Fruit Cake.

Just when you thought the fruit cake couldn't get any fruitier....

Maybe it's not my style of cake... or anyone's style under the age of 207 yrs old.  BUT, it was an excellent cake to learn on.  The fruit cake is under all of that royal icing, and a layer of marzipan.  Then the all of the decoration on the cake is out of royal icing.  The cake board decoration, including the rose, is all made out of gum paste.  My piping technique clearly needs some work.  This was my first time piping royal icing onto a cake and it is so much harder than it looks!  Chef Nicholas would show us in class and I would think "pshh this is gonna be an easy week".  Wow did I eat my words.  I felt like my brain and my hands had never coordinated together in my whole life.  I would see the mental picture of what it needed to look like in my head and then my hands would scribble out icing like a drunken sailor.  Long story short, if you try to pipe royal icing and you aren't that good at it, don't beat yourself up. 

I have so many train stories that I've been trying to refrain from telling you.  I'm trying to keep this blog at least 60% cake school, and 40% train stories.  I wont tell you about the lady singing Alanis Morissette at the top of her lungs behind me, or the lady that got her umbrella stuck in the train door, or how the train conductor then yelled at her over the sound system... "whhhy would you stick your umbrella in the door?".  I wont tell you about the guy's shoulder I accidentally fell asleep on (reading a boring book), the homeless man who pulled my hair, or the business man's briefcase that took out my left knee.  But I will tell you a story that I should have told you weeks ago.

This was way back in sugar class, and I can't believe I forgot to mention it.  We were working on our cakes when my friend Chelsea suddenly said, "umm.... Chef I think you need to come over here".  Then she started fumbling with her trashcan.  Then finally she is like "ok Chef.. umm there is sorta a fire".  Chef Scott started to walk over to her station, I look over and there is smoke coming out of the trashcan.  Chef Scott doesn't change his pace, just walks on over picks up the trashcan.  When he walks by my table I could see the bottom of the trashcan is completely orange and you could see the flames flickering inside.  He put it out in the dish room, and we all can't help but bust out laughing.  We would be the class to set the classroom on fire.  Apparently, Chelsea was torching her sugar knife when a piece of sugar caught on fire and fell into the trashcan. Unfortunately, most of our trashcans are filled with paper towels , so those quickly lite on fire.  Chef Scott was like "you wont be laughing when the fire sprinklers turn on".  We have never shut up so quickly.  That is hopefully the first and last story of a fire in our kitchen.  

Stay tuned for the video of the fruit cake... coming soon to theaters.   

Surprise.

Meet Chef Nicholas Logde.  The man is a creative genius when it comes to cake design.  Just to get you thinking in the right ballpark of who he designs cakes for... think royalty.  Oh yes, this Brit designed the wedding cake of Princess Diana, the Queen Mother's 80th birthday, and the Christening cake for Prince Harry.  He doesn't compete in cake competitions anymore.. he is the judge.  Long story short, Chef Nicholas can make gum paste flowers look more real than actual flowers.  If you are not using his technique, than you are using the wrong technique.  So, for such an accomplished man he must me a pompous jerk right? Wrong. The man is incredibly sweet.  He is filled with heart-felt compliments, sincere concern for our success, and genuine interest in our futures.  

This week the cake we are working on is a surprise.  I could reveal it in steps like I have in the past, but I think the effect of this cake would be much better if I revealed it in one swift shot.  It is Halloween weekend, but if I have time I will be including a video post with the showing of the cake.  In the pictures above, Chef Nicholas is teaching us gum paste roses, and how to cover our cakes in marzipan. Then you can see below, him teaching us how to paddle the air bubbles out of our royal icing, so that it is the perfect consistency for pressure piping. 

