As we continue to tidy up our internal systems, we will now also be removing our old system for tutorials and subscriptions. This “old system” was the system we used from day one up until the 27th of May 2020. So this change that we will be making in the near future will only relate to you if you purchased a tutorial or joined a subscription before May 27th 2020. If you fall into this criteria, please read the following information carefully to avoid losing access to tutorials you have purchased or avoid continuing to make recurring subscription payments to a plan that will not function on our website. If you didn’t make any purchases for tutorials or subscriptions before May 27th 2020, then you can ignore this email and any future emails regarding the removal of our old system.

IMPORTANT: If you purchased a tutorial or joined a subscription before May 27th 2020, you need to follow the instructions below and take action to avoid losing your purchased tutorials or prevent making continued recurring subscription payments with no benefit.

How do I know if I have purchased any tutorials or have an active subscription from before May 27th 2020?

1. Go to YenersWay.com and log in.
2. Once logged in, click on the user icon in the top right corner.
3. CHECK IF YOU OWN ANY TUTORIALS: Click on My Tutorials (Old System) on the menu on the left. If you see any tutorials in here, then you need to follow the instructions below.
4. CHECK IF YOU HAVE AN ACTIVE SUBSCRIPTION: Click on My Subscription (Old System) on the menu on the left. If you see a ‘Cancel’ option anywhere on this page, then you may have an active subscription you need to follow the instructions below.

What do I do if I see purchased tutorials under the My Tutorials (Old System) page?

1. Send an email to help@yenersway.com stating that you have tutorials on the old system, and you want them to be moved to the new system.
2. We will take care of the rest and notify you when the tutorials have been moved.

What do I do if I see that I have an active monthly or annual subscription on the My Subscription (Old System) page?

Basically, the process here is to join a new subscription on the new system and let us know. We will then cancel your current one and adjust the free trial period to be up until the date your old subscription would have renewed.

1. Go to YenersWay.com and log in.
2. Once logged in, go to https://www.yenersway.com/join.
3. Click on the Subscribe button for the Monthly or Annual Subscription.
4. Click Proceed to Checkout.
5. Complete the steps and checkout. There will be a 3 day free trial so you won’t be charged instantly.
6. Email us at help@yenersway.com stating that you have done these steps. Please also let us know the email address of your account at YenersWay.com.

Once we receive your email, we will…
1. Adjust your free trial period of your new subscription so that it ends when your old subscription would have renewed. This way you do not lose any access that is already paid for.
2. Apply any discounts to your subscription that you previously had applied on your old subscription so that you do not lose any discounts that you had.

As of now, there is no set date for this internal change to happen. We will keep the old system in place until we have migrated all accounts to the new system.

If you have any questions or issues, please contact us.

We have had many people email us over the last 3 years stating that having two websites is quite confusing and we totally agree. While this won’t be an overnight change, we have taken steps towards a plan to switch off YenersWay.tv in 2024.​

• We are now no longer accepting new registrations at YenersWay.tv.
• New tutorials will only be published at YenersWay.com going forward.
• We have now implemented a new back end system at YenersWay.com to handle subscriptions and individual tutorial purchases.
• While there is no date set right now, YenersWay.tv will be shut down eventually. We will of course announce a date well in advance.

We hope these changes will be received well by our community and followers as it will lead to a less confusing, more unified and simpler Yeners Way experience.
​

What do I do if I have an active monthly or annual subscription at YenersWay.tv and I want to switch it to YenersWay.com?

To make the switch, please follow these steps…

At YenersWay.tv
1. Go to YenersWay.tv and log in.
2. Click on the ACCOUNT link in the top menu.
3. Click on the ‘Purchases’ tab.
4. Click on the Cancel Membership link and proceed to cancel.

At YenersWay.com
1. Go to YenersWay.com and log in (or create a new account if you do not have one).
2. Once logged in, click on the pink Join button in the top right corner of the site.
3. Click on the Subscribe button for the Monthly or Annual Subscription depending on what you were on at YenersWay.tv.
4. Click Proceed to Checkout.
5. Complete the steps and checkout. There will be a 3 day free trial so you won’t be charged instantly.
6. Email us at help@yenersway.com stating that you have done these steps and let us know what discount you had at YenersWay.tv as well as the email address of your account at YenersWay.com.

Once we receive your email, we will…
1. Adjust your free trial period so that it ends when your YenersWay.tv subscription would have renewed. This way you do not lose any access that is already paid for.
2. Apply any discounts to your subscription that yo previously had applied at YenersWay.tv subscription so that you do not lose any discounts that you had at the .tv site.

