Become the next new pastry chef with BAKE ON & Ashley's Holt's Penguin Cake Kit!

Thanks to Ashley Holt & Bake ON for this beautiful Penguin Winter Wonderland Igloo Cake! All thoughts are my own.

If I was ever called to another career, I would probably choose a baker. Watching the bake-off shows on TV have always inspired me to want to learn how to be a pastry chef, to learn the art of decorating, and I am FASCINATED with those that can wield a knife to shape something glorious!

When I heard that Pastry Chef Ashley Holt teamed up with BAKE ON to create one fabulous Holiday Edition Kit, I just knew this was something I would love to share with each of you!

Unfortunately, being two weeks out from Christmas Eve and working in a church full time means my extracurricular activities are extremely limited until after Christmas. There are little hours to do something fun and creative, so I will just have to wait until after Christmas, and will be glad to post pictures on our MBP socials for you guys!

For now, let's learn about Ashley and her fantastic Penguin's Winter Wonderland Igloo Cake Kit. For those of you who don't follow the chef circle, Ashley first appeared on Cake Boss: the next Great Baker way back in 2010. From there, her baking career exploded after winning season 3. She opened her own business (Sugar Monster Sweets) and has most recently been on Netflix's Bake Squad (Watch the show. What she can do is nothing short of amazing. Seriously).

So, I am super excited not only to have one of Ashley's creations right in my own kitchen, I'm excited to learn some skills, techniques, and of course.. to bake! This is a gingerbread cake that would be a perfect showstopper centerpiece for your dessert table at your holiday meals! If you are gathering with friends and family for any type of meal, this cake should be at the top of your priority dish. Not only will it look amazing, it will taste great too! Plus, there is the added benefit of telling others that it is your creation and not a store bought masterpiece.

If you aren't gathering together for the holidays, this cake would be the perfect way to hone up on your pastry chef skills, and perhaps inspire a little baker in your life too.

Now, BAKE ON is a company that serves to inspire people to become the best baker that they can be. This company is basically a pastry school within a box as it comes with the tools, ingredients, and knowledge to do those things one would learn in school or expensive classes. The best part is that one can remake the items over and over again, because the tools are reusable. Of course, you will have to buy pastry ingredients, but BAKE ON also offers filler kits (ingredients without the tools) in case you want to do it again!

Bake ON's Holiday Edition Kit serves 12 and takes an active time of 3.5 hrs to make but a total time of 5 hours. A virtual tutorial is provided by visiting their website or scanning the QR code found in the recipe pages. I'll definitely need to watch this and appreciate having videos as I can go back, stop, pause, etc!

Opening the recipe book, the customer immediately sees the ingredients list and the tools (both included and needed). A step-by-step process is shared. Moving along, one can see the "know before you start section" (must-read before beginning any baking process!), Fondant Decorating tips, template guides, assembly instructions, and more. I have never worked with fondant so definitely need some help there!

Inside the kit, I've discovered a lot of provided tools along with the cake and decorating contents. They are actually divided and labeled according to steps 1-3, which I love for accessibility and ease sake, especially for those who may not be baking machines and aren't quite sure what to do!

This particular kit comes with:

Step 1: Gingerbread Cake Ingredients

Included are all the dry ingredients needed to make the cake. Extra ingredients needed are butter & eggs. The extracts are even included too, in small little vials!

Step 2: Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

Included is the powdered sugar and colors for the frosting, but you will need to supply the cream cheese.

Step 3: Fondant Decorations

I've never worked with fondant, so this will be interesting, but the colorings and shredded toppings (like coconut- to resemble snow) are included in the step 3 bag.

Tools:

Fat Daddio's Round Cake Pan
Fondant Roller
Fondant Smoother
Fondant Stamps
Precision knife
Small Spatula
Offset Spatula
Paint Brush
Piping Bag
Toothpicks
Parchment Round (for the bottom of the cake pan)

I highly recommend reading ALL instructions before beginning. Sometimes baking cakes can be tricky, and it is important to take note of any tips or tricks that Ashley presents in her kit. She's been doing this a long time and knows the ins & outs of cakes and pastry tools!

I also recommend watching the entire tutorial before beginning. I'm the type of person that it would be easy to just jump in and get started, but then I'll be stuck in the middle of a process because I messed a step-up!

In fact, check out the BAKE ON blog for great tips on working with Fondant. It's definitely an art to this particular glucose that deck's out most cakes these days!

Finally, I recommend you grab your patience hat. I've watched many of those shows, including Ashley herself on Bake Squad, and messing with fondant is a tricky business. Sometimes, it just doesn't do what we want it too! So be prepared to be patient! The baking the cake part is easy for me, but I'm also going to have to learn the delicate art of cutting the cake into the igloo.. that's going to be interesting!

Each step includes active waiting time and total time (that may include any baking and cooling). This is a cake that you will need to lay out sometime for, so it's not a quick "let me get this done in an hour" cake, especially if you really focus on the decorations as properly laid out.

I am excited to further share my cake baking experience with you, but I highly encourage you to not wait to purchase your BAKE ON: Holiday Kit Edition, as there is a shipping deadline to receive before Christmas! Purchase by December 19 to guarantee Christmas Arrival! This would be the perfect gift for anyone in your life that is an aspiring pastry chef, that loves to bake, and that wants to learn some new skills but doesn't have the time or finances to invest in a class series or school!

Be sure to follow us after Christmas for more content on the BAKE ON Winter Wonderland Kit! You will hear about my epic failures and hopefully, successes!