So I had a stage this morning at "More Cupcakes".  My alarm started singing to me at 4 am this morning and I rolled out of bed, onto my train, and into a cupcake scented bakery.  The crazy part was that it was totally worth it!  I really wanted to see how a cupcake place operated, so I was very grateful that they let me into their kitchen!  I now know all the secrets of cupcake making.  Mwahaha!  Ok maybe not all of them, but it was awesome to see them frost and decorate all the different flavors of cupcakes.  I worked with three other girls about my age, and they blared some sweet tunes while we frosted cupcakes.  Six hours of frosting later and a bunch of dishes, I left with a box of More Cupcakes.  They use all the best ingredients, trust me I saw.  Even if I hadn't seen, you can tell in the taste.  They were UH-MAY-ZING!

Now that I've tripled a reasonable caloric intake, I think I'll do what every fitness magazine suggests... go to sleep.  

Turtles & Tipsy Cake.

So the other day I was on the phone with one of my devoted blog readers, whose identity I will protect.  Ok it was my Dad.  He asked me if my new instructor, Chef Sebastian was a serious man.  I just had to laugh!  All the pictures I've posted on here, he has looked very serious.  Well he may be serious about pastries, but Chef Sebastian has an amazingly rich sense of humor! The man is just absolutely hilarious.  My mission on Friday was to get you a small taste of what class is really like.  Fun. 

So our final cake was an orange chocolate cake.  We baked a dry sponge and then soaked it in an orange spiced syrup.  As if that's not enough, we then sandwiched it between orange marmalade and dark chocolate ganache.  Put your running shoes back on, for sadly the taste week is over. 

I was on the train on Friday when I realized that I forgot something! My downstairs neighbor's baby girl was having her third birthday this weekend.  I love that girl, and I hadn't ordered her birthday present yet.  I figured it would be much easier to just go pick it up at a toy story.  Thank goodness for mobile internet, I looked up the closest toy store and got off at the next stop.  I started walking, crossing my fingers that they would have a Dora backpack.  I walked up and down the street and I couldn't find it.  Finally I looked up the actually address number.  3330... 3328... 3326, here it is.  I look up to see a seedy  hookah/bong shop.  Where I'm sure they only sold legal substances.  I was like "are you kidding me?!" God bless America.  Well I was fairly certain I wasn't going to find a Dora backpack in there, so I re-boarded the train and resorted to express shipping. 

I had a stage on Saturday morning at Tipsy Cake.  I was very excited because this was my first stage where the shop did solely cake.  I was nervous, because I really didn't want to blow this! Well, when I first walked in I met the owner/head chef, Chef Naomi.  If it wasn't her Australian accent, then it was her absolutely lovely personality that made me love staging here.  I felt like I had walked into a cooler version of Charm City cakes (ace of cakes).  All around were cakes that were waiting to be picked up.  There was a miniature version of the Sears tower, a large deer head, and a Halloween themed 3-tiered birthday cake.  All of them were just amazing.  I spent the day building, frosting, and cutting cake.  At one point I was coloring fondant, and watched one of the cake designers make a Tiffany's box cake.  It was time for me to leave, and I went to go say goodbye to Chef Naomi.  I nervously rambled off a "I loved staging here, I'd love to come back if you..." I got cut off with a "great then we will see you next Saturday".  I was ecstatic!  So be prepared to hear more stories about my new love, Tipsy Cake. 

As soon as I left the cake shop I dashed back home.  My brother & his wife were having an early Halloween party at their church and I was part of the group costume.  I pulled on my Halloween costume, while my sister-in-law smeared purple eyeshadow on my eyes.  Then I jumped in the car and joined my fellow mutant ninja turtles.  

Nerd alert! I love my family.

After that, it was off with the purple shadow, and on with a dress.  I met up with a few of my favorite cake girls for some city fun.  At the end of the night I crashed on my friend Michelle's couch, thoroughly satisfied with the use of my Saturday.  

Food Porn.

le frasier (fresh strawberry, caramelized almonds and vanilla buttercream)

dark chocolate ganache, caramelized pistachio, white chocolate pistachio cinnamon ganache

lemon cream, granulated caramelized almonds, fresh peach, Italian buttercream

Arabian Coffee Cake.

