well, I survived both practicals for this semester and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!  Ok, I did better than just survive, and I am so relieved they are over.  I find those exams so stressful and nerve-wracking, I could never be on one of those cooking competition shows.  A lot of times people taste my food and say they can't wait to see me on Top Chef or one of those shows one day, and even though I greatly appreciate the compliment, all I can think is how I would never survive the stress and anxiety that would give me.  I would never sleep! 

So anyways, I made it through my chocolates practical on Wednesday and even though I'm not thrilled with the 92 I got, it's still an A, so I'm happy.  And I got my grade from my cakes practical and I was so excited - 100!!! That is my first perfect score on a practical, and even better, Chef told the whole class he thought my cake was the best :D  a little embarassing but mostly awesome!

For Chocolates, we had to make a truffle, a bonbon, and a molded chocolate utilizing all three chocolates (dark, milk, and white), a fruit, and a nut.  We were allowed to come up with our menus/recipes ahead of time, which I very much prefer.  I chose to do milk chocolate amaretto truffles rolled in toasted almonds, dark chocolate bonbons with white chocolate raspberry filling, and chocolate soft caramels dipped in dark chocolate and finished with sea salt.  I was super happy with all my flavors (I quadrupled the raspberry in the bonbons after tasting it and was finally pleased with the flavor), but my caps were a little thick on my bonbons and my chocolate soft caramels were almost rock hard.  They were delicious, but I cooked them just a little too long and they turned way too hard and chewy.  I still ate all the extras, but since they weren't how I intended, I lost some points there. 

On the left, each of my chocolates, on the right, my final plate

The bonbons were probably the part that made me the most nervous, because Chef is a tough judge on shells (supposed to be thin, shiny, and without air bubbles) and caps, so I decided to invest in a chocolate mold and practice at home (plus I wanted one anyways!).  Well my practice runs didn't turn out great, because I haven't figured out where to buy the high quality chocolate that we use at school yet.  I used Ghirardelli chocolate chips, which is about as good as it gets at Publix.  But it just wasn't the same, the chocolate didn't melt nearly as thin, and it made my shells and caps super thick.  But once I figure out how to get my hands on some couverture, I fully intend to keep making bonbons at home. 

My first practice run at home - white chocolate filled with some extra lemon curd I had in the fridge and raspberry jam - see how much thicker these shells are than my practical??

Second practice run at home - dark chocolate filled with extra caramel ganache from my cakes practical

Now I just have to make it through two more written exams - cost control and chocolates - this week and I will be done for the semester.  I love being in school, but I am still pumped to have almost five weeks off before fall semester starts. 

Oh, and a quick update after my little pity party about work last week - I ended up doing all the cake orders (I think it was 16 in total  including the wedding cake (luckily it wasn't stacked, so all I had to tackle this time was the decorating aspect and the customer was very pleased), but my manager helped me fill all of the other cases in the bakery - thank goodness!

The wedding cakes - she had her own stand, so I didn't have to stack them!.

Another one of my cakes order from Saturday - this sucker took FOREVER with all these details and then I showed up Monday and found out the people hadn't even picked it up :(

a little bit of everything!

well, I have had a very sugar-filled week and I have updates on just about every pastry-related aspect of my life.

first, I finished a cake today for my third (!!) cake order for my business.  This one was for a little girl who wanted a cake based on the movie Tangled.  I'll have to admit I have not actually seen this movie (although now I want to), so I did a little research and found a great coloring page online of the main character, Rapunzel.  A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I really needed to learn some new techniques for cake decorations, so for this cake, I stepped outside of my royal icing comfort zone and tried a frozen buttercream transfer.  A friend from school had told me about this method (thanks again Maymuna!) and I had been wanting to try it, so this was the perfect opportunity.  I was pretty happy with how Rapunzel turned out, but I definitely learned a few things that I will improve on next time I make a transfer like this.  I also made some gum paste flowers for this cake, a technique I learned this week in the first class of my second Wilton course - more on that later.

Gum paste flowers for Aliana's cake - unfortunately you can't really see the lustre dust (sparkles!) in the picture

This cake was one of my favorite flavor combinations.  They asked for chocolate cake and said I could pick the icing.  I didn't want to go too crazy, since I knew it was for kiddos, but I was really excited to be able to get a little more creative this time.  I made a rich chocolate fudge cake (and didn't overflow my mixer!! again, more on that later :D) I went with a chococolate-chocolate chip mousse for the filling and then frosted it with my trusted and kid-friendly favorite, cream cheese icing. 

