Visiting the Wilton “Sweet Up” in Chicago

I am so excited to be working with the Wilton Team again. I loved being one of the original Wilton Moms and am continuing with Wilton as a member of their Sweet Treat Team. While I am by no means a professional when it comes to cake decorating, I do have a passion for making homemade cakes, cupcakes and other goodies for family and friends. That’s what so great about Wilton – anyone can do it!

As a member of the Wilton Sweet Treat Team, I had the opportunity to fly to Chicago and participate in Wilton’s Annual Sweet Up. It was pretty awesome! Not only did I get to meet the newest members of the Wilton Sweet Treat Team, but I also got to reconnect with members of the team I hadn’t seen for quite some time.

We stayed at the Aloft Hotel – one of my favorite hotels to stay at in my many travels. When I checked into my room, I had a bag of goodies waiting for me. I was excited to get the trip started. I met up with some of the girls from Wilton Treat Team and we went for a yummy steak and shrimp dinner.

The next morning, we headed to the Wilton Cake Decorating School and Store. I was excited to be learning from Sandy Folsom, Director of the Wilton School. Sandy has been teaching for 25 years and had the opportunity to work side-by-side with Wesley Wilton. She has lots of knowledge when it comes to cake decorating.

We each had a station set up and learned how to decorate with fondant. I needed a little bit of help, but it was fun seeing my creations once I was done! I can’t wait to decorate some of our cakes and cupcakes with the fondant techniques I learned! Not to mention the fact that the new Wilton Decorator Preferred Fondant is easy to use and tastes yummy!

Next up was shopping at the Wilton Store. There were so many awesome cake decorating products available for me to purchase and take home. I have to say I did end up purchasing a few items to use on future cakes, cupcakes and candy items I’ll be making in the future.

After we headed to lunch and then to Wilton Headquarters for the Annual Sweet Up! This was my first time attending a Wilton Sweet Up. I had heard of it before while it was happening on one of my trips when I was a Wilton one, but I had never actually participated in one.

Eric opened the Wilton Sweet Up. He’s a pretty funny guy! He mentioned that Wilton has 3 focuses – Inspiration, Education and Easy-to-Use Products. The next speaker talked about how cake decorators today are receiving more modern inspiration. Cakes are brighter and more simplified. Wilton teaches Cake Decorating classes as well, which are great because you have an instructor to guide and help you.

The next speaker talked about 5 Mega Trends in Cake Decorating:

1      – Buttercream (Course 1 is now Building Buttercream Skills)

2      – Less is More Simplified

3      – Tall Cakes (**Tip: When baking cakes for a tall cake, be sure to use aluminum pans as they leave less crumbs on the cakes and you’ll be left with a golden brown crust.)

4      – Small Treats (I especially love these!)

5      – Fondant (There is a new Wilton Decorator Preferred Fondant that is more structured and stretchy. It is available in white and eight different shades.)

After looking at cake examples of the latest trends, the 2014 Cake of the Year was revealed. It was a gorgeous cake! Mosaics, metallic and a love for Roman architecture inspired the design of the cake. Bright bold colors were mixed with metallic. It was a pretty sweet cake!

As part of the Wilton Sweet Up, we each answered some questions in a survey to see what kind of cake decorator we were. I was an Enthusiastic Perfectionista. The description pretty much fit me a “T.”

After the Sweet Up presentation, we headed to different classes.  I signed up for the “3D Modeling is a Hoot” class.  It was fun, even if my owl didn’t look anything like the examples.  I definitely want to make some more of these cute little owls again soon.

After the “3D Modeling is a Hoot” class, I headed over to the candy dipping class.  I’ve been wanting to do more candy,  pretzel, chip and cookie dipping, so this was a perfect class for me.  I loved the different methods of candy dipping, as well as all the products Wilton has to offer! 

The Sweet Up was so much fun!  I can’t wait for next year’s Annual Wilton Sweet Up!  Later that night, we went to dinner and each team received an award for the cakes they created.  We got the award for the Best Garden Design!  The Annual Wilton Sweet Up was awesome and I learned so much!  A big thanks goes to the Wilton team for inviting me to participate in and attend this fun event!

Have you attended the Annual Wilton Sweet Up before?  What’s your favorite Wilton product?

This is a sponsored post as part of the Wilton Sweet Treat Team.  All opinions are mine.