I'm normally never at a loss for words.  Unfortunately for my loved ones, God gave me a mouth that rarely gets tired.  If I'm not talking, I normally have someone asking me if I'm feeling well.  Well tonight is one of those nights I'm out of words. 

Ok I just thought of some! I will tell you about the cakes we made today.

Gulia snapped the photo when I was telling her something I thought was funny.

We put the last layer of buttercream on our Arabian coffee cakes.  We were graded on our frosting skills, which was incredibly intimidating.  Then we busted them open to taste them, and we got to take them home.  Neither Gulia or I are coffee people so we donated our cakes to the hungry interns fund.  Have a look at our finished cake! 

     

Coffee lovers.  This cake is your personal Nirvana.

We are now working on a chocolate pistachio mousse cake.  It is a layer of moist chocolate biscuit with white chocolate cinnamon pistachio ganache...

Add some carmalized pistachios... (these are amazingly delicious, I'm surprised Gulia and I had any left for our cake)

Then top with another layer of chocolate biscuit.  Now you're ready for chocolate mousse loaded with cocoa nib crisp.  One last layer of chocolate biscuit, and spread another layer of rich chocolate mousse.

Tomorrow we are going to cover this cake in seductively rich dark chocolate ganache.  Get your fat pants out because more cake is on the way. 

Green Sprinkles.

I must apologize for my lack of blogging this week.  I'm such a bad blog mother!  I promise to tell you what I did last week, but first I must tell you about my traumatic day.  I was walking home from the train after church and I was slightly annoyed.  I left my cardigan on the train and when I went to lost & found, the lady just asked me "what the h*** is a cardigan?!".  I explained it was a thin sweater type thing with buttons, girls wear them.  She just looked at me like "do I look like a man to you or something".  Long story short I had to kiss my cardigan goodbye.  When I see a homeless man wearing my cardigan on a train this week I'm gonna cry.


So I was walking home with my neighbor Jessica and I felt bad because during our conversation I was only thinking, "aww man I really liked that cardigan".  Well I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking and I walked home on the sidewalk.  You always want to walk in the street, on the other side of the cars.  These neighborhoods fill their sidewalks with plants & trees, making it a battlefield of insects, bird poop, and sprinklers.  I got into Jessica's house and I looked down to see I was covered in little green sprinkles.  I figured it was just pollen or something.  Then I decided to bring one of the green sprinkles on my arm up to eye level to examine it.  Suddenly the neon green sprinkle wiggled... it was ALIVE!  I consider myself to be about medium on the girly-ness level.  I like camping, but I'm not a tomboy.  But I draw the line at being covered in live petri dish sized insects.  I exclaimed "I'm covered in green things!".  Rebekeh was like "what do you mean you're covered in green things?"  I could feel the panic inside me make forming normal sentences difficult.  "They are green... and they are moving.. they are all over me! Kill them!"  Rebekeh grabbed tissue and started brushing them off.  Then we examined my hair and couldn't find anymore.  But that wasn't good enough.  I got upstairs, and jumped into the shower.  I started violently scrubbing my hair while imagining the ten o'clock news. "A woman was found in her apartment today, brutally attacked my an infestation of baby caterpillars, tonight at ten".  Once I was sufficiently confident that all of the green had sprinkles had met with a watery grave, I stepped out of the bathroom with my nappy wet dog hair to my sweet brother... "how was church?".


























I haven't blogged very much this week because there isn't very much to report!  We are making several types of sponges and fillings to assemble different cakes.  Some of the sponges are thick, some are crunchy, and they are baked in all different types of containers.  Last week we simply stenciled the batter onto parchment paper and baked it.  We were tested on making one type of sponge.  It was nerve wracking and I almost didn't whip my egg whites firm enough.  But you can all exhale, because my batter came out great!  Then on Friday, my partner Gulia and I assembled a cake filled with orange marmelade, coffee strussel, orange japonais, and coffee pastry cream.  We also made cocoa nib crisp, chocolate genoise, and lemon cream. We still have quite a few more cakes to assemble.  We froze this cake, and we will be frosting it next week.

