Buddy Valastro, AKA Cake Boss, is an awesomely talented New Jersey Baker who has become a household name in the US, and across the world. Having watched his show a lot, I have also attempted to make his amazing Red Velvet Cake recipe in the past, and have blogged about it. This blog post led to me receiving an invite to meet the man himself! I couldn’t believe it! After much excitement I agreed and made all the arrangements to head to London for the evening.
Last Monday was The Night! I headed to L’atelier Des Chefs in London for a Masterclass in Cake Decorating and to meet the amazing Buddy. I was excited, nervous, awestruck… but you know what, I had so much fun, and he was LOVELY!
The man himself arrived!
He was such a lovely, genuine guy and seemed genuinely happy to meet us all! There was a real mixture of people there from die-hard fans, to journalists, digital media marketing peeps and a few of us bloggers (including the lovely Lucy from Capture by Lucy, and it was great to meet her!). There may have been more variety than that even, there was quite a few people there and I didn’t get to speak to everyone!
After meeting Buddy and his UK ambassador Juliet Sear we headed in to the kitchen where Buddy gave a demonstration of some of his techniques, giving us decorating tips and showcasing his range of products which you can buy (more on that later). He was also answering a lot of questions, on a whole variety of subjects including the balance of personal/private life with filming a reality TV show – to why he does what he does. He was very lovely and genuine and took it all with real aplomb. He said that for him it is all about family – he wants people to bake as a family and show people that anyone can do it. And you know what, I believed him.
Then it was our turn to have a go at decorating cakes. The hard bit of baking, trimming and shaping the cakes had been done in advance so all we had to do was decorate, but it was for a competition judged by Buddy! Yipes! Right off I made a mess of my fondant so he helped me sort it out and we had a lovely piccy together and a brief chat, though I was a bit awestruck to ask any serious questions not related to cake decorating – sorry everyone!
The lovely Lucy from Capture by Lucy
I got the fondant on the cake with the help of his handy smoother tool… (ok so it’s not THAT smooth, but better than I’ve ever managed before!)
But then didn’t really know what to do, and instead of forming a plan, I decided to just have some fun and try out some different techniques, some of which I managed better than others!! My drop lines were not particularly effective as they kept falling off the cake. Think I need some more practice there!!
I was having lots of fun then I looked round and realised some people were actually taking it pretty seriously…. and their cakes looked fab! Oops! So I panicked and stuck a layer of fondant over my messy creation in a last ditch attempt to make it a bit more appealing? (Not sure it worked??!)
Then it was judging time and there was so many fab cakes to choose from (not including mine – though shhh I don’t think mine was the absolute worst – but it was down there with them!) and he chose a lovely cake with a bow decorated by Kirsten at The Little Wedding Helper.
The evening was over and I got my pinny signed by the man himself, and a couple more snaps to remember the evening!
As we were leaving we got an awesome goody bag with a Cake Boss DVD, Baking Tips book, a Cake decorating kit, a book by his UK ambassador Juliet Sear and some fondant icing! Great stuff!
Some of his products were fab, I am very excited to try out the kit we got as a freebie and have popped a couple of others onto my birthday wishlist! 🙂
If you would like to buy any of the Cake Boss range I am sure there are a lot of places you can buy them but I have found them on Very.co.uk
If you would like to see Buddy in action you can catch him on TLC as follows:
The current series of Bakery Boss is on Fridays at 9pm right now
Cake Boss is on Fridays at 9pm from June
Next Great Baker is on Fridays at 9pm from September
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That’s so neat that you got to meet Buddy! Looks like everyone had fun. Don’t you just love the way he says “fondant”? It’s like, “FONNNDONNNT”. Hehe.
Thank you haha yep you are so right! it was so great and a lot of fun!! xx
I love baking but hate decorating – it’s just all too fiddly for me! I really admire those who can create masterpieces.
Oh I am so with you, I haven’t the patience to decorate properly, and am far too slapdash! It’s good fun though 🙂 xx
What a fun day to be part of! #MagicMoments
Thanks Fiona! xx
Wow thats an awesome experience!!! #whatsthestory
thank you, it was a lot of fun!! xx
What a fab night!!!!! We were so lucky weren’t we!!! Pleasure to meet you, will link back to your lovely post xx #whatsthestory
It was fab wasn’t it? lovely to meet you too! xx
What a lovely experience – your photographs show you had a fantastic time.
#MagicMoments
thank you, it was fab! xx
oh my goodness this is fantastic!! i would love to meet buddy! .. although since i am rubbish at baking!
thanks for sharing and linking up with #MagicMoments x
haha thanks it was fantastic!! Buddy was great, you’d love him! haha I am sure you’re not 🙂 xx
I love this show, and it’s so awesome that you got to meet him and get those tips! #MagicMoments
Thank you, me too! It was great to meet him, and get some tips from him xx
What an amazing experience to meet him! Wowie! Looks like you had loads of fun. Will def have a look at his products 🙂
Looks like such a brilliant experience, and I love your cake 🙂
Thank you, it was fab! xx
My post this week is all about cakes I’ve been decorating! Not quite up to his standards (I keep lusting after all his fab baking and decorating bits and bobs in the shops…). I bought a load of fondant, but I keep taking the easy route and using frosting! What a fab experience, it must have been so much fun, and how lovely to meet Lucy 🙂 #WhatstheStory
It really was fab, and so lovely to meet Lucy as well as the man himself! Your cakes are amazing and I find frosting more complicated than fondant, so I am always dead impressed with yours!! xx
Oh wow what a wonderful experience Caroline. It sounds like it was a brilliant event and oh my word the cakes look amazing. You did a sterling job there. Must have been amazing to meet the man himself too. Thanks for sharing #whatsthestory
Thank you, it really was fab! xx
You lucky lady! It looks like you had a wonderful evening. I love the fact you were just messing around with your cake decorating to discover others were taking it seriously, haha! Mel #MagicMoments
haha thanks Mel, I am so lucky, and yep, trust me to mess about and not take it seriously enough! hehe
You must have been exhausted Caroline, but what an exciting opportunity! I have to admit I’ve never even heard of Buddy before as we don’t have Sky or cable TV. I love Bake Off though and I’m going to attemt a cake myself tomorrow – will keep you posted on how that goes!! #what’sthestory
Oh Sam I really was knackered afterwards but it really was a fab opportunity! Ooh hope the baking went well! xx
Lucky you! We do a 1s a week cake boss episode which leads to my boys asking me to make cakes.
