The Splat Cooking Blog

I’ve spent the past 2 days making a cupcake bouquet for a TV production company in the hope that they’ll commission me to make them for the show, Emma delivered it yesterday and here’s the finished result.  Hope they like it

For the past few years, probably about 4 years, we’ve been toying with the idea of setting up Splat Cooking as party plan.  When I first launched I used to go round to friends houses armed with a stack of homemade biscuits and copious amounts of icing and sprinkles to get them to decorate biscuits with the concept that they’d buy stuff too and I’d promote the workshops and parties.  It worked to a certain degree but I found that it was costing me more in icing and sprinkles than I was making, especially when a lot of guests took the mickey with  how many biscuits they iced.  Really down to bad planning on my behalf, should  have rationed them!

With the franchises launched we’ve taken another look at this as it’s the perfect model to promote the parties and workshops for new franchisees and also gives them the opportunity to sell stuff and get a foot in the door of possible schools and toddler groups.

So I did one last night and this morning.  I made cupcakes and iced them and then had the ladies making sugarpaste roses which they put on top of a cake and could either eat there and then or take home with them – hah, rationing in progress, one cake each!  It worked a treat, last night there were only 3 ladies that I know, the majority had been told by word of mouth so immediately I have 8 new customers, two of them are on the PTA of their schools and are going back to discuss having cooking clubs, at least 4 of the ladies want cupcake coffee mornings, one lady is involved with three toddler groups and took away our cards to give out at these and talk to the playgroup leaders about me or one of the team coming in to do some cooking with the children and I’ve had at least 3 workshop bookings.  All in all, a huge success.

If anyone would like a cupcake coffee morning and you’re in Bucknghamshire then call me in the office to arrange on 0870 766 8290, if you fancy running these yourself, have a school you think would like a cooking club or even feel that you’d like to work for us running cooking parties or classes then call us too, any potential franchisees reading this – IT WORKS.

Easter Baking – Tuesday 6 April 10am-1pm

Our classic Easter Baking workshop with the wonderful Kate from The Chocolate Source, we’ll be helping the children make a range of Easter goodies including hot cross buns and the traditional Easter Egg with choccies, the children can stay all day and take p art in our Italian Cookery afternoon too if you wish.

Italian Cooking – Tuesday 6 April 1.30-3.30pm

Traditional Italian Cooking including making pasta from scratch, biscotti, pesto swirls and salad and dressing  to go with it, we’ll give you 10% discount if you book your child on both courses, remember to send them with a packed lunch.

If you fancy doing some cooking with your child then come along to our Mummy and Me Cupcake Workshop on Thursday 8 April, this is an adaptation of our classic Fantasy Cupcake workshop so you can work together or on your own cakes (saves arguments)  and learn new icing and baking techniques using fresh seasonal fruit to colour and flavour the cakes and icing.  We’re also running a Fantasy Cupcake Workshop for adults on the same day, especially for teachers and other people who can’t usually get time off during the week.

The children’s reaction when I sliced a blood (or blush to be PC) orange in half was classic….they all yelled ‘yuk, that’s gross’.  However, they all tried it and seemed to like it.  Added to fondant icing it makes gorgeous orange flavoured pink icing.

We’ve decided to put an adult version of the Mother’s Day Cupcake Bouquet workshop on Friday 12 March, so your bouquet will be lovely and fresh to give to your Mum on Mother’s Day.

The children’s version on Saturday 13 March has almost sold out, I think there are a couple of places available but the one for grown ups will be more complicated.  As well as making the cakes and decorating them we’ll also cover cake jewelry and make mini flowers, hearts or stars out of modelling paste which will be wired to dangle out of the bouquet as an eye catching display.

You can choose what colour scheme you wish to make your bouquet in, you can do carnations or roses or a mixture of the two and I’ll be making the usual homemade cake and copious amounts of tea and coffee to keep you going.  So come on try out this new workshop, the bouquets look amazing, much, much better than in the photos.