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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Button flowers |
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| 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!
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| Finished product |
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| Cross-section of my layers |
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| 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....
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