One of my favorite fillings - chocolate-chocolate chip mousse

Ok, as promised, a little more info on my second Wilton course.  The first class was all about gum paste flowers.  I was really excited to learn some of these because so far I only know how to make buttercream flowers, which you pretty much have to make and use immediately on a cake.  However, gum paste flowers can be made way ahead of time and they dry hard and last pretty much forever.  We learned button flowers and pansies, and now I can't wait for Course 4 to learn more about gum paste.  The rest of this course, starting next week, is going to be royal icing flowers - another new technique for me that I am very excited to learn.

Button flowers

Pansies

And, I am soooo excited to show off my new mixer!!  After making the first couple of cake orders and either overflowing the mixer bowl or having to split the batter up and use a hand mixer to finish it, Trevor and I decided that it really was time to invest in a bigger mixer if I am going to keep making sheet cakes.  Now don't worry, I still love and plan to cherish and use my beautiful KitchenAid that Trevor got me first, but I am already enjoying my new Cuisinart 7-qt mixer that was delivered this week.  I had been eyeballing it for a while on Amazon, waiting for the price to come down, until I found out I could order it from Bed Bath and Beyond and use one of those awesome 20% off coupons they send out (I was a little shocked it wasn't on the exclusions list, but hey, I'm not complaining!).   Once we decided to pull the trigger and order it, I couldn't wait for it to get here and I think it was the longest week and a half of my life while it shipped.  However, I couldn't ask for better timing, because it was waiting for me on Wednesday night when I got home from my Contemporary Cakes practical exam, which just felt like the biggest reward ever for surviving my toughest practical yet. 

That's right, it's already practical time!  I feel like this semester flew by! Oh wait, that's because it did.   An already short 12-week semester instead of 16, and then we missed a week for July 4.  This past Wednesday was my contemporary cakes practical, and I was more than a little nervous.  We were assigned an inspiration and we had to come up with a crunchy base, a cake layer, an insert, a mousse, and a garnish.  My assignment was a Twix bar, and I went with a sugar cookie base, caramelized jaconde on the outside and another layer of jaconde on the inside, caramel ganache for my insert, and caramel milk chocolate mousse.  Then I used some more ganache on top of my cake and made a garnish with extra sugar cookie and caramel drizzle.  I was really happy with the appearance of my cake as well as the flavor.  The only area where I think I really could have improved was my layers - they didn't have the contrast or colors that Chef is usually looking for, but I guess I did the best I could with a brown, brown, and brown candy bar and the 5 hours I had to make and garnish the cake.  Also, I think the flavor tended more towards caramel and didn't emphasize the chocolate as much.  Delicious all the same (especially for a caramel lover like me), but not as close to my inspiration as some of the other cakes.  All in all, I am pretty satisfied with how it turned out.  Now I just have to wait until next week to find out my grade...more than a little stressful, but I am just glad it is OVER! 

Finished product

Cross-section of my layers

Close-up of my garnish

I have one more practical exam for Chocolates class next week (I have to make truffles, bonbons, and molded chocolates in 5 hours), and then three written finals and I am done for the semester. 

But before I even start to think about that, I have to survive work tomorrow.  I am so nervous because I am working completely by myself - I always work with a full-time decorator since I am still an apprentice.  However, due to scheduling conflicts (more than a little sarcasm and eye-rolling implied here), I am stuck by myself on the busiest day of the week.  That means I have to do all of the cake orders (sometimes up to 20 on a Saturday, I did 16 last week), PLUS fill all of the rest of the items that we stock in the bakery, PLUS there is an order for a wedding cake.  This is a lot even for two full-time decorators, so I can't believe they are sticking one little apprentice with all of it :( and I am just terrified that it will be a complete disaster.  I really hope that my manager will make the wedding cake, since I have not even been trained on that AT ALL, but I have a bad feeling I am going to be left high and dry to do it all on my own.  I just hope I don't let anybody down that has a cake order for tomorrow.  Most of the time it is really rewarding to think about how important the cakes I make at work are for a lot of people - how they are often a huge part of a very special occasion for a complete stranger, and I can help make that day extra special for them.  But it is also a lot of pressure!  Wish me luck....

as soon as I get in the swing of things...

well, I was finally starting to feel more comfortable and confident in Chocolates and Contemporary Cakes, and then I realized the semester is almost over!  I have my practical exam in Contemporary Cakes next week, and then Chocolates the week after.  I'm super nervous about the Chocolates one, especially because I picked a recipe I have never made before.  Don 't worry, I am going to practice that one at home first. 

