tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49778834708636605352024-03-13T01:18:40.616-04:00Cupcake ObsessedTarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-19824604190316317572012-09-13T21:32:00.001-04:002012-09-13T21:32:33.132-04:00New Blog: Bake Life Sweet!<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">It's been a while since I've dropped by Cupcake Obsessed. Over the past two years I've worked in various kitchens in NYC and since moved to the Jersey Shore to take a pastry sous chef position at a new restaurant in Atlantic City. Please stop by my new blog, <a href="http://www.bakelifesweet.blogspot.com/">Bake Life Sweet</a>, to check out what's new.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://www.bakelifesweet.blogspot.com/">www.bakelifesweet.blogspot.com</a></b></span></div>
Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-73665107528856837672010-10-28T18:59:00.002-04:002010-10-28T20:07:39.291-04:00Last Weeks at FCI<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Whew, this past month has been a total blur, which I guess explains why I've been MIA. In the past 4 weeks, I've completed many major end of class projects at FCI, graduated, quit my job, went to Disney World, and started a new job!! So I'm sorry that I've been neglecting my blog, but hopefully I will have more time now to be updating. I'll get to all the explanations in a bit, but first let's start with the projects!</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1409/5124684888_55f2be71b0.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 309px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1409/5124684888_55f2be71b0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Candy Bar Cake</span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our first major project was to create a menu for a fictional restaurant of our choice. My restaurant was a dessert wine bar on the Hoboken waterfront, called Sweet Surrender. From my menu, my chefs selected two desserts for me to make - the Signature Candy Bar Cake and the American Classics Threefold. My threefolds were 3 related desserts on one plate, and the American Classics one was carrot cake, pineapple upside down cake, and apple crisp. The candy bar cake was flourless chocolate cake layered with chocolate mousse and a roasted peanut caramel, covered in chocolate ganache and then chocolate glaze. I served it with a caramel sauce and peanut butter ice cream. We had two days to prep and plate our desserts, a real challenge for me being as I had 4 separate desserts I needed to make. Everything went really well though, and it came out really well.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1237/5124078747_84922be6e9.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 385px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1237/5124078747_84922be6e9.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">American Classics Threefold</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">After menu projects, we were on to our wedding cakes. The Level 1 students picked the theme, 1920's inspired with red, black, and white decor. I didn't want to do a traditional wedding cake with flowers, and pearls, etc. I decided to use poured sugar to created a mosaic border and blown sugar spheres to cascade down the cake. It took me a full class, 5 hours, to blow all of the sugar balls. It's a process similar to blowing glass, but with edible materials. The days that we did our cakes could not have been more humid, which meant shortly after putting my cake together, it was a sweating, dripping mess. Fortunately it held up for grading though.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4152/5057474492_c92a6bc3ec_z.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 353px; height: 640px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4152/5057474492_c92a6bc3ec_z.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">When our wedding cakes were completed, we moved right into our final exam. Our final consisted of a written exam, covering everything we learned in the program, and a practical exam where we made five items we drew at random and created an edible stand to display them all on. The theme for our stands was "space." For mine, I did a stand with the sun and planets cut out and sugar poured into the holes. On the stand I had rockets, a moon man, shooting stars, and the moon. My final didn't go as well as I had hoped it would, but at least I finished it and graduated!</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs834.snc4/69422_944402687290_903525_51584935_5749047_n.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 528px; height: 397px;" src="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs834.snc4/69422_944402687290_903525_51584935_5749047_n.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Graduation was really nice, with a lot of our instructors showing up to wish us farewell and send us off with their words of wisdom. I surprised myself and graduated with honors, meaning I had a 95 grade average for the entire program. I know grades mean very little, but personally it was reassuring being as I had invested so much into the program and given up so much to make it happen. While in school, I worked full time, attended class, maintained a small side business, and had a restaurant internship every Saturday night and some Sundays for over 3 months! It was tough, but well worth it in the end. Not long after graduation, I got hired at a very good restaurant in the city and started there this week!</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs416.ash2/69466_941229301780_903525_51511184_2618790_n.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 314px; height: 510px;" src="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs416.ash2/69466_941229301780_903525_51511184_2618790_n.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">I did it!</span><br /></div>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-41042766570167599622010-09-26T21:52:00.004-04:002010-09-26T23:09:25.456-04:00Welcome to the (Sugar) Jungle<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Doesn't my post title make you think of this?:</span></span><br /><br /><a href="http://spa.fotolog.com/photo/10/54/13/luisguns_pity/1241035004832_f.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 435px; height: 334px;" src="http://spa.fotolog.com/photo/10/54/13/luisguns_pity/1241035004832_f.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As much as I love Guns n' Roses, this post isn't about them (it's a baking blog!). One of the more exciting units at school was definitely our Sugar 2 section. We finally got a chance to pull, blow, and pour sugar into really beautiful, delicate items.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4136/4924345618_0e66d47d3f.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4136/4924345618_0e66d47d3f.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >My sugar flowers I made</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4141/4923751057_b50e884d54.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 372px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4141/4923751057_b50e884d54.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Toucan</span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The downside of this is that sugar is hot. Like really hot. We cook it to 329 degrees and then cool it down (but not too cool) before we start working with it. Even with the rubber gloves on, our hands were completely roasted. After two straight weeks of this, my hands were just completely swollen and covered in blisters. You kind of forget all about that though when you see how pretty your sugar work turns out.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">That's the thing about sugar - the wow factor is high. Due to the amount of skill, tools, and space you need, sugar work is not the type of stuff the average home baker is making in their kitchen.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4923752837_122672fdc8.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 394px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4923752837_122672fdc8.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Crocodile</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4115/4923753683_731f3a68c8.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4115/4923753683_731f3a68c8.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Angry monkey</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">For the culmination of the unit, as a class we made a giant sugar showpiece. We chose the theme "jungle" and all divided and conquered. Some people were assigned making the animals out of blown sugar, some people poured the base (a mammoth task given the size of the showpiece), others made the trees and leaves. My job was to pull sugar flowers. It's a time-consuming process, pulling one petal at a time and cutting it off the sugar, letting them harden, and then attaching them all together.</span></span><br /><br /><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4100/4923753261_3f2bf6e2e8.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 452px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4100/4923753261_3f2bf6e2e8.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4923754117_1e7026d67d.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 390px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4923754117_1e7026d67d.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The final result was really cool looking. I loved the monkeys my classmates made, and the waterfall was really beautiful. Overall, we worked really well to pull this off, and I think it was a major success.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4923755195_bc836a6fc4.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 450px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4923755195_bc836a6fc4.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Final product</span><br /></div>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-38972582094423335402010-09-08T22:47:00.005-04:002010-09-08T23:39:01.918-04:00Ambitious Baking: Tiered Cakes<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I absolutely love the challenge of making fondant-covered cakes, even though my skill set in that arena is still pretty lacking. Every year our family friends host a massive beer pong tournament. It's really something you can't believe unless you see it for yourself. Every team agonizes over team name and comes decked out in matching uniforms.<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4924343662_a97367efef.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4924343662_a97367efef.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Front View</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I had a clear vision of the cake I wanted to make for this party. There's almost a 100 guests that attend this party, so it had to be big. I decided on a three-tiered cake with Solo "cups" made out of fondant mixed with a natural gum so they would dry hard overnight. I used real Solo cups to draw a template and mold the cups. </span> <span style="font-family:arial;">There were 30 teams that participated, so I piped every team name on a fondant plaque that was then put on the back and sides of the cake. The letter piping was the last thing I did, and by the time I got to the last team, my hand was shaking.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4120/4924344922_6219603d84.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 369px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4120/4924344922_6219603d84.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Side View - Handwriting was a little shaky</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The cake flavors were chocolate cake with cookies and cream buttercream (10"), white cake with passion fruit buttercream (8"), and banana cake with white chocolate buttercream (6"). Despite the massive quantity of cake, it was pretty much demolished at the end of the night. The cutting of the cake went down around midnight, many rounds into the tournament, so it should have come as no surprise that I sliced my hand while divvying up the cake. Luckily it wasn't too deep, and nothing that 5 Band-Aids and another Bud Light could not fix. </span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4923748765_7f04e51633.