The sweetness of Sift

my husband is such a foodie- and sweet guy. he recently surprised me with a cupcake decorating class at the famous Sift Bakery in Santa Rosa, CA. funny story behind it-

apparently this was a Groupon.com purchase, before Sara come to visit me in January. he thought it would be a great day out for us and he and Chris could keep the kids. Well, he forgot about it! when he discovered it in march, he realized that the purchase was for only one person anyway and not two. then he read the finer details and realized classes are not held in the napa bakery  (30 minutes away), but only in the Santa Rosa bakery- 1 hour and 30 minutes away!

classes book up fast and i was finally able to go to one the weekend before mother's day- it had a mother's day theme too. and i was SO happy to have 90 minutes of alone time in the car to and from my class actually! it was a sunny warm day, i turned off the toddler tunes, jammed to MY music and enjoyed the fantastic scenery as i drove through napa and sonoma on my way to santa rosa.

so- this bakery, Sift, is famous because it won the show Cupcake Wars on the Food Network. Check it out:

http://www.siftcupcakes.com/

And if you want some winning recipes:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/cupcake-wars-competitors-wedding-planner/index.html

Only a couple pictures- 

i thought this was SO cool. this is how we practiced piping out frosting before working on the actual cupcakes. (the frosting was amazing- of course i was using my finger to taste!)

 i loved the pretty boxes-

and the message on the inside cover was great-

 now did you see the 4 cupcakes in the background of the picture above? those were the samples made by our designer- she was NOT a baker. in fact, she had recently made all the cupcakes for Guy Feiri's birthday party! he was so impressed, that he invited her to stay for the party!

anyway- here are my cupcakes-

impressive, right? i was blown away by my talent! they are all toped with fondant, which i had only worked with once before and failed miserably. there were so many secrets and tools that made the designing actually easy. they use a lot of scrapbooking, play dough and clay tools! who knew?

if only we were given the recipes...