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 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 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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Baking 211 Day 11

I wasn't thrilled with today's plate.

But hey, I wasn't thrilled about anything today. It has just been one of those days.....

BUT! I do have good news. I made a 100% on the practical. =)

Chef said it tasted yummy....and it was really good, if I do say so myself.

Just in case you may have forgotten, today's plate was "Caribbean."

I made a Bavarios-three layers of different flavored Bavarian cream.
The bottom layer was Rum Bavarian cream. On top of that was Mango Bavarian cream, and the top layer was Coconut Bavarian cream. Oh, and it had a coconut sponge cake on the bottom.
The traditional Bavarios is made with three different chocolates, which makes it easier to see the layers.

Very tasty!

I am glad today is over. I'm so ready for Christmas break!

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Baking 211 Day7

I can not express how much I love this class. This class tends to stress people out, yet I have not stressed one bit. I am the stress queen! I stress about everything. It is unbelievable how I am relaxed and just having fun. It is amazing.

So, for my peanut butter cup plated dessert, I made a baked alaska.

We had chocolate ice cream in the freezer, which worked out great since our ice cream machine is broken.
I used the chocolate ice cream and a peanut butter cake. I melted chocolate and peanut butter together and put a thin layer of that between the cake and ice cream. It froze overnight and this morning, I went to class early and made a swiss meringue. I piped the meringue around the frozen icecream/cake, torched it (almost overdid it!), and then plated the dessert with a creme anglaise sauce.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that our plates were getting graded today. If I had remembered, I would have done something more complex, like a bavarian cream.

I received a 4 out of 5 for the overall plate. Hopefully, I will do better next time.

The requirements for tomorrows plate are simple-the dessert must be frozen, and it must have a secondary component on the side.

What I came up with, in my opinion, was really tasty!

Tune in tomorrow to read about a "fruit loop" macaroon!! =)

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Baking 211 Day 4

We didn't have time yesterday to make chocolate garnishes, so that is how we started our day today. I usually hate tempering chocolate, but I didn't mind it today. I had fun with it! After we finished making chocolate, sugar, and cookie garnishes, we plated the cakes we made for our practical last Monday. Chef critiqued each plate, and then we made a small dessert named Monte Carlo. It is a frozen almond cream cake with a meringue disk, an almond chocolate sponge disk, and an apricot compote on the inside. We are going to plate it Monday.

Chef is doing a candy cane workshop tomorrow. Both Kyle and I signed up. I can't wait! I love candy canes and we are going to have a blast learning how to make them!

plated dessert from today

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Baking 211 Day 1 Advanced Patisserie Techniques (Plated Desserts)

Today was possibly the best day of class so far. It was our first day of the plated dessert rotation. Each student got a "mystery basket". Each "basket" (it was really a half sheet pan) had three different flavors in it. Each student was instructed to come up with one plated dessert using all of the flavors.

My basket contained almonds, strawberries, and dark chocolate. Today showed me just how much I have actually learned. At first, I was a little stressed about the whole mystery basket thing, but I had a blast! It really surprised me.

I chose to make a Chocolate Genoise (Chocolate Sponge Cake) with Almond Mousseline (kind of like almond whip cream). I maseraded the strawberries in a bit of almond extract and sugar. I used the juice the strawberries made to soak each layer of chocolate Genoise.

It turned out pretty good. It was very almondy.

Even though it needs a lot of work, I got a lot of compliments on the plate.
Tomorrow we are working with chocolate! We are learning more sauces and garnishes. =)

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Baking 114 Day 12

Because today is the day before Thanksgiving, we made yummy Thanksgiving treats. I usually don't associate gingerbread cookies with Thanksgiving (I tend to think of it as a Christmas cookie..) but, thats what Chef said we were going to make, and I was not going to argue. Partly because I absolutely love love love gingerbread cookies (without icing). They go amazing with a big mug of cappuccino....=)

before baking

the ones in the middle are turkeys...not chickens. 

I also made a sweet potato pie for my brother. (his favorite) 

I can't wait to have a slice. Sweet potato is my absolute favorite vegetable. 

Sweet Potato Pie, before being decorated

Tuesday we made a strawberry sorbet bombe. This is SO good. It is filled with a raspberry mousse, and placed on top of a coconut sponge cake.

 

Strawberry Sorbet Bombe

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Baking 114 Day 11

We finished our L'exotique today. We got to spray paint with chocolate! This is what we have to do next Monday for our practical. It is a almond sponge cake surrounding layers of coconut sponge cake, passion fruit mousse, and caramelized bananas. It also has a mango jellied center.

L'exotique

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Baking 114 Day 8

Today we made some delicious red velvet cake and carrot cake, both with a cream cheese filling and iced with swiss meringue buttercream. I wasn't too thrilled about the cream cheese filling. I like cream cheese, it was just really strong and heavy. The cake was delicious though!

Red Velvet Cake

Carrot Cake

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Baking 114 Day 7

Today we made Brasilias. Almond sponge cake layered with caramel buttercream. Before spreading on caramel buttercream, each sponge layer is soaked with coffee rum syrup. Nougatine is placed on top, then it is decorated with white chocolate. I did one letter for each member of my family.

D-Duane. M-Michele. S-Steven. S-Sarah. J-John. S-Suelita.

K for Kyle. My boyfriend =)

These were really good!

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Baking 114 Day 6

We made Alhambra tortes and Sacher tortes today. It was pretty easy and fun! The Alhambra has a layer of ganache inbetween the two layers of chocolate cake. The Sacher torte has a layer of apricot jam inbetween the two layers of chocolate cake. Both cakes were iced with chocolate ganache before a chocolate glacage was poured over them. LOTS of chocolate!

Sacher torte with marzipan rose

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