The practicals this semester are way different than last semester.  Rather than showing up and being given an item to make from memory, we were given certain parameters and get to plan our own menus.  For chocolates, we have to make one truffle, one bonbon, and one molded chocolate, incorporating all three types of chocolate (dark, milk, and white) and a fruit and a nut at some point.  I decided to make milk chocolate and amaretto truffles rolled in toasted almonds, dark chocolate bonbons with white chocolate raspberry filling, and soft caramels dipped in dark chocolate for my molded chocolate.  It's the soft caramel recipe that scares me because I have never tried this specific one, and I have had trouble with other soft caramel recipes at home - I seem to always take them off the heat too soon and they turn to mush.  That would be a major problem for my exam because they have to be firm enough to cut in perfect squares and dip in chocolate - part of the grade is based on appearance.  But I went through all of the other molded chocolate recipes and just couldn't get excited about any of the others, so here goes nothing!

In Contemporary Cakes, we had to draw a card with the "inspiration" for our cake.  About half the class drew classic cookies (chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, etc) and the other half was candy.  I drew Twix, and I'm actually pretty excited with that choice.   We have to have a crunchy base, a sponge cake, an insert, and a mousse, and of course a garnish.  Since a Twix has three very specific components, it makes it kind of easy to choose what my different layers will be.  And I am really excited about my idea for the garnish, I just hope it turns out how I am imagining it in my head!

Anyways, here is a little catch-up of what I made in class since my last post.   In Chocolates, it has been more bonbons and molded chocolates, and then last week we started learning taffy and nougat.  However, cutting the recipes in fourths like usual made them too small and everyone's taffy and nougat turned out rock hard, so we are going to redo them next week. 

My first molded chocolates - Orange butter ganache coated in dark chocolate

My "toucan" bonbons - white chocolate with two layers of ganache inside - passion fruit and mango

My pecan and peanut divinity - too dry, but still tasty!

My hard-as-a-rock molasses taffy

Bonbons with Refresh tea infused ganache - didn't think I would like these but they were DELICIOUS!

In Contemporary Cakes, we have been coming up with our own recipes based on inspirations that Chef assigns us.  For the first one, he just gave us two flavors and we had to have a crunch base, a cake, a fruit insert, and two bavarians (mousses).  My flavors were passion fruit and coconut, so I made a coconut Japonaise (meringue) for the base, passion fruit bavarian, passion fruit gelee, jaconde (sponge cake) soaked with coconut rum, and coconut bavarian.  Then I topped it with more passion fruit gelee and garnished it white chocolate designs and toasted coconut.  I was very pleased with the appearance of this cake, but the flavors weren't my favorite.  I'm not a huge coconut fan anyways, but both bavarians didn't have much flavor, and the gelee had WAY too much gelatin and was super rubbery.

My cake diagram

The next week was all classic cakes and pies - apple pie, German chocolate cake, lemon meringue pie, etc.  We had to take the classic recipe and make it "contemporary."  I drew carrot cake and I couldn't have been more excited.  One of my favorite classic cakes and I have been stuck on the carrot-cream cheese-lemon combo since our wedding (it was the top tier).  My partner and I decided on a graham cracker crust (fancied up with some cinnamon, brown sugar, and walnuts), two layers of carrot cake, a cream cheese mousse, a lemon curd insert, a lemon mousse, and a caramelized jaconde on the outside.  We garnished it with lemon curd, candied pecans, and grated carrot shards (ok, Chef made the carrots for us because we didn't have the equipment at school....).  I loved the way it looked, especially when he cut it open and we could see all the layers an different colors.  I also loved the way it tasted, although the lemon overpowered the cream cheese mousse a little. 

In fact, I loved it so much I just can't seem to get off of my carrot cake kick, and I made carrot cake cupcakes filled with lemon curd and iced with cream cheese icing yesterday for Trev's work meeting.  I think lemon curd might be my favorite thing I have learned in culinary school so far - it is so easy and sooo yummy! 

I also made a berry trifle yesterday for Trev and I for the 4th - angel food cake, strawberries, blueberries, sugar-free vanilla pudding, and whipped cream.  It was so easy (I may have used a few shortcuts) and I think it is a perfect summer dessert - light, refreshing, cool, and of course utilizes some of those berries I can't resist buying when they are on sale.  To me, the 4th is just not a cake holiday - and I never realized it was to other people until I started working at Publix.  I think the only time I really ate cake growing up was at other kids' birthday parties - my mom served fruit in the summer, cookies and pumpkin pie for the holidays, and cheesecake on our birthdays.  I still am not a fan of regular birthday cakes (shh, don't tell my boss, but I can't stand our buttercream at work!), and although I have obviously come to love a lot of other kinds of cake, there are just some holidays when I am astounded by the amount of cakes and cupcakes we sell.  I feel like a broken record every time a holiday rolls around..."I didn't know this was a cake holiday!"

Alright, I've got two practicals coming up and a test in Cost Control next week, so it's time to get back to the planning and studying!  Thanks for reading :)