Review: Basic Cake Decorating with Kathy Brodock

Growing up learning Calculus, Advanced Chemistry, and reading Chaucer, I sadly missed out on other skills that I now use every day, namely homemaking skills. As a young wife and mother, beginning my career as a stay home mom (quite different from the training I had received), I tried to catch up on learning things I wish I had learned in the first place. This task of learning was difficult as there were few resources I could find that truly helped me.
That's why I appreciate Mrs. Kathy Brodock and her ministry www.TeachingGoodThings.com, because she is providing resources that will help to teach and disciple other young wives and mothers who also didn't get their training early in life. Even better, you can use her wonderful resources to help you in training your own daughters, as I am doing.
When deciding which of Mrs. Brodock's DVDs to get first, the choice was easy: Cake Decorating. Why? Because that is one thing that I either outsource to others, or do a lousy job at, though I have always wanted to learn. Being an artsy sort of person, I've figured it can't be that hard to learn, but alas every workshop I've taken or book I've read has been of no help to me. I figured the real test here would be whether or not she could teach me (yes, even me) how to decorate a cake that didn't look like I had fallen somewhere in the process. Worst comes to worst, I figured, maybe one of my girls could learn how to do cakes and take that job off of my hands. Up until I watched Kathy Brodock's DVD, my pastry bag and star tip were used almost exclusively for filling taco shells with sour cream.
As soon as Mrs. Brodock's DVD arrived, I popped it into the DVD player and started watching. Even though the video was done on a home video camera and not produced slickly in a studio like other instructional videos, the content is superior, and the quality of both sound and video is well done. In a real-life, practical, down-to-earth way, Kathy Brodock takes you by the hand and shows you how to do it, making no assumptions that you already know things like how to fill a pastry bag with icing, or how to even make your own icing for that matter. For the record, I found out while watching the video that I had been doing both wrong all along. I felt like I had a girlfriend over, showing me how it's done.
I wasn't the only one watching the cake decorating DVD, though. Each of my children were soon digging through the pantry to see if we had some Crisco and powdered sugar so they could whip up some icing to practice with. For the rest of that week, too rainy to work in the garden or play outside, my girls practiced making cake decorations on waxed paper, then scraping it back into the bowls to practice more again tomorrow. They watched the engaging DVD over and over again, and even the neighbor's girls joined in and practiced making roses, leaves, stems, clowns, and more.

Mrs. Kathy Brodock has really hit on something big with these training DVDs that offer practical Titus 2 style training in a style that anyone can understand.

I've included some pictures to show you just how effective her video really is.

~Esther (age 10), ready for action~

~some first samples of piping and stars~



~Anastasia, age 11, did this rose on the first try, thanks to some wonderful instructions!~

~The Girls did this Thank You for Mrs. Braddock after they were done



~Esther, age 10, and Isobel, age 9, designed this cake all by themselves, just from watching the video

And Proof that Kathy Braddock was able to teach this old dog a few new tricks:



Success on the first try!

So, if you are looking for an easy to use video for decorating cakes, I give Basic Cake Decorating with Kathy Brodock 5 stars, and two thumbs up. One of my girls said it should be more like 10 thumbs up because each of them are also giving it two thumbs up too. :-)Look at www.TeachingGoodThings.com for more quality videos and instructional materials to better learn new skills for hearth and home, and to pass those skills onto the next generation.