TELL US THE STORY OF HOW YOU GOT INTO BAKING & DECORATING AND HOW YOU GOT TO WHERE YOU ARE TODAY ? I worked as a speech pathologist in research for a long time in a very non-creative role . I have always had a creative side and one day I baked some cookies and decided to decorate them but had no idea how . That ' s when I discovered a whole new world of royal icing cookies on Pinterest . There weren ' t many people decorating cookies with royal icing in Australia back in 2012 and so my social media started to grow as I started sharing some videos on instagram and facebook . I had registered my home kitchen but found that more people wanted to learn how to decorate than buy cookies from me and so I started teaching . I then opened my first store in Melbourne in 2016 . I now have two stores and two classrooms in Melbourne and teach regularly around Australia . I ' ve also had the opportunity to teach in Dubai , London , New York , Muscat , Mumbai and Lebanon . It ' s been a bit of a crazy ride over the past 10 years .
WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 3 BAKING & DECORATING TIPS ? 1 . Royal icing does not have to be complicated ! I like to simplify royal icing for beginners . You only need 3 ingredients ( icing sugar , egg white powder and water ) to create perfect royal icing that can be used for so many different purposes . 2 . Temperature matters in baking . So many people don ' t realise the importance of the temperature of your eggs and butter matter when it comes to baking cookies . Warm up your eggs in a bowl of warm water before adding to your softened butter and they will combine beautifully .
3 . Don ' t compare your work to anyone else . I was lucky that when I first started decorating I had no one to compare to and so I just continued to create . It gave me a freedom that is hard to find these days because of how much is shared online . Try to focus just on your own journey . The more you create , the better and more confident you will become .
WHERE DO YOU FIND INSPIRATION FOR CLASSES ? Everywhere . Sometimes it ' s a birthday card or a beautiful garden , sometimes a simple colour palette will catch my eye . Even after all this time I still love to spend a day creating and designing .