back to school, back to school...

well I am officially back in school for fall semester and even though I thoroughly enjoyed the super-long break, I am really excited that classes finally started again.  I am only taking two classes this semester - Restaurant & Production Desserts and Individual & Production Pastries - from now on referred to as RPD and IPP, you are welcome. 

The first, RPD, is with the same Chef I had for my classes over the summer, so I knew a little more of what to expect in our first class.  I think that we will mostly be making plated desserts in that class, and after what we produced in the first class, I am sooo excited to see what else we will be making. 

Our first dish:  Chocolate bread pudding souffle, in a berry and red wine broth, topped with whipped mascarpone, an almond florentine tuile, and a marzipan twig.  So pretty and so yummy!  This was one of those where I thought it was going to look really great and taste just so-so but I was so surprised at how much I liked it.  And I ate the entire thing, even though Trev and I are supposed to be on a strict pre-foodie-vacation diet (more on that later).  When that berry (raspberry, cherry, blueberry, and strawberry) broth soaked in to the bread pudding, it was so delicious.  And the mascarpone really set it all off.  The only thing I would have changed at all would be to serve the sauce a little warmer because it took us so long to arrange all the garnishes that by the time we tasted it, it had cooled off a bit too much.

I took a better picture of a technique that I learned last semester in Contemporary Cakes and that we used again for the marzipan twigs.  Technically it is edible, but it is really just there for looks.  It is a little ball of marzipan, dipped in hot isomalt sugar and then allowed to drip into a long spike as it cools and hardens. 

I was a little nervous about my second class, IPP, mostly because we have a brand new teacher for it.  We met her over the summer, but we didn't really know what to expect once we got into class.  I also didn't know half of the names on the class roster, something that hasn't happened since my first semester.  Today was a little bit of a slow start, and we didn't get much done - just some layers of colored frangipane for petit fours next week that I forgot to take a picture of.  I am hoping that once she gets into the swing of things, we will do some more exciting things. 


Oh yeah, and there is another Alyssa in that class - for what I am pretty sure is the first time in my life.  So not only do I have to start signing my last name to my papers, I actually have to sign my maiden name because the school still hasn't changed it even though I turned in all the paperwork last November.  Talk about a major identity crisis!  Especially since I was just starting to get used to my new name....sigh.  

Ok, so back to our originally-football-based vacation that is turning into a gourmet travel experience.  Trevor is a big Notre Dame football fan, and has always wanted to go to a home game.  We figured we would get around to it later in life, but then my baby bro started his PhD at Purdue.  Well next Saturday, Purdue is playing at South Bend, so we are going to fly up there and meet him to go to the game.  Since we have to fly into Chicago and Trev has to take a full 7 days of vacation at a time, we decided to hang out in Chicago for three days before we trek down to South Bend. 

Now no offense to any Illinoisians (??) out there, but Chicago has never really been on my list - we usually choose vacations to beaches, mountains, somewhere with lots of outdoor activities, etc.  But then we started doing some research and realized that a lot of the famous chefs we have always seen on TV (we watch a lot of Food Network and all of the cooking competition shows, big shocker there, huh?) have restaurants in Chicago.  I also realized that there is quite a microbrewery scene in Chicago.  So we have planned out a full three days of tasting, sipping, and more tasting.  Ok, maybe a little sightseeing in between.  And even though this was originally a trip to make my hubby happy, I couldn't be more excited. 

I will take lots of food pictures for the blog, since I will miss my classes next week.  Side note, you know you're finally in school for the right thing when you are really bummed to miss class instead of figuring out how many classes you can skip without affecting your grade - that may or may not have been me the first time around. 


A few other things I have been making recently:

A cake order for another Sweet Alyssum customer



Chocolate chip cookies with pecans and salted toffee bits

Chocolate mini-cupcakes with white chocolate Italian buttercream and  salted toffee shards

Salted nutella fudge for Trev's work meeting today

it's a girl!

ok, nobody freak out...this cake was for a customer!

actually, this may be the cake order I have been most excited about so far.  I have been seeing these gender reveal baby shower cakes all over pinterest, etc, and I love the idea, but obviously had zero occasions to make one.  If you haven't heard of them yet, the basic idea is that when a pregnant mom finds out the gender of her baby, she "reveals" it to her family, friends, etc, by getting together and having a cake that is gender neutral on the outside, but then pink or blue on the inside to tell whether it is a boy or a girl. 