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 327px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4923748765_7f04e51633.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >Back of the cake</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The party happened to coincide with the beer pong commissioner's birthday, so I made a miniature birthday cake. I did a white covering with black polka dots and a pink glittery bow. Thankfully, my friend Vica came to visit just in the nick of time. When she arrived at my house, I was thoroughly in the weeds (chef talk for "in major s***") and didn't think I would finish on time to make it to the party with a completed cake, much less the tiny birthday cake too. Vica stepped in and made an awesome pastry assistant, helping me out with the finishing touches on both cakes. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I have no idea how cake designers transport their cakes without any damage. We had a short 10 minute drive to the party, and my cake arrived with many cracks (albeit they were only noticeable to me). We had a kind of rough drive there, with me sitting in the trunk of the Explorer and my mom driving, us yelling at each other the entire time. She probably could have driven a teensy bit smoother, but at least I know that when I need a delivery person for my future business, we already had the test run (fail). </span><span style="font-family:arial;">My mom has many skills, but apparently smooth driving is not one of them.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4924345888_4e727a9c94.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 454px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4924345888_4e727a9c94.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >This cake was only 4"</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I'm already looking forward to next year's tournament (the 5th annual!), but think I'm going to go easier on the desserts so I can rest up pre-tournament and maybe go further (my partner Morgan & I had a pretty abysmal showing). </span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs263.snc4/39508_912016609250_909356_50545538_4975834_n.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 562px; height: 421px;" src="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs263.snc4/39508_912016609250_909356_50545538_4975834_n.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Me & a few of my friend at the tournament<br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"></span>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-1847867847448641262010-08-26T20:56:00.000-04:002010-08-26T20:56:00.338-04:00Evening of Desserts at FCI<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Evening of Desserts is an event in the pastry program that we were all looking forward to. We had seen the Level 2s before us get to do it, and I know I was anxiously awaiting a chance to show off what I had learned for my friends and family.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4927539548_510aa09b2e.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 377px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4927539548_510aa09b2e.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">My team's dessert - chocolate hazelnut mendiant</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We each got to invite guests to come and sample desserts that we prepared and plated. My parents, my sister Melissa and her boyfriend Joe all came to check it out. Being on a Tuesday in the city, I was really happy they could make it.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4926942455_9a2fabe9e4.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 483px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4926942455_9a2fabe9e4.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Molly prepping the amuse bouche - a lemon scorpino</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We had a menu of eight items that our guests could order from, and each team was in charge of plating one of the desserts. My partner Brittany and I were in charge of the chocolate hazelnut mendiant. I'm not sure why it's called mendiant, but it was a semifreddo. We made a (really boozy) cherry compote to go with it, a kirsch caramel sauce, and a really crazy chocolate piece. I had the idea for the chocolate "wave" from something I had seen on Best Thing I Ever Ate (which ended up being nothing like our finished wave).</span><br /></span></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4082/4926942813_8f62c59f48.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4082/4926942813_8f62c59f48.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">With my parents - you can tell my mom has spent more time at the beach than I have this summer!</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4136/4927539180_1a39b5f113.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 361px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4136/4927539180_1a39b5f113.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">With Melissa & Joe - another illustration of how I've spent my summer tucked in a kitchen, away from the any sort of UV rays...they both work at the beach</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">The mendiant ended up being the most ordered item (thanks my classmate Molly who plugged our dessert in her intro), and Brit & I were a well-oiled machine.</span></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4117/4926938959_c3d5a90cc3.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4117/4926938959_c3d5a90cc3.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">Kataifi nest with fromage blanc mousse and fruit compote</span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Overall, the night went really smoothly. Everyone was super pleased with the results, and my family loved the desserts they ordered.</span></span><br /></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4926943443_b9ae2d7c93.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4926943443_b9ae2d7c93.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Panna cotta with peach compote, raspberry riesling granita, and granola</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">After everyone left, we got to taste the desserts we served. My personal favorite was the fontaine, which was a chocolate cake with ganache and fresh raspberrys wrapped in filo dough and baked. It was served with a trio of sauces, and was so good. A close second was a kataif (another type of dough) nest with the fromage blanc mousse.</span></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4102/4926938667_0c507eedc3.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 349px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4102/4926938667_0c507eedc3.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Fontaine</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4074/4926937989_d1dc5c16d8.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4074/4926937989_d1dc5c16d8.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Tiramisu</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4927539636_45da0eb604.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 381px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4927539636_45da0eb604.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">Champagne sabayon with roasted peaches</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4927539512_e420b9a9aa.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4927539512_e420b9a9aa.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Plum soup with almond cubes and orange sherbet</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4926939347_29f05b1a6b.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 305px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4926939347_29f05b1a6b.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Group scorpino shot to cheers the end of the evening</span><br /></div>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-24704311326145442302010-08-25T20:07:00.002-04:002010-08-25T20:55:14.688-04:00Week 30: Back to Plated Desserts<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There are three plated desserts units in the FCI pastry program, and in our second one we moved on to some more complicated desserts and some more polished plating. The style of plated desserts we do at FCI is VERY polished - a lot more so than I see my style evolving. On every plate there will be a dessert, a couple sauces, a tuile (thin cookie), a chocolate doodad, some fruit, a garnish, more garnish. Don't get me wrong, it all looks very pretty, but just a little too "done" for my taste.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4927535894_304bb83bdc.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 397px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4927535894_304bb83bdc.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">Chocolate hazelnut mendiant with cherry compote</span></span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Speaking of actually taste, the desserts we made in this unit were fantastic. We made a lot of semifreddos which reminded me of ice cream...that isn't ice cream. The mint chocolate one was a particular favorite of mine, and I don't even particularly like mint.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4120/4927536550_b7ae8050a2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 395px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4120/4927536550_b7ae8050a2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">White chocolate citrus semifreddo with strawberry salad</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4076/4926939989_07f330883a.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 335px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4076/4926939989_07f330883a.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">White chocolate hazelnut semifreddo - the raspberry cake part of it was excellent</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What's been interesting to me has been the combinations of flavors we put together that surprisingly go well together. I like experimenting with this, and our chefs having a lot more experience than us and have been good leaders. When I read the dessert descriptions the night before class, I'm sometimes skeptical about how things with pair, but it's all been good so far.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4118/4926940955_ab0585ca01.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 286px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4118/4926940955_ab0585ca01.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Chocolate mint semifreddo with blackberry salad - sooo good</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The highlight of the second plated dessert unit was the Evening of Desserts we hosted for our friends and family (more about that in another post), but a close second was the Saturday morning Chef Peter made breakfast for the 8 of us who had showed up for class. Poor Chef Peter, the only male in a group of 16 women, has to put up with a high chatter volume, lots of giggling, and a ton of Christmas carol singing (don't ask...) from us. The biscuits he made nearly brought the 8 of us to tears, they were so good. Buttery, light, flaky. I've never had biscuits this good before. I still dream about them.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/4926938311_87fab8a5d9.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 379px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/4926938311_87fab8a5d9.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Those biscuits!