- December 24, 2024
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Cake decorating is a skill I have yet to tackle. I bought fondant once and had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
I hadn’t met Chef Carol Oxford-Yard yet.
Chef Carol, as she is known in her circle, attended the Culinary Institute of Manhattan when she was a short five years from retirement from the New York Department of Education.
Her plan was to became a personal chef and establish herself before retirement. But shortly after retirement, Oxford-Yard found herself in Palm Coast, a much smaller market than New York City. She was able to connect with people at the Flagler Institute of Technology, where she became part of an incubator program in which she was mentored and coached through the business.
Eventually, the personal chef decided that she didn’t just want to give her customers a tasty desert, but also something that looked beautiful.
That is when she enrolled in the cake-decorating classes at Michael’s. She took all the classes offered and, in 2011, Chef Carol became the teacher, teaching all the cake-decorating classes at the Palm Coast store.
“The more I taught them, the better I got at doing it,” she said.
Last year, she took the Wilton Master Course and, this year, she is starting a new adventure by teaming up with Office Divvy to offer intro classes.
The difference, she said, is that she wanted people to come to cake artistry and not have to be a baker.
“If you can roll Play-Doh into a ball, you can do this class,” she said.
For the next six months, Oxford-Yard will offer a series of classes working with fondant and gum paste.
“I’m hoping that more people will see the value of relaxing and doing something that they didn’t think they could do,” she said. “I want people to feel proud of their accomplishments.”
The classes are not the only project for Oxford-Yard this year. She also hopes to start an Iron Cupcake Challenge, which would meet once a month and follow the frame of “Iron Chef America,” on a smaller scale and with cupcakes.
To register for classes, visit cakeartistryclub.com.
