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Class Listings

Cake Decorating 101

Instructor: Buffy Vance, Sugar Artist

• No decorating experience necessary
• $75.00 for both classes
• All supplies provided for in-class use; no additional costs!

Learn all about cake decorating in this fun and informative two week course (two two-hour classes, one each week). Decorating techniques will include:

• icing the perfect cake
• mastering a pastry bag
• decorating tips
• creating buttercream flowers, leaves, and borders

Start creating professional looking cakes of your own!

Fondant Basics

Instructor: Buffy Vance, Sugar Artist

• All levels decorating experience
• $90.00 class fee
• All supplies provided for in-class use except a rolling pin that you will bring from home.
• No additional costs!

In this two week (two two-hour classes, one each week) course you will become familiar with these rolled fondant/gumpaste techniques: covering a cake for that satin smooth finish, bows, pearl borders, silicone molds, painting, flowers and more!

Once you discover how versatile fondant is, and see how quickly and easily projects come together, you'll want to use it all the time!

Advanced Fondant and Intro to Gum Paste Flowers

Instructor: Buffy Vance, Sugar Artist

• Pre-requisite: completion of Fondant Basics class (or waived by instructor)
• $115.00 class fee
• All supplies provided for in-class use except a rolling pin that you will bring from home (first class only).
• No additional costs!

In this two week course (two two-hour classes, one each week) you will expand on techniques covered in Fondant Basics by learning how to design your cake start to finish, including:

• simple sculpting
• professional finishing techniques for cake bases
• crafting beautiful (wired and no-wire) sugar flowers made from gumpaste

All recipes included in course and the beautiful class project (pictured) is yours to keep!

General Info

• Some classes held at Shared Space
• Ask about private or in-home lessons—basic or advanced techniques
• Instructor: Buffy Vance, Sugar Artist
• Tuition is nonrefundable. Registration never expires, and we will work with you if you need to reschedule a class.
• Gift certificates available
• Call about new classes being added!
• Contact: 217.954.0809

Madeline's also teaches fun project classes through Urbana Adult Education and Parkland College. To register, or for more information, call the schools directly (Parkland: 217.351.5928, Urbana Adult Education: 217.384.3530).

Comments

Private Lessons

We took a class at a gourmet grocery store in Dallas. While the cake tasted delicious, I did not learn sufficient cake decorating skills. Buffy's class taught me superior, useful skills that are very practical. Not to mention, the class was very fun! THANK YOU! Natalie (private class with friends & family, Dec. 2010)

Yay! Sage, age 10 (private lessons for Mother/Daughter)

Very well organized - extremely fun! Brenda, Sage's mother (private lessons for Mother/Daughter)

Cake Decorating 101

Great class that I would highly recommend to others. Buffy made the class really fun and she is extremely helpful and patient if you don't understand a topic. class went through all the basics of decorating a cake, starting with just a blank, unfrosted cake. I didn't realize how much went into making the finished product, this class is a must! Kimberly

I really enjoyed this course, and learned much more than I thought I'd be able to. She went at a really nice pace and made sure everyone understood the concepts. I really liked that she both showed us how to decorate and helped us hands-on, especially while making the flowers. I also really appreciated that she let us stay after the class was over to practice and answer questions. Very cool class! Rachel

My only complaint is that I had to stop! Eleni

Fondant Basics

I loved learning all of the techniques! They are so lovely. I'm looking forward to trying them out again. Danielle

Buffy is a great teacher. I love taking her classes, she is very helpful & informative. Looking forward to taking all her classes. Joyce

What an absolute joy to take this class from such a knowledgeable person who has such a fabulous personality! I'll definitely be back for more classes. Donna

What I like the best is all the tips that we get in class, more than on T.V. or a magazine... all the secrets! Sahara

Gumpaste Flower Power

Love this class, love this group, A++++ Susan

Love the classes. Will continue to take whatever is offered. Have recommended you to everyone I know. Erin

Insider Cake Decorating Tips (Parkland)

Lots of fun!

Excellent! Excellent time management and organizational skills; easy to understand and follow; gave encouragement and support; shared info and recipes, great role model.

Had a wonderful time, alot of fun. Very informative.

I really enjoyed this class. It was really fun and informative.

Instructor was a pleasure to be around. Answered questions well.

So much fun!

You are so talented, Buffy! thank you for sharing!

General

Buffy is an amazing artist and a generous teacher. I really can't say enough about her beginning cake class. I learned far more than I ever expected and had a really good time. If you're thinking of taking a cake class this is the one. The class size is just right. You can have fun together and still get all of the one-on-one help that you need. It is very well organized and you'll go home with a folder that includes all of the secret tricks that professional cake artists probably don't want you to know. I enjoy watching FOOD TV and I have yet to see any of this information there. Jeri

This space was spectacular! It felt like a class in the city, so much nicer than classes offered at craft stores! Ursa

I had so much fun in your cake decorating class, and I feel extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn with such a talented and accomplished sugar artist--not to mention in such an inspiring and gorgeous setting.

Your class also prompted some reflections for me, which I wanted to share with you...

During the class, I kept finding my thoughts turning to my grandmother, and of how proud she would be of me if she could see the lovely things I have learned to make out of sugar.

And that got me thinking.

She was of the generation of women who were taught the secrets of baking, sewing, and all kinds of other "domestic arts" as a matter of course, by their mothers. My mother, on the other hand, was of the generation that was swept along by the sexual revolution and shaped by the feminist movement. So she, like so many women in the 70s, put away her apron and set out to forge a paying career outside of the home.

My generation grew up somewhat bereft of old-fashioned domestic skills but inspired by the new social equality brought about by our mothers.

And these musings led me back to you: I was struck by the calibre of artistry and professionalism that surrounds your work. Your very title, Sugar Artist, says "Respect Me."

I realized that oddly enough, on the one hand, to a 1950s stuck-at-home housewife it would seem absurd that students today would be paying to learn these (nearly) "lost" arts, that we would not be taught culinary skills by our mothers. But it might seem equally absurd to an orthodox feminist that young women would gravitate to your studio to learn the arts the "sisterhood" had fought so hard to leave behind.

So, the funny thing is, the hard work of both our mothers and grandmothers has finally come together in amazing people like you: you are taking skills long confined to the kitchen and taken for granted by society, to a public setting, and your message is clear: doing this and teaching this is real work, deserving of recognition and compensation. And, in order to be emancipated women, proud of our accomplishments, we need not turn our backs on our long tradition of making beautiful food.

And I think all of our grandmothers are smiling about that. Sarah

Buffy is really nice and she is a great help...I love this class!!! This was soooooo fun! I know waay more now than I did when I started! sooooo fun! Great! Avery, age 10