</span><br /></div>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-70479510615028389192010-08-22T22:21:00.003-04:002010-08-22T22:27:54.236-04:00More Wedding Pics<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Lauren, the bride of the second wedding I did in July, was nice enough to send me over some of the professional pictures after my last post. The pictures look incredible, and I'm so happy I can share them!</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgidYUN_tp_Nn7q71CQz7gMyazpRliXyvZ9SwxPtSMYa4J6i6F0s3bjg02GUgZ78qg4OOZTLsc4V9FWv9B6fEyQ9pVuTTb2uiOmyrbSIK16fAmGjy_4liamxtTQRjRxw5S08jYO9UTnesuD/s1600/caketop2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgidYUN_tp_Nn7q71CQz7gMyazpRliXyvZ9SwxPtSMYa4J6i6F0s3bjg02GUgZ78qg4OOZTLsc4V9FWv9B6fEyQ9pVuTTb2uiOmyrbSIK16fAmGjy_4liamxtTQRjRxw5S08jYO9UTnesuD/s400/caketop2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508426145504699314" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGKMjXPycHW2e-doz8i3JppK8qJehwUcSKeJYv-BYJRHBsMSXDbtpcz5CEUy8Pr6m8mJfBBBdhCwHNSGdy8f7t0cGTLjUbyJ2u6v-GHShCZ-dtFZ6peI8W1UHDVWk83_4rIz62645-5_am/s1600/caketop.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGKMjXPycHW2e-doz8i3JppK8qJehwUcSKeJYv-BYJRHBsMSXDbtpcz5CEUy8Pr6m8mJfBBBdhCwHNSGdy8f7t0cGTLjUbyJ2u6v-GHShCZ-dtFZ6peI8W1UHDVWk83_4rIz62645-5_am/s400/caketop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508425427442436290" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKr0V3dF19hvNMnsBMg55C5xPEW0nfCT-iEo4NtfklHHUE510Wyq-Tt79LDMex8Ba_xWAo6t8c_Vq4SnPFea9N_L87d7QDVdTcnthJFtxG6FPkDCL6dTuwMClTuGQ79vN4dfw17vzjKjME/s1600/cupcakes.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKr0V3dF19hvNMnsBMg55C5xPEW0nfCT-iEo4NtfklHHUE510Wyq-Tt79LDMex8Ba_xWAo6t8c_Vq4SnPFea9N_L87d7QDVdTcnthJFtxG6FPkDCL6dTuwMClTuGQ79vN4dfw17vzjKjME/s400/cupcakes.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508426146304130642" border="0" /></a>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-86886141381443371172010-08-18T20:08:00.003-04:002010-08-18T20:56:38.523-04:00Some Wedding Baking in July<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">On top of my already insane schedule, many months ago I agreed to take on two weddings in July. Back in April and May, this seemed like a good idea. Things were a little calmer back then, I think. Flash forward to mid-summer when things could not be crazier, and suddenly it was time for these to be delivered.<br /></span></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4074/4830169583_60c5b8fd8c.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 448px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4074/4830169583_60c5b8fd8c.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">Had to throw out almost everything in my fridge to make room for the cake truffles - </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">just 1/2 the vanilla here!</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The first wedding was for their favors which were 300 cake truffles. This was the one that I thought would be the easier of the two weddings, and boy was I wrong. So very wrong. I was under-prepared for just how long it would take me to complete 150 chocolate and 150 vanilla truffles and mistakenly thought I was on the ball. It resulted in a meltdown of epic proportions that required me calling my parents to bring in reinforcements - more chocolate and some moral support (thanks mom & dad!). Once they were all finished and bagged though, it was such a rewarding feeling and I was really happy with how they turned out. I had some pretty great reviews from the bride and wedding guests, and am really happy that everyone was pleased with the outcome.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4121/4830164629_4bfa80593e.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4121/4830164629_4bfa80593e.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Bunch of cake truffles packaged</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For the second wedding the following week, I had learned my lesson and was super, super prepared. There were lists of lists. I needed to make an 8" cake covered in fondant and 144 cupcakes decorated with individually cut and painted (with edible luster dust) fondant pieces. The fondant decorations were shaped like blossom flowers and butterflies. I was able to get those all done over a week in advance to leave me enough time to bake everything the night before pick up.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4078/4901436890_79ba329efa.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4078/4901436890_79ba329efa.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Start time - just home from class</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I was fortunate that when my parents were up to help out with Wedding #1, they took me to the grocery store so I had a car to transport all the ingredients. Which was excellent being as it was 12 pounds of butter, 3 dozen eggs, 10 lbs of flour, 10 lbs of sugar, and many more heavy items! That would have been quite a struggle carrying that back to my apartment.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4900848379_712ee36972.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 325px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4900848379_712ee36972.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">One of the 6 boxes of cupcakes</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4900848665_9d8c94192d_z.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 414px; height: 640px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4900848665_9d8c94192d_z.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">Close up of cupcakes</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The one issue with this all was that the pick up was on a Friday morning. I'm in class until last Thursday night and don't usually get home until midnight. Class is my first priority, so I knew missing one wasn't an option. Not having the freshest cupcakes possible also wasn't an option, so I settled on the fact I'd have to start baking when I got home from class and stay up as late as it took. Everything went really smoothly though, and I was getting a new batch of cupcakes into the oven every 20 minutes - about as fast as I could expect to go.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4901437962_3366ccd81f.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 271px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4901437962_3366ccd81f.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Close up of cupcakes</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4076/4901437756_c81cca3698.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 384px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4076/4901437756_c81cca3698.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">Finished cake</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sometime around 3:00 am, the cupcakes were baked and frosted, and it was time to start the cake. Covering cakes in fondant is always really nerve-wracking for me, but it went pretty smoothly, and I was happy with the way the fondant decorations looked on the cake. I boxed everything up, ending just after 4:00 am.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4094/4905012761_33a34754d9.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4094/4905012761_33a34754d9.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">End time - documented to remind myself how crazy I am</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Crashing into bed was probably one of the best feelings ever. What a long day - I was up at 7:30 am to go to my "real" job, then class, then 12 dozen freaking cupcakes!!! Talk about a sense of accomplishment. Somehow I managed to remember to take pictures of everything too (it was on my to-do list!).</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4119/4898679693_dd956d7b90.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 471px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4119/4898679693_dd956d7b90.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">The bride was nice enough to send me a pic from the wedding set up - looks beautiful!</span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Looking back on both these orders, I think I was clearly insane for agreeing to do them, but I'm so happy I did! Not only did I get to be a part of these awesome people's weddings, but I got to test the limits of my baking, something I really love.</span></span>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-12602458296954119772010-08-11T19:53:00.003-04:002010-08-11T20:18:33.819-04:00Chocolate Projects: Fairy Tales<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This week I posted on <a href="http://www.food2.com/blog/2010/08/10/fairy-tales-told-in-chocolate">Food 2 about our final chocolate projects</a>. You should check it out <a href="http://www.food2.com/blog/2010/08/10/fairy-tales-told-in-chocolate">there</a>! Our theme was fairy tales, and I chose my favorite fairy tale - Little Red Riding Hood. My piece weighed about two and a half pounds and was made entirely out of chocolate. There were some challenging moments during the course of the project, but overall, it came out pretty close to how I envisioned it.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4145/4837242171_25361c8ced.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4145/4837242171_25361c8ced.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Initially, I had wanted to make the characters out of modeling chocolate (it's pliable like clay), but Chef Peter called that a cop out. Using various molds and piping techniques, I managed to make Red and the Wolf entirely out of solid chocolate. The only elements that were made out of modeling chocolate were the roof shingles, Red's hair, quilt, cape, and the pillow "cases." I hand-painted the quilt and pillows using luster dust mixed with vodka.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4092/4837240541_15c4e54f9c.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 370px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4092/4837240541_15c4e54f9c.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This project was a big deal for me because like I said in my Food 2 post, I had built up a lot of anticipation for this assignment. Plus, chocolate was never really my strength during Level 2, so I felt like this was a particular achievement.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4154/4837852280_b16199cbf4.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4154/4837852280_b16199cbf4.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-12647392912287698222010-08-01T21:34:00.003-04:002010-08-01T22:20:10.415-04:00Week 28-29 Chocolate II<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Week 28 brought the return of the dreaded chocolate unit. I did not enjoy the first chocolate unit - it was messy and tempering chocolate proved to be challenging. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed our second chocolate unit. I now have a feel for the tempering process, and the whole thing went much smoother.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4117/4799836674_7e95cb33f6.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 483px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4117/4799836674_7e95cb33f6.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Spiced Caramels</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This unit we got to make a bunch of candies - both traditional and some not so much (beer ganache anyone?). In the first unit, we did hand-rolled truffles which have a less uniform look than their molded counterpart - bon bons.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/4799204161_9972107804.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 405px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/4799204161_9972107804.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Chocolate-dipped Butter Toffee</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4799836976_d7e1920bb5.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 485px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4799836976_d7e1920bb5.