The Cheapest Alternative

Cake decorating has been the buzz word at home the past few weeks. One of my blogs a few days back detailed how I was in search for classmates. The search is over. Over lunch today, the ladies of the house (Ma, Orie and I) were discussing over lunch about our plans in professionalizing the family pastry business and how it'll be very expensive on our end to hire cake decorators every time we had a project. To solve this problem, I decided to enrol myself in a cake decorating course. Orie has been wanting to run her own business as well and doesn't want to perennially be a corporate slave so she decided to enrol as well to brush up on her skills. She was able to enrol in Heny Sison's class back in high school and never really got to practice it. Ma volunteered to "sponsor" Orie's classes with the agreement that she'll be practising every week. Ok she agreed and I hope she does her part or else she'll never hear the end of it from me.

I was pretty crazy about the cake decorating course in Living Well as it was Wilton certified but they've been taking awhile to fill in the classes and there's no certainty if courses 2 and 3 will be pushing through. Orie suggested that I check Heny Sison's classes. So I went online and checked her website and she had 2 courses coming up at a cheaper price. It was Php 4,000 for a 2 day course that runs from 9 AM to 4 PM. That's 12 hours of cake decorating per course and it's cheaper. Wow! I was thinking of how much I'd be able to save compared to Wilton's 2 day class that only gives me only 10 hours to work on every module. Not to mention, it was Php 8,500 per course in Wilton. My arithmetic skills are working here as you can see. Heny's course was the better deal. So I decided to reserve in Heny's culinary school when I came across Sylvia Reynoso Gala's website. Guess what? They are offering an eight-day Master Course in Cake Decorating for only Php 12,500!!! Here's what I read:

Master Course in Cake Decorating
Instructor: Leni Reynoso Araullo
Date: August 21, 2008 Time: 9:00-5:00 pm Price: Php 12500.00

MASTER COURSE IN CAKE DECORATING FOR BEGINNERS (8 LESSONS)

DATES: AUGUST 21, 26, 28, SEPTEMBER 2,4,9,11,16
TIME: 9:00 AM TO 5:00 PM
PhP12, 500.00; Inclusive of Lunch, Snack & Ingredients (except decorating materials like piping bags, tips, etc. available for sale at the Culinary Studio or bring your own).

Fluffy butter cream icing techniques in coloring borders, shell rope, star leaf, zigzag "E" motion fleur de liz, make garlands and swags, basket weaving lattice design, 12 different designs for top & sides of cake, direct piping of cake or rose bouquet, sweet pea carnation.

Learn 4 kinds of icing including Royal to make sugar flowers on nails, toothpick & floral wire. Learn sugar molding. How to prepare debutant/wedding cakes; tiered stacked, etc. Each student will design and decorate a wedding cake (styro) to bring home. Please bring tray/box every lesson.

This is the cheapest course I've found so far and it pretty much covers what I want to learn. Yipee!!! Over the years, Ma enrolled herself in Sylvia's school for both culinary and baking courses and it was worth it. I've been praying hard for all courses to push through and as it turns out, I even found something better. Thank you! o:-) (That's supposed to be an angel smiley.)

For those of you who want to attend the classes, you can check Sylvia's website at http://www.sylviareynosogala.com/ or call 671-4472 or 671-4489. The culinary arts studio is located in Shaw Blvd. past the city hall of Pasig. I can't wait to wear a new hat - a baker's hat at that.