What if I have purchased tutorials individually at YenersWay.tv?

​If you haven’t already got an account at YenersWay.com, simply create a new account and send us an email to let us know. We will then add all your purchased tutorials to your account in the new system.

I like YenersWay.tv better!

Please let us know why you think YenersWay.tv is better and we will do our best to implement changes to YenersWay.com to make it more user friendly.

If you have any questions or issues, please contact us.

To purchase or to get more information about it, please visit https://www.yenerspastillage.com

The live demonstration can viewed here.

The downloadable course material for this demonstration can be found below.

My Story

My love affair started with this building in 1992. It was just a few days before I first arrived to Australia. At that time it was named Conrad Jupiters and I had been appointed as Executive Pastry Chef to this Casino Hotel which belonged to the Hilton Group. It is the largest casino in Queensland and 7000 people visited daily at that time. I worked there for about 5 years until 1998 which was when started my own cake business. The building’s name changed twice since then. First it became Jupiters Casino and now it is called The Star Casino.

The second oblong shaped building in front of the casino was built in three years and recently opened its doors to hotels VIP guests. A grand breaking ceremony of this 6 star residential hotel was held in mid 2015 and I was very proud to be commissioned to build a sugar replica of it including the original Casino building. I took some pictures during the production and am happy to share with you while also expressing some of my thoughts. I also hope, this article would be a significant example of how to plan and put together such a building out of sugar.

Planning

There’s no doubt that everything has to start from producing a plan as a guideline. First we need a source of information or reference. Sometimes our sources of reference can vary in size, angles and views so we need to make adjustments. For this project I have referred to followings sources;

• Google maps
• Blue prints provided by event organizer
• Several pictures
• Several illustrations of building (3D renders from architects)
• My own observation

When all of these are ready on the table I had to answer following;

• How big is the centrepiece expected to be in general?
• What is the top view size to achieve that?
• What is the board size (includes landscape)?
• What will be the final height?
• When the centrepiece is finished, will it be transportable?

I started drawing the top view of the foot print meaning the shape of the area where the building touches to the ground. From there, I used semi transparent sheets to draw the upper levels by partially copying lower levels.

The following is the main principle to create an actual size plan referring to different pictures in the examples we have.

Reference Picture 1: Let’s name it P1 This picture is taken from the front view and from this, the width and height information is quite reliable, but not the depth.

Reference Picture 2: With this reference image taken from Google Maps, we can only see width and depth in its correct proportion, but not the height.

Next is the actual size plan of the top view. I wanted to have a width of 60cm which meant, according to P2, that the depth is 20cm.

Now for the actual size plan of the front view, we have to refer to P1 where the height is 1.5 times the width meaning if the width is 60cm, the height is 90cm.

I followed the simple principle 10ths of times to finish my actual size plan referring 10ths of different pictures.

Making Decisions

Once the plan is ready I had to make some further decisions by answering following questions;

• Q. What is the main pastes to be used?
• A. I always choose Pastillage for making buildings because of its strength. It is rigid when it completely dries and exact size walls and ceilings can be produced and joined after drying.

• Q. What is the material for the windows?
• A. For this matter, I decided to make an internal full height foil and drop cylindrical or rectangular shape PVC foil and by doing that I can illuminate the whole building with a few lights.

• Q. What is the glue to join the panels?
• A. Of course, royal icing is the best because it can be also used for some lines and can be cleaned with wet a brush.

• Q. What is the other material for extra support?
• A. Hidden polystyrene, PVC pipes wrapped in pastillage and corrugated cardboard.

Construction

Despite using Pastillage because it is rigid enough to construct very large architectural pieces together, additional support was needed so I used a long piece of PVC pipe going through the balconies. I also used a piece of folded cardboard to add additional support underneath the large connecting roof in between the two buildings. Specially shaped polystyrene was also helpful to create the slim tower in front of the original building. Not to forget I needed a very strong base board which would need to be a minimum of 20mm MDF or plywood. We could also glue and screw additional wooden bars underneath the board instead of using heavier and thicker board.

Templates and Holders

Basically, the old building begins with a large flat entry level as the vertical walls carry a big flat roof and from the top view the “V” shape building sits over that entry level. I made a special holder with polystyrene and white cardboard to achieve complete front and back walls with a rounded connection which also made it comfortable for cutting random windows and roof top pieces.