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">Peanut Butter Nougat - Soooooo good!</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When I think of bon bons, lazy housewives lounging on the sofa eating them comes to mind. This is probably because whenever my dad would come home from work, a frequent refrain from my mom would be "What do you think I did all day? Lay on the couch and eat bon bons?"</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4799837802_2e675d73c7.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4799837802_2e675d73c7.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>"Paint-splattered" Dulce de Leche Bon Bons<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4799837624_73d04f4c8b.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 366px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4799837624_73d04f4c8b.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">My Glitter-ized Dulce de Leche Bon Bons</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Bon bons are great because there's so many different fillings you can make. Almost any flavor can be used. One of the best class days in this unit was when our class had free rein to make a filling of our choice. I made a passion fruit caramel filling and a beer ganache filling. Some of my classmates fillings included caramel apple, tiramisu, wasabi, fig, peanut butter, and so many more. In the locker room after class, the culinary students just descended on the beer ganache bon bons, devouring almost all of them.<br /></span></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4074/4799205313_6a8ca132a5.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4074/4799205313_6a8ca132a5.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Gold=Milk Chocolate Bon Bons with Passion Fruit Caramel</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Red= Dark Chocolate with Beer Ganache</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4799205569_d796bdcaa1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 430px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4799205569_d796bdcaa1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Inside the Passion Fruit Bon Bon</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:130%;">In the chocolate unit, we also made our first 2-tiered cake, a chocolate cake with a delicious chocolate raspberry mousse filling, and a chocolate buttercream. Using cocoa butter colors as "paint," we made transfer sheets and poured chocolate over them. When the chocolate was partially set up, we bent the chocolate strip around the cake. It's a pretty cool technique, and the finished cake looked pretty good. The picture's deceiving though - it was way tinier in real life - just a 3" and a 6" cake.</span><br /></div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4077/4830781208_593f79ebde.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4077/4830781208_593f79ebde.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-57378365019126120082010-07-28T12:09:00.004-04:002010-08-02T10:05:50.949-04:00CSN $50 Gift Certificate Winner<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">The $50 gift certificate to CSN has closed, and the winner is...Comment #5!</span> <div><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 248px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4137/4852843881_ecd6aff8e8.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Deb commented that she would purchase the Caphalon Fruit & Vegetable Set:</span></div><br /><div></div><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://common1.csnimages.com/lf/1/hash/1287/622346/1/Contemporary+Cutlery+Fruit+and+Vegetable+Set.jpg" border="0" /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Congratulations! Deb, can you please email me (</span><a href="mailto:tarascupcakes@gmail.com"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">tarascupcakes@gmail.com</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">) and let me know your mailing address so I can have the gift certificate mailed to you? Thank you everyone for entering!</span></div></div>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-78260019522314105922010-07-23T19:42:00.002-04:002010-07-23T20:46:12.352-04:00Week 26-27 Sugar<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">After moving on from the debacle of our first plated desserts unit, our next was sugar. We started off making some marzipan fruits. Carefully sculpting the pieces of marzipan to be the shapes of various fruits, we later airbrushed them to be quite realistic looking.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4799832850_727d66d6e1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 395px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4799832850_727d66d6e1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">My mom loves marzipan fruits, so it was fortuitous that the following weekend I was going home. Using my level 1 basket weave skills, I made a lemon chiffon cake with lemon curd and vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4799368069_bae61955da.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 490px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4799368069_bae61955da.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We also made a basket out of nougatine. Nougatine is caramel with almonds mixed in that is then rolled out, cut, and molded. It is VERY hot to the touch and was difficult to mold because you couldn't keep your hands on it for very long without feeling burned.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4799201175_fe45d7ab3b.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 407px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4799201175_fe45d7ab3b.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For me, the highlight of the 1st sugar unit was our classes with <a href="www.weddingcakes.com">Chef Ron Ben Israel</a>. Chef Ron is an incredibly talented cake designer, and I've admired his work for a long time. When I first looked at the French Culinary Institute, the fact that Chef Ron taught there was a major selling point. In person, Chef Ron was as entertaining as he was informative. Before long under his tutelage, we were making realistic looking sugar flowers. I wrote about the sugar flower classes over at Food 2, and you should </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.food2.com/blog/2010/07/20/food-2-school-sugar-paste-flowers">check it out there</a><span style="font-family: arial;">.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4788205185_7f0e825712.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 451px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4788205185_7f0e825712.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">Me with Chef Ron and a sugar flower I made</span><br /><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4095/4788833230_8d6ccdb205.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 435px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4095/4788833230_8d6ccdb205.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4120/4788204329_dcf37b0aea.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 259px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4120/4788204329_dcf37b0aea.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">After sugar flowers, we worked on our pastillage projects. Pastillage is a sugar dough that dries rock solid and is excellent for supporting weight and building showpieces out of, but less excellent for eating. One of the ingredients in it is white vinegar, which is my absolute least favorite smell in the world, so I didn't enjoy working with it much.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/4800000562_859510f0bd.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 312px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/4800000562_859510f0bd.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">My completed pastillage project</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For our projects, we were tasked to make a cake stand in the theme of "Famous Moments in History." I chose to recreate Ben Franklin flying a kite and discovering electricity, probably making it the first time it was represented in sugar ever (although who knows with all the crazy cake competitions that are out there). Using only edible materials - pastillage, poured sugar, sugar paste, fondant, and cake - I managed to do the event some justice.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4096/4799366861_19aeb29db9.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4096/4799366861_19aeb29db9.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">It's been a really great feeling to see that my skills level is finally catching up to the level of my ideas. Usually I have these grand plans in my mind and when I actually make them, they look nothing like what I pictured.Once again, my classmates totally blew me away with the amazing projects they created. I'm lucky to be in class with some incredibly talented people; it just pushes me to think bigger and work harder.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4799367173_fa8beff374.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 310px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4799367173_fa8beff374.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Ben</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4142/4799835362_a7cdfa92cc.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 285px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4142/4799835362_a7cdfa92cc.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Along with the cake stand, we had to make pastillage favor boxes</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;">Highlights of my classmates' work:</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4134/4799202359_d506f1b5ed.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 310px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4134/4799202359_d506f1b5ed.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Liesel's Noah's Ark</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4799203469_28918f9a41.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 359px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4799203469_28918f9a41.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">Mary's Sheep Cloning</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4115/4799836290_965ae6f26b.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 443px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4115/4799836290_965ae6f26b.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">Brittani's Babe Ruth's 500th Home Run</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4114/4799835848_6aab6b2c13.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 372px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4114/4799835848_6aab6b2c13.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Janelle's 1st Pixar Movie</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4799836004_a28a7bdf7d.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 344px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4799836004_a28a7bdf7d.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">Molly's 1st Man on the Moon</span> <span style="font-family: arial; font-style: italic;">(her cake was shaped like a moon)</span><br /></div>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-39622602306987782842010-07-21T18:26:00.006-04:002010-07-22T09:42:48.685-04:00CSN Stores Giveaway!<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I know I've been very neglectful of this blog lately, so this post comes at perfect timing. After the skillet giveaway went well, CSN would like to give a $50 gift certificate to one lucky Cupcake Obsessed reader.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cookware.com/Le-Creuset-PG071523-17-LEC1831.html?cv="><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://common2.csnimages.com/lf/1/hash/2343/708637/1/9%22+Square+Baking+Dish+with+Bonus+5%22+Baking+Dish+in+Caribbean.