Chef Eric's Culinary Classroom

My mom and I were excited to enroll in Chef Eric's Cake Decorating Class. We paid our $100 each, arrived at 9am on a Saturday, and joined the 7 other students in our class. According to Chef Eric's class description, "Each student learns to Write Script and make Leaves, Simple Flowers, Bows and Shells." Nothing could be further from the truth. After a quick demo from Chef Eric we were basically told how to fill our pastry bags with fake frosting and then we were told to practice making flowers, with no attention from him, for 20 minutes. After that we were assigned partners, given a recipe for buttercream frosting, and were told to practice making frosting. It says nothing in Chef's Eric's class description about making frosting and yet, we spent 30 minutes mixing butter and sugar together. I could easily do myself, why would I want to waste time learning this at a decorating class? After we were done with the frosting we stood around for 30 minutes while Chef Eric prepared his classroom for his afternoon class. There was WAY too much downtime in this class. Finally, he showed us how to frost a cake and then told us to frost and decorate our cakes. This was a joke because since we had to work in groups of two we had to share the tiny, very flat cakes that Chef Eric had prepared for us to decorate. Why did we each pay $100 to SHARE a cake?

Honestly, this was the biggest waste of time and money. Chef Eric is disorganized and inattentive. The afternoon after our class I sent him an e-mail stating how disappointed I was and I requested a partial credit. This was his response - "It is apparent from your email that the two of you are more advanced in the field of cake decorating. If you are looking for a strict decorating class, I suggest you search out a “Wilton” cake decorating class. In that environment, I believe you will do nothing but decorate. In closing, I only issue refunds when I have to cancel a class due to lack of enrollment."

So there you have it - Chef Eric himself says that if you want to learn to decorate a cake instead of how to use a stand mixer, please find a class by Wilton instead of paying $100 at his Culinary Classroom.