Baking 220 Day 1& 2

On day one of Baking 220, Chef started us out making three different truffles. Orange truffles (hand rolled), Casis-black current-truffles (piped), and Rocher truffles (clusters).


orange truffles waiting to be dipped in chocolate


Casis truffles


Rocher (has a macadamia nut in the middle)

Today, we finished them off using tempered chocolate. The orange truffle and rocher got dipped in dark chocolate, and the casis got white chocolate.

Orange truffle ("haystack" style), Casis, & Rocher

These were so good!!!

After we finished those, we learned to make poly-carbonate molded truffles.

To do this, we have to use tempered chocolate. If the chocolate isn't tempered correctly, there is no way to save the truffles. You have to start completely over. It is so frustrating. But when the truffles pop perfectly out of the molds, the satisfaction is worth the frustration!

Mimosa truffles-half filled.

White Chocolate Mimosa truffles.

I was so happy when these came out perfect!! =D

Tomorrow=peanut butter fudge and caramels!!

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Baking 212 Day 14. Wedding Cake

Today was it.

The day all baking and pastry students are nervously excited about.

Wedding Cake Practical.

I have to say, the wedding cake I presented to chef is totally different than my original design, but I love it.

And, it earned me a 100%. There is no complaining going on here!

So here it is:

All the flowers, butterflies and pink decor were made out of gum paste. The cake itself is decorated with white and brown fondant.

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Baking 212 Days 11, 12, 13

Today, tomorrow, and Friday are our wedding cake practical days. I had to cover a three tier cake with fondant today. Rolling out that fondant is a workout! I will finish working on the details tomorrow.

Tuesday I made gum paste roses to go on my cake. I wasn't that thrilled with the results, but I will just have to deal with it! I definitely need more practice!

gum paste roses (with a couple leaves and calle lilies in the background)

rose buds

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Baking 212 Day 9&10

Day 9 and 10 consisted of learning to make different flowers out of gum paste. So far, each has been pretty easy, it just takes patience. Next week, before we start our wedding cakes, we will learn the more challenging  flowers like roses and Gerbera daisies.

Hyacinths, Forget-Me-Nots, Cherry Blossoms, and White 5 petal blossoms & buds.

Friday, we made small bouquets with the flowers

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Baking 212 Day 8

I learned several things today. Class was all about different techniques used to decorate wedding cakes. We used an 8 inch cake to practice buttercream decor, and a 6 inch cake to practice fondant decor.

For buttercream, we learned the basketweave and swiss dots.

buttercream basketweave

buttercream swiss dots

For the fondant decor we learned lattice, pearls, and swags.

fondant lattice with flowers and pearls

pearls


swag

Then, we had to learn to stack tiers, so even though the fondant and buttercream don't match, we had to stack the 6 inch on the 8 inch.

Fondant butterflies and bows

Tomorrow through Wednesday we are learning to make gum paste flowers...all day...everyday. oh joy.

=)

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Baking 212 Day 7

Today in class I completed my first fondant cake. So far, fondant has been fun to work with. Let's hope I get better at it for my practical!

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Baking 212 Day 6

Class today consisted of finishing our pastillage pieces, and making fondant roses for a fondant love cake. (more on that tomorrow.)
I am not a fan of pastillage! My piece turned out okay, but I didn't love it. Because we were out of school last Friday, we didn't get to airbrush our pieces. But, I like how the white accents the color of the marzipan fruits.

Pastiallge showpiece with airbrushed marzipan fruits and royal icing lace work.

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Baking 212 Day 3

Results from the last three days:

Finished Croquembouche

After three tries I finally got the ribbon to work.

I am so glad we are done with hot sugar for this rotation!

Tomorrow-marzipan fruits and a pastillage (edible plaster of paris) sculpture. Fun fun!

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Baking 212 Day 2

My fingers hurt! They aren't kidding when they say this sugar is hot. Luckily, tomorrow is the last day that we will be working with sugar for this rotation. Next rotation, we will work with hot sugar 8 days in a row...oh boy.

Today, we made flowers for our Croquembouche. Tomorrow we are going to finish it off by making a sugar ribbon that wraps around it, and then we will glue on the flowers.

sugar

my flowers

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Baking 212 Day 1 Intro to Cake Decorating

I am back from break and ready to get done with these last two classes!
This is the cake decorating class. We only have one practical and that is, of course, a wedding cake.

Today we started making a Croquembouche. It is a French wedding cake made out of pate a choux and nougatine. For a wedding, the pate a choux balls would be filled with a bavarian cream, but ours were left empty. We are going to finish it off tomorrow with pulled sugar ribbons.

nougatine base. pate a choux balls

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