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic;font-family:arial;" >Le Creuset baking set</span><br /><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left;font-family:arial;" ><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">CSN is great because they have everything from </span><a href="http://www.diningroomsdirect.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;">dining room</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> sets to </span><a href="http://www.cookware.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;">cookware</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> to </span><a href="http://www.beddingandmore.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;">bedding</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. It's a serious one-stop shopping destination for all your home needs. Perusing </span><a href="http://www.csn.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;">their sites</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, there's so much there I have on my "wish list." The pictures here are what I'd buy if I had the $50 gift certificate.</span><br /></span></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cookware.com/Paderno-World-Cuisine-47034-52-WCS2293.html"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 336px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 336px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://common1.csnimages.com/lf/2/hash/857/918572/1/20%27%27+Beechwood+Rolling+Pin.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic;font-family:arial;" >Rolling pin like we use at school</span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">To enter to win the CSN gift certificate, just leave a comment by next Wednesday, July 29 5:00 pm saying what you would purchase at CSN if you won the gift certificate with your contact information.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Winner will be selected at random. This contest is only open to residents of the U.S. and Canada. Good luck!</span></span>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-44253352521959079412010-07-16T21:14:00.002-04:002010-07-16T21:26:46.327-04:00Week 25: Couple More Plated Desserts<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When posting pictures last week of the plated desserts unit, I forgot the last two desserts we made the night of our exam. We weren't graded on these desserts, but both were really delicious.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The first was a cold strawberry charlotte. The charlotte was made up of ladyfingers with a strawberry Bavarian cream (kind of like a mousse). It was plated with berry sorbet and salad with a clear sauce.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4101/4788832394_6eb186f7ae.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4101/4788832394_6eb186f7ae.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The second was a warm charlotte. This one was made from white bread soaked in butter (delicious on its own) that was filled with a mixed fruit compote and baked. We served it with a butterscotch sauce and a red plum spuma. A spuma is a delicious new frozen treat I've discovered thanks to FCI. It's just a sorbet with an Italian meringue (a very sweet, airy mixture of egg whites and sugar) folded in.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4075/4788203401_1257af62e4.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 344px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4075/4788203401_1257af62e4.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-16115505499016676802010-07-09T00:01:00.000-04:002010-07-09T10:07:06.721-04:00Week 24-25: Intro to Plated Desserts<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Our first plated dessert unit was only 6 classes long, but boy did it feel like a lifetime. Perhaps one of the units I was most looking forward to, it was almost a complete disaster. I'm now regularly blogging at <a href="http://www.food2.com/">Food 2</a>, and you can read all about my class's struggles with plated desserts in the <a href="http://www.food2.com/blog/2010/06/29/level-2-growing-pains">Food 2 School series here</a>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><br /><div align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 375px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1058/4729281130_e12bd7b3c0.jpg" border="0" /><em><span style="font-size:100%;">Chocolate Marquise with cherry compote & creme anglaise</span></em></div><div align="left"><br />Here's all the pictures I took from the unit. Everything we made was as delicious as it looked, if not more. My chef pants grew even tighter over those two weeks (and they're tight to begin with being as they're manufactured inexplicably so that the "elastic" waist is half the circumference of 1 pant leg). For many reasons, I was really happy to leave behind individual desserts for the time being.</div><br /><div align="left"></div><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 375px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1177/4728638317_6fca0ed15b.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:100%;">Creme Caramel</span></em></div><br />My favorite items from the unit were probably the pineapple tarte tatin and the creme brulee (which has long been my favorite dessert). Any of the ice creams and sorbets we made were delicious, and I could usually be found covertly (ok, maybe not so covertly) taking additional scoops of them.<br /><br /><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 375px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1057/4729284448_606675d14d.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:100%;">Creme Brulee with Pistachio Shortbread</span></em></div><div align="left"><br />My least favorite was definitely the creme caramel (flan). How can a cousin of creme brulee taste so bad?? For me, when I don't like an item it's usually because of the texture, and creme caramel is the perfect example of this.</span></div><br /><div align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 315px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1403/4728636039_7aa2c72e1e.jpg" border="0" /><em><span style="font-family:arial;">Fennel Hazelnut Tart with Fig Ice Cream</span></em><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">To illustrate just how many components go into these desserts, for two of the pictures I identified each of the items on the plate.</span><br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1215/4729283138_e487e1ff49.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 375px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1215/4729283138_e487e1ff49.jpg" border="0" /></a> <em><span style="font-family:arial;">Lemon Tart with Basil Creme Anglaise & Berry Sorbet</span></em><br /><br /><a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1320/4729282800_9f6f2a141c.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 424px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1320/4729282800_9f6f2a141c.jpg" border="0" /></a> <em><span style="font-family:arial;">Milk Marmalade Tart</span></em><br /><br /><div><a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1002/4729283458_cc9fc2362a.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 373px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1002/4729283458_cc9fc2362a.jpg" border="0" /></a> <em><span style="font-family:arial;">Manjari Chocolate Tart with Coconut Ice Cream</span></em><br /><br /><div><a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1140/4729283770_02d45b464d.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 409px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1140/4729283770_02d45b464d.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> <em>Banana Macadamia Financier</em><br /></span><div><br /><div><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 382px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1379/4729284134_70403f3ced.jpg" border="0" /> <em><span style="font-family:arial;">Pineapple Tarte Tatin with Pineapple Passion Sauce </span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-family:arial;">& Lemon Frozen Yogurt</span></em><br /><div><div><br /><div><a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1432/4729285960_1078cf17d8.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 335px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1432/4729285960_1078cf17d8.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> <em>Spinach and Cheese Jalousie with Bechemel Sauce</em></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-12226269520437390092010-07-07T23:27:00.001-04:002010-07-08T11:59:26.639-04:00Week 23: Chocolate Candy Stands<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Chocolate I feels like it was ages ago (over a month ago!), but I'm just getting to post the pictures of my finished chocolate project now. The task was to create a candy stand, complete with a bowl that held the chocolate candies we made in a theme of our choice. With the start of the summer, to me it seemed like a good idea to go with an under the sea theme. Chef Toni allowed us to use some coloring, and I decided to take full advantage of this. Brown is one of my least favorite colors, so a stand made entirely out of chocolate seemed a little "blah."<br /></span><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4773866127_9341102e5a.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 402px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4773866127_9341102e5a.jpg" border="0" /></a><em><span style="font-family:arial;">Close up of the bottom of my piece</span></em> </div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">My stand was made up of four white chocolate "waves" that supported the white chocolate shell bowl. Using a couple molds I bought, I made the fish and shells using a copious amount of disco dust and chocolate. Using a new technique Chef Toni showed the class, I also made some glittery chocolate seaweed to attach to the base. The work spanned over two days, and it was a rush to get it done. Despite our relative inexperience working with chocolate and the time crunch, my classmates made some pretty incredible pieces.</span> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4136/4773866005_8d79d721b0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 405px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4136/4773866005_8d79d721b0.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Me with my finished chocolate piece after class</em></span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Sidenote: You know those cans of compressed air you use to clean out your computer keyboard? We use those to instantly set the chocolate (the air comes out freezing cold). Because of people "huffing" them, the manufacturers have started including a bitter taste to them. In fact, when purchasing my canned air at Target, I even got carded! Unfortunately, with a class of 16 people all spraying these cans, it was inevitable we all got a taste of this truly revolting airstream. Nothing ruins the taste of chocolate faster than an accidental swallow of this air, and those classes had a lot of intermittent bursts of "Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww."</span><br /><br /></div><div align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 483px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4074/4774505386_960a87625a.jpg" border="0" /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Display of our finished pieces</em></span></div>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-60592602192344615672010-06-25T22:02:00.002-04:002010-06-25T22:38:24.745-04:00Happy (Belated) Birthday, Dad!<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Whew, this post just barely made it in before it's no longer even my dad's birth MONTH. As it is, it's 3 weeks since it passed and I made this cake, but better late than never, right?