New, modern designed buildings are different. Each storey’s floor/ceiling was an individually produced oblong shape using a polystyrene holder and individually produced ceilings which were also the balconies for the next storey with a special template smaller oblong cut out in the centre. These same size centre cut outs all together will allow the tall one piece PVC foil to go all the way down at a later stage.

As a result with the complete plan on the table I was able to produce following templates and holders.
• Templates for all walls with indication of level height and window sizes.
• Templates for all roofs and ceilings with centre cut outs.
• Large “V” shape holder with rounded connections to dry casino walls in the right shape.
• Oblong shape polystyrene holders to shape new building walls.

Preparing Parts

The fun starts right here. Till this point, there was only thinking, deciding, drawing lines on paper and preparing templates and holders. I have to say that it is quite important to go through all these steps thoroughly before doing anything else. Also, all the success will depend on how correctly and accurately you do these planning steps. From this point, you will need lots of trays and shelf space to get things properly sorted and stored to dry. Most of the preparations involve rolling and cutting flat pieces in the right numbers and shapes, out if correct colour premixed Pastillage. Using very sharp blades instead of a knife is very important to achieve sharp and clean cuts.

Assembling

This is my favourite part of the process. Every piece you put together shows the difference and makes you wonder a little more about how it is developing so far. What I would like to emphasize and recommend to you at this stage is not to rush to finish. Each step should be easy to do if the previous step was taken correctly. For me, the technique of achieving this is doing a simple brain storming using yellow sticky note tags. Write every short step you can think off individually on tags without worrying about the order of things. Once you can see all the small steps involved, it is much easier to see a global map of whats involved and then you can put them in the correct order as good as you can. Just simulate the process in your mind one or two times and you will easily realize that some of the steps need to be relocated and some new additional steps need to be added. As a result of this you only worry about each step at a time and you will have a comfortable, relaxing work flow with joy.

Landscape

When all elements have come together on the ground, doing the landscaping is the finishing touche. This needs the same amount of attention to make things even better. At this point using a couple of different techniques is necessary. For small cars, I simply cut them from a block of unkneaded firm fondant in different colours with a blade. For trees, I used forest green royal icing and oats mixture 1 to 1 ratio. For streets I had a smart idea where I covered the whole board with tar colour fondant and then rolled out a grassy green fondant on top of that. Then I cut out the streets from the green fondant which made the streets automatically appear.

Lights

For this kind of project I always use remote controlled multi-colour LED lights. Not to forget I also used opaque white cellophane sheets together with a one-piece internal PVC sheet as windows to spread light evenly. Specially when I set the fading different colours slowly as a special effect, I like it most.

Conclusion

An project of this scale does not come everyday and I also didn’t want to make them more than a few times a year. With these lights in place and functioning with a touch of a button, my sugar replica of the Star Casino & Darling Apartments was completed. I delivered it to the event and it is well received. It was featured in some newspapers and covered on TV news.

As my final words I would like to say, to me it wasn’t a cake or centrepiece, it was a project and I was a project manager rather than a Cake Decorator or a Pastry Chef. I think some of you know exactly what I mean.

Thanks for reading and I hope you got something out of it.

After years in development, we are super proud to announce our new cake designing and pricing software called Cakenote. Although it is still in its early stages and there is still a long way to go, we feel that it is ready for prime time and we believe it is currently a very useful tool for cake decorators.

What is Cakenote?

Cakenote is an web-based browser application cake business management. Among many things, it’s mainly a tool you can use to visually design and price cakes. Cakenote is built on the idea of itemisation so every aspect of your cake design comes with specific costing and pricing settings so you can focus on designing your cakes and let Cakenote calculate costing and pricing automatically as you add elements.

These are just some of Cakenote’s features…

• Design cakes by combining individual elements on a canvas.
• Choose from a growing library of assets that will include a wide range of boards, cake sizes, decorations, construction elements as well as textiles and patterns.
• Automatically price your cake as you design it.
• Add your very own elements to be used for cake designs.
• Automatically calculate the number of servings of your design based on predefined portion sizes.
• Save designs as templates to be used on other designs.
• Automatically calculate flavour and coating pricing based on cake volume.
• Create orders with printable tags for easy kitchen operation.
• Manage Ingredients and Recipes (comes with many of our own).
• and much more…

How do I use it?

We understand that learning new software can be quite complicated and there may be a learning curve. This is why we have prepared some basic documentation on our Help Centre for you to refer to as well as some demonstration videos on the Cakenote YouTube channel. If you get stuck with something and can’t find the information you’re looking for or need more help, just email us at help@cakenote.com and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Alternatively, you can also use the chat widget in the bottom right corner of the app.

