. ($175 each) This year with family it was pretty expensive for many of us. Normally we are only in the convention hotel from Wednesday through the following Monday morning to. This would lesson the expense also. Your registration was $135 if you did not register early and this included two of your meals. One the business breakfast and the other the Banquet. Food at a convention needs to be quick and fast. So if you think ahead and pack in some apples, crackers and cheese to stick in your purse it doesn't have to be so expensive. This year a sandwich, pkg. of chips, cookie and coke was $7. A little expensive when you did not have time to go anywhere else. An apple in the purse would have really tasted good.

    You don't need a lot of money for food because you don't have time to eat. LOL At least a couple of hundred dollars for equipment you can't buy at home or new books. At most conventions $700 to $1,000 would be enough. This was not a normal year for any of us. Depending on how many you have in your room you might even do fine with $500. I know I have in the past.

    Now questions - what have we not covered about convention that you want to know??
    FROM DOLORES

    LEVEL CAKES: It is imperative that all wedding cakes be level. If they aren't, this is where real trouble begins. At best, wedding cakes will lean and at worst, they will fall over. I was baking my cakes this week and I just happened to notice I had never really told you some of the things I do to make sure my cakes are put together just right.

    OVENS: First, have your oven temperature right. If the oven is too hot, your cakes bake with high/peaked humps in the center. The cake should have a nice rounded hump which you should be able to press flat by laying a towel on the cake and press gently. If you press and the cake springs back up, the cake is over-baked. Try lowering your temperature to 325 degrees if you are having humped cakes.

    MORE LEVELING: One more thing that I do that I haven't thought to mention...<IMPORTANT>...Once I level by pressing with the towel, I also shave off the low hump that is almost always there - near the outer edge of the cake. By doing this, I never have a bulge between the layers. When cakes are lower on the sides, you can use cake scraps you shaved off to place along the outer edge to make sure the cakes appear perfectly level once iced.

    BOTTOMS-UP too...turn cakes out of pans ALL upside down. Tuning bottoms-up allows you to build any low places on the outer edge up with cake scraps. You couldn't do this if you don't turn bottoms-up. Fillings aren't so squishy either. Almost certainly you will shave off some small humps and the cake without crust helps to keep layers from sliding.

    I know some people do...BUT, I tried putting the bottoms together last week and I had a bulge though the bottoms HAD to be perfectly level. I don't know why this happens, but I do know that I don't have bulges when I turn all the cakes upside down. Besides, you should have a nice flat surface for the top of the cake to ice it neatly. 

    NEXT WEEK'S TOPIC: Thursday, August 28, 1997 at 9 PM ET in the Kitchen Conference Room - "Back to school idea cakes and techniques" 

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