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">One of my favorite things about baking is being able to create something special for the people I love - my friends and family. My parents are hands-down my biggest fans, and my dad lately has been known to start telling complete strangers about how his daughter is attending the French Culinary Institute. When it came time for his birthday, I was excited to make something extra special and new just for him. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of asking him what kind of cake he'd like, to which he replied he had been hoping for red velvet. I'm sort of sick of red velvet, and I had wanted to make something just for him.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1014/4734659462_7f8a205375.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 436px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1014/4734659462_7f8a205375.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Chef Cynthia had given our class the most awesome chocolate cake recipe that our class devoured the scraps of when they were set out. I knew I wanted to use this as my base, and decided to also use chocolate ganache and fresh raspberries as filling and chocolate Swiss buttercream to cover the cake. In short, this cake was awesome. My dad really liked it too, hopefully even more than the red velvet.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1417/4734659556_423e5ee3ed.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 378px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1417/4734659556_423e5ee3ed.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I haven't really shared a recipe in a while, but you MUST make this chocolate cake. I'm not a huge chocolate fan (although my classmates who have seen me eat pounds of chocolate might disagree), and this has become one of my absolute favorite cakes. It's so moist, so delicious, and so easy to make.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Chocolate Cake Recipe<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Ingredients:</span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">2 1/4 c cake flour </span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">2 tsp baking soda</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">1/2 tsp salt</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">1/2 c butter (1 stick), room temperature</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">2 1/4 c light brown sugar</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">3 large eggs, room temperature</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">3 oz unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">1 c sour cream</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">1/2 c hot brewed coffee</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">1/2 c hot water</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Directions:<br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 8" cake pans and line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">2. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">3. Beat butter at medium speed until creamy. Gradually add brown sugar, better well until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add vanilla and mix well.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">4. Add eggs one at a time, beating at low speed until blended after each addition.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">5. Pour hot coffee and water over chocolate. Stir until all chocolate is melted. Whisk in sour cream until smooth.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">6. Alternate adding the dry ingredients (3 additions) with the wet (2 additions), starting and ending with the dry mixture.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">7. Pour in prepared pans. Bake at 350 until cake tests done (Cake should start to come away from sides of the pan and a skewer inserted should come out dry).</span><br /></span></div></div>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-82666308375846975412010-06-21T20:37:00.003-04:002010-06-21T21:24:52.843-04:00Start of Level 2: Weeks 21-22 Chocolate<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4038/4697352439_c1d5028b36.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 356px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4038/4697352439_c1d5028b36.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Chocolate fruit cake with chocolate leaves</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Level 2 started with chocolate. I've never been much of a chocolate die-hard, and given the choice between chocolate and vanilla, I would choose vanilla any day. That fact didn't stop me from eating probably pounds of chocolate during the 2 weeks we spent on the first chocolate unit.<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4697984454_b30b3efe36.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4697984454_b30b3efe36.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Somehow my ID got dipped in chocolate without me realizing<br /><br /></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Before we could do anything, we needed to learn about chocolate. We got to try a bunch of different types of chocolate, including a 99% cacao chocolate. You can't even imagine how bitter that was. I used to be a strictly milk and white chocolate person, but in the past couple years, my tastes have changed and I've developed a real appreciation for dark chocolate.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4697985614_028136d30c.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4697985614_028136d30c.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Chocolate Orange Truffles</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">After learning about the history and manufacturing process of chocolate, it was time to move on to tempering chocolate. Tempering chocolate is the process of melting and cooling chocolate to a certain temperature then creating the proper structure required for chocolate to be hard and strong when it sets. It sounds easy, but it took a while for a lot of us to catch on to the process. And it was really, really messy.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/4697986222_7eb8a744d0.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 392px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/4697986222_7eb8a744d0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />The mess of working with chocolate was the primary reason I disliked it so much. After every class, I would leave totally covered in chocolate. We did get to make some pretty cool things with it though. Our first project was was a box that was entirely made of chocolate and held chocolate orange truffles we hand-dipped. We also made a bow on top, also out of chocolate.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4050/4697986838_c84d8a9405.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 370px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4050/4697986838_c84d8a9405.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-91504657637128261362010-06-18T20:35:00.003-04:002010-06-18T21:24:32.337-04:00Memorial Day Weekend<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The first official day of summer isn't until next week, but to me, the start of summer is always Memorial Day Weekend. I went home to the Jersey Shore for MDW and did a lot of baking. I had a couple free days, a few barbeques, and a lot of new recipes I wanted to try out.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">First on my agenda was a fondant-covered cake. I've struggled with fondant for a long time now and felt this was a good opportunity to practice being as I had a birthday party barbeque to go to. The cake was a yellow cake (not a good enough recipe to repeat, so I won't include it here) with a chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream (my new favorite type of icing). I used a new </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.michaels.com/art/online/displayProductPage?productNum=bk0404">fondant sold at Michaels</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> by Duff of Ace of Cakes fame. I LOVE how Michael's is really beefing up their cake decorating aisle. Every time I go in there, there's more and more stuff I want to buy. Anyway, this new fondant tastes a lot better than the usual brand I use, but it's so much more expensive. $20 for 2 lbs whereas I usually pay about $15 for 5 lbs.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/4712458305_2cff731b07.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 473px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/4712458305_2cff731b07.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I made the bow loops out of sugar paste on floral wire. I'm slowly getting better at working with fondant, but have a longgggg way to go still, and not enough time to practice.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4028/4712457967_c28aa73e68.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 424px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4028/4712457967_c28aa73e68.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">The cheating/bonus tart</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I also made a strawberry </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Strawberry-Cream-Cheese-Tart-234743">cream cheese tart</a><span style="font-family: arial;">. The dough for the tart was a shortbread, which made it very difficult to work with. The recipe makes it sound like you can just roll it out and move it to the tart ring, but as soon as you picked it up, it broke. I found it worked best by pressing it into the tart mold. Once the shell was blind baked and cooled, it was filled with a cream cheese custard. If I made this again, I'd add a little bit of gelatin to the custard to give it a bit more stability. The strawberry compote was pretty straight forward. The recipe makes way more than 1 tart's worth of custard and compote, so my mom had a pre made (store-bought) Oreo pie shell that I just threw the extra custard and compote in that. Not my preferred method, but better than wasting the extra ingredients.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1285/4713137494_2e053815c2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 417px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1285/4713137494_2e053815c2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Original Tart</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I also made an </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Orange-Glow-Chiffon-Cake-105984">orange glow chiffon cake</a><span style="font-family: arial;">. I love chiffon cakes. They sound so retro to me, but they're so moist and delicious. This one was a huge pain in the butt because it stuck in my bundt pan (lessons learned - I should have listened to my mom and sprayed the pan), but well-worth the effort being as I ate it for breakfast for the next 3 days. The recipe didn't have an icing, but I mixed up a really simple glaze with just orange juice and powdered sugar and poured it over the top of the cake. The glaze was pretty thin so you can't really see it in the picture.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4063/4712457623_d090d9c93f.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 459px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4063/4712457623_d090d9c93f.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I had planned on also making a key lime coconut cheesecake, but as usual, I didn't budget my time very well and being as I also wanted to sleep over that weekend, the cheesecake had to be nixed.</span></span>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-44108015123296275232010-06-13T19:34:00.004-04:002010-06-13T21:57:40.562-04:00Wedding Cake!<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Last month, one of my best friends got married. It was just a small civil-ceremony, and they're having a larger wedding reception next July, but I wanted to mark the occasion with a traditional wedding cake.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4011/4698119030_829b3dee83.