Dive in deep to the process of making a perfect pie crust by hand, including additional manipulation techniques to achieve a variety of different textures and end results. Learn about par and blind baking and when to utilize these techniques to achieve a perfect pie – every time!
Bitsy (Denea) will walk you through her entire process of baking, creating, and shipping her infamous cake jars in a brand new flavor – Banana Rocher! You’ll get recipes for the banana cake, Nutella buttercream, ganache, and chocolate hazelnut wafer crunch – plus, you’ll learn how to properly assemble and ship cake jars.
Learn why it’s important to create your own line of custom products, how to generate revenue with them, choosing products, financing, and sourcing.
In this class, learn how to make a mixed media springtime-themed cookie featuring a combination of decorating techniques including embossed and/or contoured cookies, textured and/or contoured royal icing, airbrushing, stenciling, rubber-stamping, piped royal icing flowers, and more.
Learn the piping essentials to creating eye-catching floral cupcakes. Using Nina’s provided buttercream recipe, you’ll learn how to color the buttercream, add dimension using color, and what glam details to add for extra glamor.
You have been operating as a solo-entrepreneur for some time and you’re ready to hire a team (or at least one person to help out!). Bringing on staff can be both a relief and a stress, as it is not always easy to hire and to delegate the work that you’ve been managing yourself. Learn best practices for building and managing a team before you even make that first hire. Taking a proactive approach, with the right tools in place, will ensure that you and your team are well set up for success. This session will cover crafting job descriptions, setting performance expectations, and designing training materials and product specifications.
Take a deep dive into the many scientific factors that go into baking the perfect chocolate cake. In this class, you’ll learn how to tweak a recipe to achieve your ideal cake texture and flavor by leveraging leaveners, fats, mixing techniques, chocolate types, and much more!
Inspired by traditional family recipes and Scottish flavours, Coinneach MacLeod, the Hebridean Baker, has been Scotland’s best-selling cookbook author for the past two years.
Coinneach was born and raised on the Isle of Lewis, the most northerly of the Outer Hebrides. His cookbooks and online videos (watched by over 25 million people) have inspired millions around the world to bake, visit Scotland, learn Gaelic, enjoy a dram or two of whisky and to seek a more wholesome, simple life. The Hebridean Baker showcases Scotland’s extensive larder and brings us flavourful dishes with a story to tell and aims to bring the best of Scotland to a worldwide audience.
Julia M. Usher is a world-renowned sugar artist most recognized for her pioneering work in 3-D cookies. She is also the author of two books, 13 e-books, and an app, all about cookie decorating. When not spreading her love for cookie art in classes across the globe or online, Julia produces videos for her popular YouTube channel and website; oversees Cookie Connection™, the world’s largest online cookie decorating community; designs cookie stencils and cutters under her JULIA brand; and manages Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™, which was filmed in 2019 for a Food Network documentary. Julia is Past President of the International Association of Culinary Professionals and has received multiple food writing, decorating, and video awards, including James Beard Food Writing Award finalist (2008), Cordon d’ Or Food Writing Award winner (2009), Cake Masters Magazine Cookie Award winner (2013), Oklahoma State Sugar Art Show (OSSAS) Medal of Honor (2014), both Edible Artists Global Academy Association (EAGAA) US and International Sugar Artist of the Year Awards (2016), Cake Masters Magazine Cookie Icon (2018), TASTE Breakout Foodie of the Year (2019), and Best Online Cookie Decorating Classes from The Spruce Eats (2020). She is also a two-time Global Sugar Hero finalist in the Australian Cake Artists & Decorators Association (ACADA) annual Cake Oscar Awards (2021/2022), and a 2023 finalist in the global Positive Leadership Awards for her impact on the cookie arts community. Most recently, Julia launched a series of licensed 3-D cookie decorating courses in Asian markets with the highly regarded Japan Salonaise Association. Her favorite mantra is “live sweetly”, which she urges everyone to do every day!
Nina, from Sophia Mya Cupcakes, is a multi-award winning & trend setting cupcake artist originally from Chicago and has been residing in Melbourne since her sweet journey started.
She started the #monogramcupcakes trend in 2015 and loves creating unique, colorful and glam creations. Nina, from Sophia Mya Cupcakes, is a multi-award winning & trend setting cupcake artist originally from Chicago and has been residing in Melbourne since her sweet journey started. She started the #monogramcupcakes trend in 2015 and loves creating unique, colorful and glam creations.
Denea “Bitsy” Gresham founded Bitsycakes in 2017 shortly after deciding to leave her position as executive pastry chef at a million-dollar catering company. She had already graduated from the nation’s premier culinary school (CIA 2010) and had years of experience in the industry under her belt. She knew that the time was right to take a chance and bet on herself!
Bitsy gathers her motivation from her 5 year old autistic son, Zachary, whom she cares for while managing all the day to day operations of Bitsycakes.
Above all else, Bitsy prioritizes providing memorable moments for her clientele and students! She uses all of her experience and knowledge obtained over the past 13 years to educate, inspire, and brighten everyone’s days!
