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Savoury crafts
temperature; someone likes to link them to the marriage between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (1840) and the wedding cake served on the occasion. The technique was refined with time, reaching high-level aesthetic expressions and spreading its fame to the rest of the world, first of all to the United States. This is where the success of cake decoration began, boosted by the media. So far, if you wanted to learn the precious technique you had to organise quite a long stay in the United States or Great Britain, where masters are operating and courses organised by prestigious names in the business. After their training abroad, Italian cake designers opened their ateliers at home, attracting the attention of people with a sweet tooth and searching for a surprising aesthetic effect along with the quality of product. These artists organise in their turn decorating courses for their customers. Back to our excellent protagonist: Claudia Lotta. Her passion dates back to her childhood, when she liked preparing cakes and biscuits for birthday parties. As it sometimes happens, life gets us to stride temporarily away from our passions and Claudia got a degree in psychology, and followed a professional path in that direction. After some years, while she was pregnant of her daughter, she felt once again the call of sweetness and first attended a course for “Lady Chef ”, then a master at the Peggy Porschen Academy in London, and one at the historical Wilton Cake Decorating School in Chicago. Wonderful cakes and sweets started to come out from her wise hands and her artistic and aesthetic talent. Cakes made with ingredients of the highest quality, decorated with the most refined techniques and the brilliant use of the sac-à-poche. We are pleasantly amazed by her madeto-order decorated cakes, pure masterpieces thanks to the wise works of her hands. How else could we define the refined and precious cupcakes – small cakes common in the United States and so called because in the past they were baked in cups – she proposes every day with different flavours, even for vegan customers? Claudia Lotta’s atelier offers many other delicacies: spatulated cakes; pleasant cakepops, small chocolate-glazed cakes propped on small sticks; delicious brownies, chocolate bars very popular and famous in the United
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“THE PASSIONS TINGE HER WITH THEIR COLOURS WHEREVER THEY TOUCH HER” (B. Gracián)
States; fragrant lemon bars, sweets with a creamy heart and a crunchy base, coming from the south of the US; gorgeous decorated biscuits, so beloved by children and grown-ups. Furthermore, Claudia Lotta inaugurated also a small Academy where she offers courses in cake decoration with sugarpaste flowers and leaves, drawing inspiration from her passion for Art Nouveau, as well as courses to create customised cakes.
Delicious heart-shaped biscuits. Top: the windows of Claudia Lotta’s atelier, Sweet Designer in via Alfonso Bonafous 7, Turin. www.claudialotta.it
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