Taste this. Smell that.

We have a new reader!  Can we all welcome Jake Owen to the blog.  Over the weekend some cake girls and I went to Chicago's country music festival to get our inner cowgirl on. Jake Owen was on stage and I decided it was my mission to give him my number.  I didn't have a pen or any paper but... ding... light blub went off.. my cake cards! I knew they were good for somethin.  I saw my opportune moment and made a run for it.  I dashed out of my row, up the aisle, past the security guard and shoved to the front.  Jake reached down to touch his devoted fan and I slipped my card right into his hand!  He stared down at it and slid it into his pocket!  I turned to Julia and we jumped like teenage groupies.  It was a legendary moment.  I remembered I was a grown woman, and went back to my seat.  But that didn't stop me from high-fiving this guy behind me who said, "your never gonna wash that hand again!"  If my profession didn't demand it, I probably would have never washed it.  We waited for him to text us to come backstage, but no such text message came.  The next morning I figured it out.  He was nervous.  Oh and he has a gorgeous brunette wife.  BUT, I'm sure he still reads my blog.  He had to have a taste.

Well what do ya know... we made some cake at cake school today!  Crazy.  Hold onto your seats because this week is all about taste and cake construction.  The next series of blog post will be mouth-watering pictures of delicious items that will make you gain a pound just by staring at it.  Please no licking your computer screen. 

We switched instructors with the morning class.  They are now headed into the art portion with talented Chef Scott, as we are moving our way towards how to make yummy cake yummy.  Our new instructor is Chef Sebastian Cannon, please noticed the M.O.F. coller around his uniform.  Yeah this guy doesn't mess around when it comes to pastry.  

We started with Bourbon Vanilla Génoise.  Our instructor warned us that it is the worst tasting sponge cake we will be making, but it is the most complicated.  Luckily, us piggish  Americans will still think it's delicious.  It's cake.  The hard part is that you have the potential to screw up on every bit of the recipe.  My partner and I began to make it and everything seemed to be going smoothly.  Until the end, when I peered into the bowl and ours looked like pancake batter.  We had no choice but to bake it.  Towards the end of the class, our instructor pulled off some of the cakes to show us examples of what we all did wrong.  I was sure that ours was just awful looking, so awful looking he couldn't even show it as an example.  Julia (my partner) brought our cakes back and I just stared in disbelief.  They looked fine! I was like "Julia, sick joke, where are our cakes?"  That was them.  Chef said they were 80% perfect.  Hey I'll take 80%! I would have been fine with 4%.  It was a Christmas miracle.  

The next step was to taste the cake.  We had been prepared for the worst.  We took a bite and we actually liked it! This piggish American loves all cake!  It was dense and not as sweet as normal cake, but if you imagined you were eating bread it was delicious.  Not everyone was a fan though, my classmate asked everyone if they would like to try some of her cornbread.  But now that we understand how to make that sponge, the following will be much easier. 
Next we made Almond Lemon Genoise, and we caramelized almonds.  Tomorrow we are going to chop up the almonds and mix them with white chocolate for a crunch filling.  Yum.  I'll keep ya posted on how that turns out.


So talk about a 180 when it comes to smell.  I stepped out of the cake filled classroom and onto my dear old train.  The train has some interesting smells.  Smells that I never knew could be created.  The best treat is when you first take a seat on the train.  If the previously warmed seat doesn't gross you out, the smell will.  You scrunch your face in pain thinking "what is that smell?!"  Then you glace down at the crushed velvet seat, realizing that that smell is permeating from the terrible 80's plaid seat.  You can move seats but there is no use.  You will only end up standing next to someone who gave up on showering years ago.  Its funny that crossing the street without a crosswalk is illegal, but smelling like toxic waste isn't.  God bless America.     