Hi! I’m Fred, also known as Doc Macaron on social media. I am a scientist turned pastry chef.
I have always had a sweet tooth and really enjoyed pastries, but I was never really a baker before the pandemic.
Initially, I focused on macarons, which are known for being particularly difficult to bake. I spent countless hours experimenting, trying to see how many parameters can contribute to making a successful (or unsuccessful) macaron. This opened my eyes to a whole new perspective of the science of baking and, as a scientist, I got hooked.
I made the big decision to make baking more than a hobby and earned a pastry chef degree. My brand primarily focuses on different aspects of education through workshops, sharing my recipes on my blog, and consulting to bakeries, restaurants, and individuals.
Karen Bornarth is Executive Director of the Bread Bakers Guild of America, a nonprofit membership association dedicated to supporting the sustainable growth of the artisan baking industry through education, training and community. The Guild’s 2000+ members are bakery owners, professional bakers, ingredient and equipment suppliers, educators and others dedicated to the production of the highest-quality baked goods and to advancing the baking industry.
Through her years of experience as a bread baker and educator in New York City’s culinary landscape, Karen brings a passion for education and advocacy for frontline food production workers. She is particularly interested in breaking down the systemic and structural barriers to career and economic advancement for people of color and women in the culinary industry.
In her current work with the Bread Bakers Guild of America, she supports bakery owners and professional bakers to achieve success in their baking practices and businesses through classes and events in baking techniques and the business of baking, and opportunities to connect with and learn from their peers.
During her 7+ years with Hot Bread Kitchen, a nonprofit workforce and small business development agency in NYC, she developed an initiative to improve job quality and business performance in small food businesses, and oversaw a team to design and deliver a dynamic workforce development program in New York City.
She launched her career at Amy’s Bread as an overnight production baker, taught bread baking for several years at the French Culinary Institute, and developed products and processes for Le Pain Quotidien, an international franchise of bakery-cafes.
A jewelry designer and graduate gemologist from GIA London, Hena Arora Mahajan stumbled into the caking world in 2014 when she decided to bake her son’s 2nd birthday cake. Funky Batter was born in 2015 as a creative outlet for her with cakes as her canvas.
Hena is a Recipe Developer and works hard to shatter traditional boundaries by creating easy to make and functional recipes. Her main focus is to address pain points in the industry and simplify baking and cake decorating with her recipes and tutorials. She has created her famous #FunkyBattercream and #funkybattercake recipes which are being used by bakers in 102 countries.
She puts her heart and soul into each creation trying to bake the world happy, one cake at a time.
Alexandria started Finespun Cakes as a luxury cake business back in 2015, renting out odd catering kitchens and making sugar flowers at her kitchen counter.
Since then, she’s opened a cake studio in Toronto, had over 600 students go through her online courses, and grown her social media following to over 200k fellow cake makers and appreciators.
She’s been featured in wedding and cake magazines, blogs, podcasts, and was one of Wedluxe’s top 10 Wedding Cake Designers for 2023.
Alexandria has a love of creating sugar flowers, piped cakes, and helping other cake decorators navigate their own creative journeys and businesses.
Brette is a home-based wedding cake designer and baker out to prove that success in business is not about luck, but about solid business strategy, active implementation of those strategies, and holding a positive mindset. She runs not just one, but two baking businesses and enjoys creating beautiful floral painting wedding cakes as her signature style. She has been featured by Wilton, American Cake Decorating Magazine, and Cake Masters. As a coach for other bakers, Brette powerfully teaches all the nitty-gritty know-how about money and pricing, marketing, business planning, and how to confidently run your business without letting it run you. She hosts the podcast Business Is Sweet and it’s like a mini coaching session in your own kitchen! Brette lives with her husband and two cutie boys in Utah, and when she’s not making cake or teaching, she writes, goes for runs, gets lectured on Star Wars canon by her husband, and plays Taylor Swift songs on the guitar as loud as she can.
Erika is the creator and recipe tester behind The Pancake Princess, a baking blog curating popular internet recipes via monthly bake offs. The bake offs, which have been running since 2017, include testing 9-12 different recipes in one day, gathering taster feedback and analyzing the data to find the crowd favorite. Based in New York City, Erika recently transitioned from a product marketing manager at a software company to a full-time content creator.
The Bake Fest is for everyone with a love for baking:
We couldn’t find any other baking event like this, so we created one! It’s the best place for all bakers to get ready for the holidays.
Bake along in expert-led hands-on baking classes that inspire and educate.
Grow your business and make more money with help from our experienced business instructors.
Meet and interact in real-time with the best baking and business brands.
Enter to win incredible prizes.
Join the fun entirely from the comfort of your own home!
The Bake Fest 2023 marks our fourth virtual event that celebrates all bakers – home bakers, pastry chefs and bakery owners, recipe developers, and baking influencers. Our virtual gatherings are a place for us all to learn through interactive classes, networking opportunities, and shopping experiences. It’s a space to get to know each other and exchange tips so we can grow together.