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 411px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4011/4698119030_829b3dee83.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I frequently struggle with the distance between my ideas and my skill level. In my mind, I had a very specific idea of how I wanted this cake to look. I think that my first mistake was using an American-style cream cheese frosting, as opposed to a meringue buttercream. I've noticed in school that the Swiss or Italian meringue buttercreams provide a lot more stability than frostings made just by combining butter with powdered sugar. The cake was red velvet and I love cream cheese frosting with it, but next time I'm going to opt for a different buttercream. I also need a lot more work with fondant, and there were places it showed on this cake. Fortunately, I was able to cover a lot of the worst mistakes with the fondant cut outs.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4698118878_5565ec6dbe.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 419px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4698118878_5565ec6dbe.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Overall though, I was pleased with the way it came out though, and I was so happy to be part of this day. Congratulations guys!</span></span>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-208187529170546042010-06-11T20:31:00.002-04:002010-06-11T20:53:56.230-04:00Midterm Cakes: Level 1 Completed!<span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" >The midterm for the program involved a pretty in-depth written exam and a practical exam. For the practical exam, we picked a cake type out of a hat that told us what cake flavor, filling, and covering we had to use. On the creative side, we were tasked to make a celebration cake for any occasion.<br /><br />I happened to know in advance that one of my best friends was getting engaged while away on a cruise with her boyfriend. They got back the day of my midterm, and I thought it would be nice to text them a picture of a "Congratulations Kate & Adam" engagement cake upon returning to the US, newly engaged.My cake selection was chocolate sponge cake with buttercream (I chose peanut butter) and chocolate glaze. Not really wanting to make a brown cake, I tested out a white chocolate version first, but it wasn't as good as I wanted it to be, so I decided to use the dark chocolate glaze for the exam. The second version came out MUCH better. I also spelled "Congratulations" wrong on the first cake. Ooopsss.<br /><br />The cakes my classmates came up with were SO impressive. Enjoy the photos below!</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4691459389_217c34b853.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 486px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4691459389_217c34b853.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">My Midterm Cake</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4031/4692072976_f2ec151336.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 449px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4031/4692072976_f2ec151336.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" >Side view - really tough to get those sides perfectly smooth</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4020/4692073318_e44d26d4a2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 469px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4020/4692073318_e44d26d4a2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" >Canada Day Cake</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4692073616_32b3198f89.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 419px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4692073616_32b3198f89.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Las Vegas Cake - Check out the detail on the sign!</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1300/4692073904_8de54b3818.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 458px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1300/4692073904_8de54b3818.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One classmate does really beautiful Japanese lettering on a lot of projects</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4054/4691442467_a7ccd1839d.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 384px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4054/4691442467_a7ccd1839d.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Day of the Dead Cake</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1298/4691442215_cd5ca3d37e.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 368px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1298/4691442215_cd5ca3d37e.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A classmate is obsessed with Disney - her Disneyland anniversary cake came out really amazingly</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4017/4691442743_6fe70a55e1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 468px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4017/4691442743_6fe70a55e1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">21st Birthday Roulette Cake</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4692075152_209f8414bf.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 480px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4692075152_209f8414bf.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Fleet Week was the week of our midterm</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4691443399_0c6233593b.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 374px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4691443399_0c6233593b.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Cinco de Mayo Cake</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4020/4691443889_91da09d0dc.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 458px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4020/4691443889_91da09d0dc.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Really adorable level of detail on this cake - check out the mini croissants on the side and tiny eggs on the top</span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/4691443627_39bb35f391.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 452px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/4691443627_39bb35f391.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Hello Kitty Birthday Cake</span></span><br /></div>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-19127131154846005402010-06-04T20:45:00.003-04:002010-06-04T21:19:15.573-04:00Weeks 19 & 20: Cakes 2<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So Level 1 has come and gone, and I'm already 2 weeks into Level 2! It's been such a busy few weeks for me, and I've been unable to post much here. At the moment, it's no less than 80 degrees in my apartment and with my hotter laptop in lap, I'm going to try to keep this brief. A notoriously difficult thing for me to do.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The first item for Cakes 2 was a buche noel, the traditional Christmas cake. Funny story, this year for my company bake off, my cookie dough cupcakes were beat by a buche noel. Making this made me feel vindicated. </span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4040/4669941891_7741591046.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 259px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4040/4669941891_7741591046.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4670569616_a75682712c.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4670569616_a75682712c.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">No buche noel is complete without marzipan robins and meringue mushrooms</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A fraisier is a cake made in a ring mold with strawberries, a sponge cake, a chiboust (pastry cream-based buttercream), and a layer of green marzipan. It always says "Fraisier" on it, and the first time I wrote it on the cake, I spelled it wrong. Oops.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/4670569908_e3b0d68a10.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 443px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/4670569908_e3b0d68a10.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1303/4670570174_0d4ae6c5eb.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 463px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1303/4670570174_0d4ae6c5eb.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The next cake was a really awesome lemon chiffon with lemon curd (one of my favorite things) and buttercream. We practiced our basketweave technique, and I used the opportunity to practice my marzipan modeling skills. I think whales on cakes are about as cute as it gets.</span><br /></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1306/4670570454_3c10703368.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 473px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1306/4670570454_3c10703368.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1301/4670570726_a151038390.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1301/4670570726_a151038390.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4018/4669943521_f0b2013d07.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4018/4669943521_f0b2013d07.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The white cake was my favorite cake of the unit. It tastes exactly like it came from a box. And I mean that in the best way possible. I'm obviously all about baking from scratch, but boxed cakes are delicious. There's no denying that. This cake was filled and covered with a peach buttercream and covered in marzipan.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4046/4670569042_c7e5d1cbf9.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 462px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4046/4670569042_c7e5d1cbf9.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1302/4669943815_7e816ea5be.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1302/4669943815_7e816ea5be.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I had never had black forest cake before, but it had a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache, cherries, and whipped cream. Not bad, but I found it kind of dry.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1303/4670573064_552651ecbc.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 492px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1303/4670573064_552651ecbc.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/4670573370_b98cdc41d9.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 348px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/4670573370_b98cdc41d9.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Carrying the next two cakes home on the subway one night, I have never felt more popular. I had a board with 2 cheesecakes and the pistachio roulade and entered the subway just as all the Yankees fans were coming home from the game. On a subway car with 50 hungry guys, I had numerous inquiries about the cakes. I think I'm just going to carry cheesecake wherever I go.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1282/4670573654_cf5bb57aae.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 346px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1282/4670573654_cf5bb57aae.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This cake was a chocolate roulade with pistachio cream in it and rolled up. The cake is then stood upright. We covered the whole thing with fondant, mine was blue and purple marbled fondant.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4669967729_fddf36d302.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 423px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4669967729_fddf36d302.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/4670574190_d449ea363d.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 439px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/4670574190_d449ea363d.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I'll be putting up the pictures from our midterm soon. The task was to create a special occasions cake, and my classmates did a really spectacular job with some of the cakes they made.