Chocolate Old Men.

It was supposed to be "Chocolate & Old Men", it's amazing how crucial the "&" is.  After a week of messy, melty, muddled chocolate we got to decorate a cake!  The three layers are covered in red modeling chocolate, and the rest is made out of plain white & dark chocolate.  It's not really my style, but I thought it was a cool design nonetheless.  Check it out!

I'm excited I now know how to work with chocolate, but I don't think it's my forte.  If anything because I get frustrated with it.  Your hands naturally melt the chocolate pieces, but you have to hold it there to wait for the piped chocolate to harden into place.  Hello catch 22! With the use of plastic scaling containers, and a large amount of pieces to work with, I was able to survive the Friday.  But I think when someone asks me to do a cake in all chocolate I will be like, "really?.... all chocolate?"  Too much of a good thing is chocolatey mess.


Aside for chocolate cakes, I have deem this my old man day.  This morning I was walking to the train station when I caught eyes with this sweet old man tending to his garden.
"What's your name?!"
"Emily! What's yours?!"
"Joseph! You're lovely!"
I giggled like a school girl, unsure of what to say next. You're lovely too? Then he follow with...
"I'm old enough to be your Grandpa!" (I bet this gets the ladies every time... )


I made it onto the train and off at my next stop.  I babysit three beautiful boys a couple times a week for some 'Uncle Sam free" money. I started walking towards this house, and I walked past this old man pushing his walker along the sidewalk.  I could hear the wheels of his walker start to speed up and then..
"Heeey purdy lady!"
"Good Morning!"
"You got a boyfriend?"
"Umm... yeah" (Yeah I lied to an old man. Bad karma for 7 years)
"Well I gots me a girlfriend! Pretty just like you!"
"She's a lucky girl!"


I'm not sure what was in the air this morning, but old men today were out & about, bringing their A-game!  Yeah that's right.  I may be single, but I have options.


But you haven't heard the best old man story.  I saw MY old man on the train yesterday!  Just like always I looked for him on the platform, no old man in sight.  I started to fiddle with my phone and when I looked up, there he was!  It turns out that he had family in town for a while, and then I was never able to catch my normal train after that.  We had so much to catch up on, I wish the train would have slowed down.  I told him about this blog, but I don't think he really understood what it was.  I watched him stroll out the doors at his stop and my heart sank a little, not sure when I'm gonna see him again.  So there it is... my day filled with sweet chocolate & sweet old men.

Hot Mess

This week is all about... wait for it.... CHOCOLATE!  Yes you read me write (dumb joke, I know)  We started today with the basics of working with chocolate, and the best way to temper chocolate.  The classic way is to pour 75% of it onto the granite table and cool it.  Then you mix it with the last 25% and voila! Tempered chocolate.  Problem though.  The idea of smearing messy chocolate all across my clean table made me want to cringe.  This was like asking me to pour wine on a white carpet.  Do I have to?  Yes I did have to.  After the initial shock, it was kinda fun.  Except, I was way tempted to place both hands in my puddle of chocolate and stick them to my partner's face.  I restrained myself, and casted all of my chocolate pieces.  If it wasn't for Chef Scott, I would have easily bypassed the hand washing station and licked my fingers clean from the melted chocolate.  Actually, make that my fingers, hands, wrists, and forearms, clean from melted chocolate.  I think it should be illegal to rinse chocolate down the drain.  When I was done, I quickly rinsed my spatula before it went missing.  "Where did my spatula go? Oh yeah, it's in my mouth."


