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.