Demonstrations

We have published some demonstration videos on our YouTube channel. In each demo, Serdar walks you through the process of how to design a different cake and briefly talks about some of Cakenote’s other features. We will be publishing many more demos and tutorials in the future.

How can I provide feedback?

At the footer of the app, there are a couple of links…

Report an Issue: Use this link to tell us is there is anything unusual that is happening. Try to be as detailed as possible and explain in your best words, the steps you took and what happened.

Give Feedback: Use this link to tell us about anything you want. What you like or dislike, what could be better, what is missing, what doesn’t make sense, what is hard to understand, etc.

Of course, you can also email us at help@cakenote.com.

Our aim is to make Cakenote into a product that is useful for all cake decorators so any feedback will be helpful and appreciated.

We thank you in advance and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Give Cakenote a try with a 14 day free trial right now!

It is time again to address you all together and tell you from the bottom of my heart how much I appreciate your closeness. It is time again to feel more love in the air and smell the sweet spice of all the goodies and yummies in every corner.  It is time again to hear more jingling bells and the soothing music of choirs. Let me roll the time back and start from the beginning of the year.

Jo and I have travelled quite a bit, and the year 2019 is filled with unforgettable memories. In March, we were in Canberra at Jenny Stirzaker’s  Across The Board Cake Decorating. It was so much fun to teach her bubbly students. In May, we took off for Ireland. The first stopover was Singapore, where we visited the jaw-dropping Jewel at the Changi airport. Next was Greece, where we visited the Acropolis. Then we ticked off London’s Big Ben before heading to Dublin. We ended up at Karyn Hudson’s Cakers World for two classes. Of course, we did not leave Dublin without visiting the Guinness old factory for a beer and tasting the famous Irish stew. In Paris, we visited the Eiffel Tower and Champs-Elysee. It was the few other highlights of our trip before arriving at Kim Wiltjer’s farmhouse in Groningen, Holland, for five classes. We met with the amazing artist Kim back in 2017 for the first time at ACADA Brisbane and to see her again, spending two weeks at her fantastic rustic style studio was an enjoyable experience. Windows surrounded the classroom, with greenfield scenery. It was beautiful.

On the way home, we also visited my birth city Istanbul, which has over 17 million population. Meeting up with some of my childhood and work friends, enjoying authentic food together and talking about memories was so enjoyable. I also visited the resting place of my parents and brother to pay my respects.

Came back home in late June and in August, we demonstrated at the Australian National Cake Decorators Seminar held in Melbourne. In mid-September, we were at Khushi Malani’s Cakeology India, and ICA. I was so humbled and honoured meeting my most welcoming Indian followers. It was also lovely to see Cake masters editor Rosie Mazumder again.

November was the last trip of the year to China’s Nanning, where we visited Jo’s (my wife) elder sister’s family. I would recommend anybody to go and see this high tech city.

Most importantly, we finally published our cake designing and management software called Cakenote in late November. Please visit Cakenote.com and check it out if you have some time. We also have an introduction offer on at the moment which you won’t want to miss. 

On behalf of my son Serkan, my wife Jo and the rest of my family I’d like to thank you again for being so kind to know us as Yeners Way, Yeners Cake Tips and now also as Cakenote. We wish you an abundance of health, enough wealth, heaps of love and peace at your home, neighbourhood and country. May God fill your hearts with love, Merry Christmas to you, your family and let 2020 be the best year of yours and your loved one’s lives. 

Serdar Yener and Family.

Nominations are open for the Cake Masters Magazine Awards 2019 and I would really appreciate your vote.

To nominate me, please click on this link…
https://www.cakemastersawards.com/nominate

Please nominate me for Category 13: Best Learning Experience Award.
Name of Business/Person you are nominating: Yeners Way – Serdar Yener
Link to our website/Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/YenersWay/
Thank you kindly for your support.

Yours sincerely,
Serdar Yener

After submitting the images for the magazine, Jackie Shaffer from Cake Central requested to interview Serdar about the making of the cake and they published the interview on the Cake Central blog as their latest ‘Sketch to Cake’ feature. The tutorial, ‘Wedding Cake Inspired By Bernini’s Louis XIV Bust’ is currently being processed and will be published soon.

Here’s the link to the article…
Sketch to Cake: Serdar Yener’s Wedding Cake Inspired By Bernini’s Louis XIV Bust