Haha thanks, i bet, watching that always makes me want to eat cake! haha 🙂 xx
I am sooooo jealous. I love Cake Boss – I’ve just shown my mum this post as it’s one of her favourite programmes and she’s super jealous too!!! Glad you had such a great time and awesome job on the icing too xx #magicmoments #whatsthestory
Ah sorry to make you jealous but it really was amazing!! So much fun 🙂 xx
I could do with attending something like this. The thought of Future-Gwenn asking mama to make her a cake for her birthday party gives me sweaty palms!!
#AllAboutYou
Haha I am sure you will amaze yourself with your creativity!! xx
Looks awesome. I pinned you. #All About You
Aw thanks, it was awesome! x
What a totally awesome experience, your cake is WAY better than anything I would have been able to manage. So many people i know LIVE for cake decorating but I’ve never gotten that into it (maybe because my kitchen is so small!), but I would have also jumped at this chance … good for you and thanks for sharing through the #AllAboutYou linkup.
Angie from reasons to dress, life as a North American mom in Italy.
Thank you, and I know what you mean, I like it, but will never be amazing at it or anything!! Was a great experience though! xx
Lucky lucky girl! This looks like an awesome time for all, and fabulous cake skills…. So impressed!
#TastyTuesdays
Thank you! xx
Yay! What a brilliant experience, so pleased you enjoyed it! Thanks for letting us all in on the experience #AllAboutYou
Thank you, it really was fab! xx
What a fab thing to go to 🙂
My sister-in-law is brilliant at cakey/decor stuff, I’m hopeless!
It really was fab, I am not exactly great at the cakey stuff but it is good fun!! xx
Oh wow what a fab experience, loved reading yours and Lucy’s account of the day-what a guy! Beautiful pics of you all too! Thanks for linking up to #tastytuesdays
Thank you, he was fab and it was such a great experience! xx
OMG WOW!! What an amazing evening you must have had! Lovely to read about your evening 🙂 I saw his products at the Cake and Bake show and there were quite a few items that I have on my wish list! x #TastyTuesdays
Thank you, it was pretty amazing! And his products look fab!! xx
How fab to have met one of your idols, and especially to have had such a great experience on the night! I tend to go for the scattergun approach to decorating – throw it all on and see what sticks!! Thanks for linking to #AllAboutYou lovely x
Haha my approach is pretty similar actually! All good fun! Thank you, was a fab experience xx
Wow, that looks like such a fun evening! And all the cakes look amazing, including yours! I love all the bright colours 🙂
Thanks, it was so much fun! zz
Wow, what a fantastic experience! I thought your cake looked good!
It really was fun, hmm, thanks, I remained unconvinced! 🙂 xx
That is so cool that you got to meet Buddy. I got into cake decorating a year or so ago and its such fun to do! This looked like it was a very fun event & the results looked great! #tastytuesday
It was seriously cool! Cake decorating is great fun, though think I am too slapdash to ever be much good at it! xx
Goodness me those cakes looked fab and how exciting to meet someone you admire and they turn out to be just as you imagined. I’ve no patience for cake decorating, but love seeing others attempts. Well done, at least you had a good go at it and didn’t just crumble (excuse the pun) as I would have done 🙂
It was lovely to meet someone off the telly who was actually a nice person! I don’t think I have the patience either, but it was a lot of fun! xx
Wow, your cake looks amazing! It looks like a brilliant event, and nice to see you got a few pictures with the man himself! x
Thank you, hmm not sure about amazing but thank you! It was a fab event 🙂 xx
Wow, sounds like you had an amazing time and your cake looks lovely too.
Thank you, it was fab, and my cake was… ok, I had fun which is the main thing! xx
Looks like a fab event and making me peckish looking at all those cake pics! I wish I was better at baking. I should practice more since I’m very good at eating cake!
Lol, I am so much better at eating it than baking it haha I do have fun trying to bake though so you should practice more, even if it fails it’ll still taste nice 🙂 hehe xx
Yay!!!!! That looked incredible and from what you said before hand, I didn’t expect a decorating competition. I thought bother of your efforts were very good (and I could totally see the ones that were worse btw). What a lovely experience 🙂 xxx
Lol, me neither, and well I didn’t take it very seriously hehe! Lol, thank you, it was a lot of fun! xx
That looks so fun! And your cake was far and away better than I could do, so I’m impressed!
Thank you, it was a LOT of fun! xx
You got lucky Caroline! Pictures are fab and I can see you had a wonderful time there. I do catch up in his shows but not all the time. He is great! I am sure to give cake decorating a try. #creativechallenge
Thank you, I know I can’t believe I was invited!! Was so fun though 🙂 xx
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He seems really lovely and I love his programme. You look like you had a really brilliant time too!! 🙂
Thank you, he was really lovely and it was a lot of fun! xx