Lynda Sheridan’s cake-decorating classes promise a fun time and a beautiful, birthday party-ready creation, regardless of skill level. Photo: Erin Hee.
Temora’s favourite pies and cakes have landed in Wagga, officially expanding the much-loved creations not just to Estella, but your kitchen as well.
Lynda Sheridan, who owns Lynda’s Bakery at Estella and Temora, took home three silver awards and three bronze in this year’s Australia’s Best Pie and Pastie Competition for her famous pies in her home town, Sydney.
The 53-year-old baker started offering cake-decorating classes in August due to popular demand.
“When we came here and I opened up, one lady came in and said, ‘Are you going to do cake-decorating classes?’,” she said.
“And I went, ‘Sure, yes, I am. Just give me a few months to get settled in, and then we’ll do them.”’
For the rest of August, students can learn to decorate a vintage-themed cake. In September, Lynda will teach her students how to decorate a Father’s Day-themed cake.
“We’ll just change it up every month, so everyone gets an opportunity to make that style of cake this month,” Lynda said.
For now, she is only able to take on six students in each class, but she hopes to expand the store to allow more people to join in the fun and perhaps even start offering lessons in cooking or baking.
Lynda’s Bakery hosts classes three days a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). It’s a 19-hour workday when the award-winning baker holds classes, which is why she is contemplating scaling back the days of classes in September.
”It’s quite funny because I put the post up, and then lots of people were like, ‘Oh, do we need to book for three days?
“I’m like, ‘No, it doesn’t take three days to ice a cake. It doesn’t take even that one day. It’ll take you an hour, tops.”’
She’ll bake the cake and prepare the necessary frosting and equipment, so students can just turn up after booking a spot in her class.
Two of Lynda’s students with their cakes. Photo: Lynda’s Bakery, Facebook.
This isn’t Lynda’s first foray into teaching people to decorate, however. She used to offer decorating classes for children in Temora.
“Over in Temora, I used to do decorating classes for kids in the school holidays,” she said.
“If we did gingerbread men, a lot of the kids would make them with their arms cut off and ‘blood’ everywhere.”
While Lynda started out teaching children, she found little difference when it came to instructing adults.
They are “older versions of kids”.
She would show one student how to hold the piping bag, turn around, and come back to them holding it the completely wrong way.
“I’m like, ‘I just showed you how!’,” she joked.
“But it’s good. They have a good time, which is good. A few of them said, ‘Can we bring alcohol?’
“I go, ‘You can bring alcohol, but I’m still not staying open any longer. You do your cake, and then you have to go. I’ve got to go to sleep.”’
Her advice for beginner cake-decorating enthusiasts is to “stop touching your cake!”.
“I have to go, ‘Less is best. Let’s stop touching your cake’,” she said.
“If I had a bigger shop, we could do more.
“At the moment, I could only do six people at once. Maybe we can move on to cooking classes and making the cake because that drags it on a long time.”
Perhaps one day people can learn to make Lynda’s famous vanilla slices, which were a big hit at local markets around the region, but for now she is only able to teach people how to decorate intricate and beautiful cakes.
Lynda’s Bakery is offering cake-decorating classes, where students learn a different design each month, with the option to choose a different colour on the day. She can host a maximum of six students in each class, which will run every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 6 pm to 7:30 pm in August. No skill level is required. You can book your spot via direct message via Facebook.
