Cake Finale

Yes. It is time for the cake finale. This unit on cakes was actually both this week and last week, but was divided between two Chef instructors. So on Monday we finished up our gum paste flower cakes with Chef Mark, and then moved on to American and French specialty cakes with a new Chef, Chef Kristen. But gumpaste first :)

We made a three tiered dummy cake (that’s a styrofoam cake, not a stupid cake) that we displayed our gumpaste bouquets on. We did some nice borders, topped it with the bouquet and called it good.

Putting the bouquet together wasn’t too bad. Just a lot of wires and breaking petals ;) Once the gumpaste is totally dry, it’s very brittle, so shoving together several flowers into a small arrangement can be messy. But it all looked okay in the end.
Ta Da! The finished cake. Simple, but elegant :)

And that was the end of our time with Chef Mark. We started off with American style cake and buttercream recipes with Chef Kristen and tried our hand at those. I actually didn’t do too bad with putting the frosting on…it’s not exactly my strongest suit.
Not bad, eh?

Then we practiced piping techniques. This is a plaster cake used for practicing. We did some string work (I really like this look)

Then when we had sufficiently practiced, we could pipe on our buttercream cakes a design of our choice. I decided to torture myself and do a bajillion dots on my cake for 45 minutes. Why did I torture myself? Because it’s pretty. That’s why.
And here’s the inside!! We learned how to torte (slice horizontally to fill) the cakes as well. John says this isn’t really his favorite cake…so I’ve been eating it. I LOVE this buttercream!!! (guess that means I better do some Zumba this weekend…)

After that was finished, THEN came the big project. The croqembouche. (CROH-kem-boosh) A little history lesson. Back in medieval times, traditionally at a wedding, guests would bring bread as a gift for the married couple. We’re probably talking stale and nasty bread, but anyway, all this bread would simply get piled up in one place. Then after the wedding, the bride and groom would attempt to kiss over the tower of bread without knocking the pile over (remember, people were shorter back then…I probably would have fit in better. But would have died young because of the lack of medicinal knowledge at that time. But I digress…). If they were successful, it was said they would have prosperity, fertility, and all around success. If not, well, they never said, but I’m guessing they hated each other and were miserable the rest of their lives. ;) Later in the 1800’s pate a choux came along (we made cream puffs out of these if you remember) and chefs developed a prettier way to carry on this “pile of bread” thing. And so, the croqembouche. It is still a traditional French wedding “cake” today.

This was quite the process. We had to make the pate a choux, we made a nougatine base for it to stand on, and then we some more sugar work for the top, and then some fancy piping, and…I’ll just show you…

Here is the nougatine base, which is basically caramelized sugar and almonds. Soooo tasty. You have to cut it into shapes when it’s hot, so there was a lot of running back and forth from the oven to keep it warm, it “cools” very quickly (it’s still hot, but too cold to cut it. Oh lava hot sugar…). But we made a circle and triangles and glued them together to look like a sun. (or a crown, we had some royal wedding fans yesterday)
Then we piped shells onto the triangles (thanks again Mom for always wanting me to do shells on my cakes…I’m a total pro now ;) and then piped string work from the triangle points. The string work was done upside down so that when the royal icing dried, it would stand upright. I know. It’s totally awesome.
Then we dipped all of our pate a choux into caramelized sugar. Some we dipped and then coated in sucre grand, which is basically very large granules of sugar. Then we had to stack them by sticking them together with more caramel and smooshing them together to make a cone type shape. Get it? The pile of bread? We alternated plain and sugared for a nice layered effect.
Here’s the inside for fun ;)

Then we made these cool ‘fountains’ out of isomalt (a sugar substitute) to top it off and then we used our orchids from last week and it was all done! I really like the way it looks. But I’m not going to eat it. Traditionally, the puffs are filled with pastry cream, making them cream puffs, but it class we didn’t have time for the extra step. So now it just looks pretty. (Lots of pictures, I’m a little obsessed)

And yeah, I totally broke most of my strings there on the bottom by the time I got home. Oh well ;) Next week are exams!! And I graduate in a MONTH AND A HALF! Where did the time go?!

Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter everyone!! I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend. I know we sure are! I’m going to tell you about it :)

Last week, John and I were discussing what kinds of Easter traditions we wanted to have as a family. We decided that something we wanted to start doing was going out of our way to do something nice for someone for Easter. Long story short, we decided to make some Easter baskets for my aunt and her family this year :) It was so fun! I made cookies for the occasion (of course, right?) and tried out some new techniques I’ve seen but haven’t been able to try my hand out on yet. And they turned out soooo good!! Wanna see?