</span></span>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-23081053324367115862010-05-21T13:43:00.003-04:002010-05-21T13:54:06.748-04:00Guest Blogging at Food2<a href="http://www.food2.com/images/blogposts/Sex_and_the_city_samantha_cupcake_carrie_588x441.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 446px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 305px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.food2.com/images/blogposts/Sex_and_the_city_samantha_cupcake_carrie_588x441.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Today's an exciting day for me. Not only is it Friday (TGIF), not only is my midterm tomorrow (woo!), but my guest blog post just went up over at <a href="http://www.food2.com/">Food2</a>, an affiliate of Food Network. Food 2 is an amazing website/blog dedicated to anything food-related. They were nice enough to ask me to do a post about the new Sex and the City movie with a cupcake spin, and I was happy to oblige. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Head over to check it out! </span><a href="http://www.food2.com/blog/2010/05/21/sex-and-the-city-2-sweets-miranda-charlotte-samantha-and-carrie-in-cupcake-form"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Food 2 Sex and the City 2</span></a></div>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-56661254091278211942010-05-19T21:09:00.007-04:002010-05-21T12:34:49.324-04:00Pictures from the FCI Fondant Class<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">French Culinary Institute has a lot of amateur pastry and culinary classes, and for five weeks in April and May, I was fortunate enough to be able to volunteer to assist Chef Cynthia Peithman's amateur fondant class. The classes were on Saturdays, and it was a long day having 2 back to back classes. Being in school from 8:00 am until 9-10 on Saturdays wasn't fun, but it was well worth it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Chef Cynthia is my Level 1 head instructor, but she's also a <a href="http://cakeline.com/">reknowned cake artist</a>, and she had a wealth of knowledge to share with the 22 students who enrolled in the fondant course. Just watching the class alone was really informative for me. I've dabbled with fondant, but have never quite mastered it, and I think a lot of the tips and tricks Chef Cynthia shared will prove to be useful in my next fondant endeavor.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I took some pictures of the finished cakes the students made. Some of their talent really blew me away. A sampling of the finished cakes below:</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/4596928151_02c5a11f27.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 307px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/4596928151_02c5a11f27.jpg" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1257/4596927699_17a9021bf2.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 333px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1257/4596927699_17a9021bf2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1156/4597541828_7fc000efd0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 325px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1156/4597541828_7fc000efd0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4023/4596926427_3f6d92680a.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 332px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4023/4596926427_3f6d92680a.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1056/4596926861_b9680df583.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 345px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1056/4596926861_b9680df583.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1413/4597540722_143fc131f7.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 375px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1413/4597540722_143fc131f7.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3379/4597539144_cfa6768d2f.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 340px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3379/4597539144_cfa6768d2f.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3138/4597538676_6608d395a2.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 336px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3138/4597538676_6608d395a2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3613/4596923277_5b66d55330.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 364px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3613/4596923277_5b66d55330.jpg" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3359/4597537466_c30f800a5f.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 346px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3359/4597537466_c30f800a5f.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3355/4596922563_f0e92f88ac.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 375px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3355/4596922563_f0e92f88ac.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1397/4596921913_95552df696.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 375px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1397/4596921913_95552df696.jpg" border="0" /></a>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4977883470863660535.post-72044142080817932512010-05-16T22:22:00.007-04:002010-05-19T21:28:40.727-04:00Week 18: End of Petit Fours & Exam<span style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >Last week was the end of the petit four unit, and the exam was on Saturday.</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >We started off the week with some caramel mou (pronounced moo). </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >It's a soft caramel that has chocolate and butter mixed into the cooked caramel, which is then poured out and cut into pieces when it cools. It sort of had the texture and taste of fudge. On one of our pieces, we sprinkled fleur de sel over top the caramel mou. I just love the combo of sweet and salty. Not my favorite item of the week though. I don't think this was really special enough to warrant making again.</span><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1175/4597435660_3f68973f93.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1175/4597435660_3f68973f93.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The lemon cookies were sandwiched with raspberry jam and dipped in chocolate. They were a little bigger than the size of a dime, which means they were teeny tiny. If I made these again, I would make them bigger. American cookie-sized, as I call it.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3295/4597431372_14bafa6798.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 171px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3295/4597431372_14bafa6798.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We also made some glazed petit fours - pyramids, domes, and the traditional petit four cakes I initially thought covered the whole petit four spectrum. The picture below shows the pyramids and domes before they were glazed in chocolate.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4034/4613358779_9271c674a0.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 431px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4034/4613358779_9271c674a0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Once the pyramids were glazed and set, we cut them into small, bite-sized pieces. There were three buttercream flavors in this one - raspberry, vanilla bean, and chocolate. This was one of my favorite items from all of Level 1.</span><br /></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3378/4613363779_fd8777dbcc.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 411px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3378/4613363779_fd8777dbcc.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">These iced petit fours are soooo cute. I can't wait to make them again for a fancy tea party (now I just need an excuse to actually have a tea party). The cake was an almond sponge, sandwiched with raspberry jam, with a layer of marzipan on top. The whole thing is then covered with an icing glaze, and decorated individually. They are VERY time-consuming. </span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/4613363241_8cfd6fe424.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 193px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/4613363241_8cfd6fe424.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Thursday we "trayed up" all the items we had stowed the prior Saturday and Tuesday. </span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3403/4613978286_055dd551a8.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 283px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3403/4613978286_055dd551a8.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><br />Thursday night we also made Chef Cynthia's tahini cookies. Tahini is a paste made from sesame seeds, and it's used in making hummus. I wasn't sure if I would like tahini and how it would work in a cookie, but these were awesome. The tahini is kind of nutty and I sandwiched them with grape jelly, so it was reminiscent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4015/4613362719_2a675033b4.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 283px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4015/4613362719_2a675033b4.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><br />I previously mentioned last Saturday's petit four exam, and what a disaster it was. It would take way too much space here to describe all of what went wrong, so I won't. If I had to give the incoming Level 1 students any advice, it would be: Do not drink on the night before an exam. It was a really, really bad idea. I had an off-the-charts hangover, the kitchen was hotter than normal, and everything was just going wrong. In addition to three petit fours we picked at random, we also had to prepare an original petit four of our choice.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3572/4613364423_2bc2d07224.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 429px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3572/4613364423_2bc2d07224.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >My three random picks were chocolate macarons, tartelettes with passion fruit curd, and raisin cookies. My original petit four was a tartelette with a tangerine honey caramel and chocolate ganache, sprinkled with citrus fleur de sel. The flavors paired really well together, and it was by far the biggest success on my tray. As much as it was 4 hours of baking misery, my evaluation by Chef Cynthia went pretty well. There was no hiding the fact that my chocolate macarons were burnt, but she was a big fan of everything else.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3329/4613983490_9063c20186.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 321px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3329/4613983490_9063c20186.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >My tartelettes next to my partner Aoi's mochi</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Some other classmates' trays:</span></span><br /></div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3315/4613366523_e00a2e08f8.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 268px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3315/4613366523_e00a2e08f8.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3401/4613367295_266fc161bc.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 183px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3401/4613367295_266fc161bc.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4049/4613402197_5d2dfbc90d.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 311px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4049/4613402197_5d2dfbc90d.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Tarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09971604146935565648noreply@blogger.com3