Award-winning ICE Chef Instructor and Master Cake Decorator Toba Garrett makes decorating look incredibly easy. She has been practicing the art of cake decorating for over 30 years and teaching classes for almost 20 of those years. She literally wrote the book on cake decorating with her book Professional Cake Decorating. Her book, Wedding Cake Art and Design, won the 2011 International Association of Culinary Professionals Award in the Professional Kitchen category. Her classes on decorating are incredibly popular with professionals and students, as well as serious-minded bakers.
Yesterday, she shared some of her decorating techniques and secrets in a demo for ICE students and alumni where she covered how to make a stunning Venetian mask entirely out of gumpaste. Venetian Masks are traditionally worn during the Carnival of Venice. They come in various colors with lots of gold details, relief work and lots of feathers. Chef Toba demonstrated how to mold a mask and how to airbrush and decorate it to perfection. She walked the audience through how to make two different masks with different techniques such as airbrushing, piping, painting with edible gold paint, and crafting details such as ribbons and feathers. More…