I tried wet on wet (icing) so that the polka dots and the stripes became one surface.
I did wet on wet for the ears too. AND used my AMAZING edible ink pens for the bunny face. LOVE my edible ink pens!
Same thing with the flower center
And then I did marbling in the center stripe. I love that look. I see much of it in my future :)

I love them! I’m quite pleased :)
I also went crazy with my cricut and made cute tags for everyone’s baskets and found a file that I could cut out gift card holders with my cricut too! (On my Make the Cut even! Have I mentioned enough that I LOVE my Make the Cut?! Love love love) I made the gift tag shape with my cricut too :) Wrapping gifts and packaging has become SO much easier now…
I found some cute ribbon and easter pencils at the dollar store that went in…
TONS of candy filled eggs (and I totally over shot on the candy…still have 3 bags left even AFTER filling baskets for me and John!!)
And of course, the cookies :)
Finished off with gift cards and they were all done! I think they turned out super cute!

We dropped them off last night and hung out with my aunt, uncle, and cousins and we had a good time. They loved the baskets and we loved putting them together for them.

We also decided to make baskets for each other. We exchanged them today after church. We had tons of candy leftover from the other baskets and I had made extra cookies so we had plenty to fill our baskets with. We also got each other a few gifts. And we are so funny and just told each other what we wanted in our baskets, but we each still got a surprise ;) Anyway, John has been wanting to personalize his office at work, so he asked for a few framed pictures for his office
And tucked inside this adorably cute card (if I do say so myself…I got the idea from HERE) was an iTunes gift card :)

John got me some circle cutters that I have been wanting from Williams and Sonoma. (I have some AWESOME cookie ideas for these!!) And yes, I made a tag for my own Easter basket. I was on a roll with my cricut…and John is awesome, but I wanted mine to look cute like everyone else’s. Not that he wouldn’t have made it cute!! I just had more time this week ;)
AND a gift card to a craft store of my choice! :)  

I’m pretty excited! We had fun exchanging baskets. But before I finish up, I want to say a few words about the true importance of Easter.

We had some amazing talks in church today and the Spirit was so strong. I want you to know that I know that Christ lived and died and lives today. He atoned for my sins and knows me individually, as He knows you. Without Him, I would be nothing and I cannot even express my gratitude for the great sacrifice He made so that we could have a chance to live with our Father in Heaven again. To know that I am so loved gives my life so much more meaning. I hope that we can remember Him this Easter holiday.

Happy Easter!

A Flower Show

My favorite!! Okay, strike that. I’ve loved so many different aspects of school…it’s really hard to pick a favorite! But I really enjoy making gumpaste flowers. I don’t know if you remember my final for the cake program, but I made 30 gumpaste roses for that beast. So deciding to do 30…I better like it! And I do. Promise. So no outrageously delicious pictures this week, but that’s okay, it’ll give you time to throw your drool catching towel into the laundry. I know. I’m so nice.

We have another new Chef Instructor, Chef Mark. I actually had him last term for Celebration Cakes, so it’s fun to have a familiar teacher. Now, this is all we did this week. Flowers. Pretty flowers. I won’t bore you with the details of each piece, but here’s a (kind of) step by step picture show ;) We start by making the flower centers. Here are daisy centers
An orchid center – it looks like a little alien, don’t you think?
Rose cones, they are the base of the rose, you end up not seeing it at all. (hello little orchid center!)
That long-ish one there is the lily center

Then we started putting petals onto the centers and bases. Once you have several layers of petals on the bases you have to dry them upside down, so the petals don’t fall off. Shh…they are sleeping…
Oh good morning!
We assembled the orchid, finished roses and made little blossoms

To finish off the flowers, we dust them with colored powder to deepen the color and make them more realistic. The powders are as bad as airbrush color!! My snot has been purple the last couple of days…anyway, we also dusted and glazed rose leaves that we’d made to make them look real too. See the difference? (left: dusted only - right: dusted and glazed)

Once the flowers and loose petals were dusted we could finish assembly. Next week we’ll be putting these flowers all together into a bouquet to put on top of a cake :)
A finished rose!!
Here is Chef Mark showing us how to assemble our lily. (I also learned it’s a casablanca lily. OoOooooOo)
And here is mine! I brought this one home this week because it’s not being used for any other project. I love it! It’s so pretty! Ta da!!
My friend Gabi decided to try wearing hers. But it pokes the eyes… We’re table partners this unit and it’s SO fun :)
And the finished orchid. We made two and they will be used on a project for next week. But I’m not telling you what it is. Not yet. Mwah ha ha

And that’s it for this week! We didn’t have school today because the school is closed for Good Friday. So it was a little shorter, but man was I looking forward to this three day weekend!! Happy Easter everyone!!