Sugar can be such sweet fun

Last Christmas I resolved to produce an artistically iced Christmas cake that would impress Delia Smith. I took a crash course in icing techniques from a talented cousin who made trellis work and sugar roses look like Sesame Street and attacked my cake with a pristine icing bag and shiny new nozzle.

The result was a disaster. The sugar roses were fit only for the compost heap and the trellis slid relentlessly down the side of the cake to gather in folds like a pair of old socks. There was obviously more to this icing business than a positive mental attitude. Could even the artistically challenged be taught to ice like a professional, I wondered ?

"A little bit of tuition definitely makes a huge difference," says Mary McHugh of Careme Sugarcraft in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin. "People come in here with no experience of icing and they watch you doing something and they feel like giving up, but at the end of the day with a bit of help and practice we can get everyone to make some sort of a go of it.

"I suppose it helps to be a bit artistic but I had no experience of doing this up to 10 years ago when I started off. I used to do sewing - that was my only artistic outlet before I started on cakes."

Careme Sugarcraft is a shop which sells all the tools of the trade for DIY cake decorators. It's also a place to buy designer wedding cakes and novelty cakes for kids - and it's one of the places where budding icers and sugarcraft aspirants can go for lessons in their art.

"We run morning and evening classes and they are very well attended by both men and women from all sorts of backgrounds," says McHugh. "I have one gentleman who is retired and he decorates cakes as a hobby and I have one lady who is in her seventies and she is still coming to pick up new ideas.

"We get a lot of people from the diplomatic service coming to classes and we also get young people who are intending to become chefs and they want to have this under their belt before they start their training."

Class numbers are kept deliberately small - between six and eight in sugar paste and royal icing classes and about 10 in sugar flower groups and classes are normally of six week's duration and cost around £90. There are also one-day courses and demonstrations and, coming up to Easter, the emphasis will be on making chocolate confectionery such as eggs and sweets. Day courses cost around £30 and demonstration classes around £10.

Mary and Noel McHugh started Careme as a business they could eventually hand on to their five children. Their daughter, Jennifer, is already working in the business and other family members are also showing an interest. Noel McHugh is a professional chef whose "day job" is training young chefs with REHAB. A former army chef, he has always had a keen interest in sugarcraft. He taught his wife, who is now doing a City & Guilds diploma course in creative art and sugarwork.

Sisters-In-Law Jean and Nuala Doran joined the Careme classes together and have since been through all stages to advanced level. They both now make and ice cakes as a hobby for friends and family and both sing the praises of Noel McHugh's ability as a teacher.

"He is a brilliant teacher," says Jean Doran. "He never makes you feel like a fool and sometimes you really are like one when something won't work out properly but nothing is too much trouble for him and he watches over you until you get it sorted out."

They started doing courses with Careme around 1990. "We still go to courses and demonstrations because you always learn something new. If we have a problem with a cake we can ring himself or Mary up and they are very helpful and willing to give advice. When I started off I could do virtually nothing - I used to do a trellis and that was about it - and I've really learnt all I know from them."

Nuala Doran has made a speciality of novelty cakes and wheelbarrows packed with vegies, a guitar, a snooker table and a cake with a footballing theme are just some of the cakes she has tackled for friends and family. "I wouldn't be able to do any of this without the courses," she says. "Noel McHugh is an excellent teacher with amazing patience and a great sense of humour. I must say I've really enjoyed learning the craft and we have had great fun at the classes."

Contact: Careme Sugarcraft - phone (01) 280 1870.