On a serious note, it kills me to see some babies on the train.  On the way home tonight I saw a baby girl wrapped up in a once-white bath towel and a cut up men's jacket.  Her cigarette-smell drenched mother was asking if she was hungry in a sweet playful voice.  Then she pulled out a musky bottle filled only with water.  The baby girl was hardly even 3 months old.  I hate seeing this and not being able to do a thing about it.  I see toddlers chugging diet coke, babies being fed mushed up fries, or little little babies sucking on huge lollipops.  Eating poorly is supposed to be for your college years, not your baby years.  Well on that downer note I'm gonna say goodnight.  Say your prayers & brush your teeth.  Night.

Here are the pieces I made today.  I know my leaves are a little janky, leave me alone, it was my first try.

Kings of Pastry

Last night I went to go see "Kings of Pastry", and it was amazing!  Chef Jacquy has the best sense of humor, and he is beyond entertaining to watch.  I think it meant so much more to my friends and I, since we know Chef Jacquy and Chef Sebastien.  Competing for M.O.F is exhausting, and it was heart wrenching to see how stressed and tired our instructor was.  The sugar and chocolate pieces were stunning, and all of the pastries they created looked delicious!  At one point another Chef's sugar piece shattered into pieces, and this grown man just burst into tears.  I thought back to when I cried about a stupid pastillage showpiece and I started to tear up for this poor Chef.  Well, my sympathy for him was short lived because he earned the M.O.F!  He pulled it together, added some pieces to what was left of his showpiece, and won!

Being girls, and having just watched a whole film on pastry, we went on a search for something delicious.  Since it was raining and bitter cold outside, we decided to go try out a gourmet hot chocolate place.  I decided to be brave and try out their rich dark hot chocolate.  (I know... I like to live life on the edge, I even jaywalked that same night)  I think I paid less for my college tuition than that cup of hot chocolate, but it was going to be worth it.  I took my first sip and burned my tongue so badly! 22 years of life and I'm still surprised when my HOT chocolate is hot.  Five more sips... I'm in a diabetic coma.. two more sips and I'm done.  I love rich desserts, but I could barely drink a tablespoon of this.  This is like an alcoholic saying a drink is too strong, trust me it was rich.

On the train ride home the rain started pouring down.  My brother and his wife were away last night, but my neighbors knew I wasn't home yet, so they came and got me at the train station.  Yeah they are so getting into heaven.  I love them.  I warmed up at their place and we started talking about the scariest movies we've seen.  This then of course led to... "hey we should watch a scary movie tonight!"  I changed into my pjs and we watched the creepiest movie.  Afterwards, I walked back up to my apartment  and I opened the door to a dark room.  "Umm... I did not think this plan through".  Of all the nights I could have watched a creepy movie!  I ran to my room, made a wall of pillows around my whole body, and slept with my hoodie over my head.  I will be 48 yrs old and still believe that a wall of pillows will protect me from psychopaths and ghosts.  Ignorance is bliss.

Sugar Class Cake

Here it is!  Today we assembled our cakes and used all of our sugar decorations to design this!  I cannot say enough how much I love working with sugar.  Oh and as promised... no tear-filled Friday, not even furrowed brow of concern.  Today was a fabulously tiring day and I'm so glad all of my favorite pieces made it onto my cake.  Don't be fooled though, these final pieces are the products after several failures.  The first bird I made out of blown sugar looked like a wiener dog.  I couldn't just throw this cake away, so I decided to take it home on the train.  Brown line... to the red line... to a text message to my brother to come get me.  He, being a total sweetheart, came and got me so I wouldn't have to make the last transfer.  The train ride home was as smooth as chunky peanut butter.  At one point a leaf snapped off and everyone around me let out a loud gasp, as if someone had just stabbed me.  When I got home I put that leaf under our gas stove and sealed it back on, good as new.  Everyone had nothing but sweet things to say.  My favorite was this cute pregnant woman who was asking me questions about how everything was made.  Or, a gentleman who said, "Lady, that is an insanely beautiful cake, and you are a *beep*ing crazy person to bring it on a train".  Well it is now home safe.  Tonight I'm off to see "Kings of Pastry".  Did y'all watch the trailer?  No? Go watch it!