I was fortunate enough to have attended the International Baking Industry Exposition a couple of days ago. IBIE is North America’s largest, most comprehensive trade event. It’s held every three years at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. It attracts more than 20,000 baking professionals from every segment of the grain-based market from all around the world. I am already counting down the days until the next event in 2016!!

I was hanging out at my friend’s, Jennifer Cucci from Heavenly Cake Pop, booth helping out by translating. There were tons of Spanish speaking attendees and I was happy to practice my Español and help out my peoples.

Have you seen her amazing Easy Roller? In three days I learned so much about cake pops, cake balls and who the world views them. I also learned that this incredible little tool can help you out in the kitchen in more ways than you can imagine. Maybe baking cookies, rolling marzipan or even portioning out other dough.  You can make three different size balls and three different shapes too!

Her and her husband, Anthony, work so hard. I am very proud to call them my friends and so happy to see them making their dream come true. They are the sweetest couple and awesome friends!

We were lucky to be booth neighbors with SweetWorks. You know, the genius company behind the favorite party candies and chocolates: Sixlets, Celebration by SweetWorkds, Niagara Chocolates, Ovation, Oak Leaf gumballs, and Nerds.

……. And guess what?? At their booth they had the super fabulous author Karen Tack and photographer Alan Richardson from the awesome books: Hello Cupcake!, What’s New, Cupcake? and Cupcakes, Cookies & Pie, Oh My?

They were on-site creating adorable cupcakes, cookies, pies and more with frosting and products from SweetWorks. They are so creative and seriously the sweetest and coolest team ever!! We had three days full of laughs, jokes and sweets talk. I loved it!

 

They were so kind to sign all three of my books I had from them and Karen even took a copy of my mARTshmallows book home with her 🙂 Talk about being honored!

One of the show attractions was an on-site cake decorating competition sponsored by Pillsbury. The contestants made several cakes throughout the duration of the show from a wedding cake, to a sculpted novelty cake to cupcakes. It was so much fun to watch. I can’t even imagine the pressure they were under!!

   

The pieces were really cool.

Another cool attraction was a the Great American Pie Festival in the middle of the show floor. I’m pretty sure they had over 15 varieties of pies to try…. talk about yummy!

I tried the pumpkin pie and brought home a marionberry pie slice for the hubs, that’s his favorite!

Unfortunately, I really didn’t have much time to walk around and visit every booth but here are some photos I snapped the few times I was able to get away for a minute:

Thinking I should get a marshmallow costume made hahaha to match my logo… whatcha think?

These guys were tossing pizza all over the place. It was cool to watch.

I thought this cake was cute with the mini fondant decorators and frosting being poured on it.

I was trying to talk these guys into making me a custom over the top giant gingerbread house to decorate with marshmallows but they said no 🙁

These were just desserts that I wish had been available for purchase right there and then. Sadly, they were for display only 🙁

Aren’t these the cutest French Macarons you have ever ever ever seen? They were tiny-itty-bitty.

Biggest conveyor I’ve ever seen:

In the middle of the show floor there were two demo theaters were pros were doing FREE demonstrations.

One of my favorite demonstrators was Lisa Berczel. She’s a pro at airbrushing and painting with colored cocoa butter. I MUST take one of her classes soon.

   

I also liked that they had  Mexican pastry chef, Jose Perez making Rosca de Reyes and Pan de Muerto.

  

Pan de Muerto is delicious and very traditional in Mexico.

Drum roll…………

Buddy Valastro, The Cake Boss did two 50-minute demos. How cool is that?!

If you know me personally, you know I find a way to get what I want. Impossible is not in my vocabulary! Sooooooo….. I finagled my way into the backstage area and got to meet Buddy!!!!

Jennifer had him sign one of her Easy Rollers which she is having many famous bakers sign to then donate it to  the charity Icing Smiles and get it auctioned off to raise funds.

Living in Las Vegas has allowed me to meet many many “famous” people and I’ve never been star struck or have I ever idolized anyone. However, meeting Buddy was such an awesome experience. People can say what they want about him and are often quick to judge based on what they see and hear on TV but I’m definitely a fan.  He was sweet, warm, humble, patient and very charismatic.

He took a copy of mARTshmallows home with him. Looking forward to hearing what he thinks of my book. Maybe one day I can come out to Carlo’s Bakery and create something for him with marshmallows!

Woohoo!!!!!!