My hairstylist Mark's wife is pregnant, and they were going to have one of these parties for their family.  When Mark told me he wanted me to make the cake, my mind started racing with ideas.  And the best part was that he didn't even want to know the gender until the party, so not only was I one of the first ones to know, he pretty much let me run wild with picking flavors, etc - best kind of cake order there is.  I love the chance to get creative and come up with ideas that a customer might not even know to ask for.  The only real request he had was that I try to evoke the cake all the way to the right in the picture below, from the movie Meet Joe Black, for the outside design of the cake. 

The decorations were a bit of a challenge for me, but I ended up using gumpaste to make the colored balls that were inspired by the tiny fruits on the movie cake.  Then I added the question mark to continue the gender reveal theme, and just some basic buttercream borders to try to duplicate the feel of the movie cake. 

Finished cake

For the inside of the cake, I decided to try to make ombre pink layers (another pinterest idea, of course).  You can kind of see the ombre in the picture, but I think next time I would try to make the layers more distinguishable with more food coloring.  I was just afraid to have flourescent pink cake and pink cake-eaters' teeth, etc. 

I made a vanilla butter cake and then soaked it in a champagne simple syrup.  Then I used my strawberry pie filling recipe between the layers.  Last, I iced in a white chocolate Italian buttercream.  As usual, I tasted little bits of each component, but Mark told me the finished product was delicious and all the flavors blended well together.  Success!  All in all, I was super pleased with how this cake turned out, and soooo excited to be part of something so special for a family.

Also, a big thank you to Mark if he reads this - not only has he given me the chance to make a cake for him (after only seeing pictures of my work and never tasting it), he talks me up to his other clients and I have already gotten one cake order through him and another lady asked for my card when I dropped off his cake.  Thanks Mark for helping me spread the word!!

during the assembly process

Also this week I made a cupcake pull-apart cake for Trevor's big quarterly work meeting (at the beach this time), plus extra cupcakes.  The pull-apart was lemon cream cupcakes with strawberry pie filling (yes, this was extra from Mark's cake) and American buttercream (not my personal favorite, as you all know by now, but requested by the meeting organizer).  Then for the extra cupcakes I repeated the flavors of Aliana's birthday cake (the Tangled one I blogged about a few weeks ago) - chocolate cake with chocolate chocolate chip mousse filling and cream cheese icing.  It was a big hit at her party and some of the same people were going to be at the meeting. 

Lemon cream cupcakes with strawberry filling and American buttercream

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chocolate chip mousse filling and cream cheese icing

I also made red velvet whoopie pies for a co-worker's birthday.  Yes, I know we work in a bakery, but I just will never be able to resist baking treats as a birthday present.  It is just a foolproof way to make someone feel special on their birthday without having to know what to buy them as a gift.  Garth's favorite dessert is red velvet cake, but we sell red velvet cake, cupcakes, etc already, so I decided to switch it up a little and make red velvet whoopie pies with cream cheese icing.  And of course I brought extras for my other co-workers. 

Last but not least, even though I make about a hundred cakes a week at work, every once in a while I have to take a picture of one or two that I really like and want to remember.  I thought this tie-dye cake was really cool and such a breath of fresh air after all the roses, Disney princesses, and superheroes I look at all week.  I took the picture after I finished airbrushing it, but it also got turquoise peace signs and cream cheese borders later.  Such a cool technique, and I definitely wanted to remember it.

august break

well I haven't blogged much lately, mostly because I have a break from school for most of August, so I haven't been doing nearly as much baking.  Oh, and add the 100 degree Florida temperatures to that and it is just hard to get motivated to turn on my oven.  But I have made a few things in the past couple of weeks, and I also have some pictures to post from my Wilton classes (better than late than never, right?).  Oh yeah, and good news - I got all A's for the summer semester!! 

So here is a little catch up on what I made in the second and third classes of the Wilton Course #2 I was taking.  I may have skipped the fourth class, because all we were going to do was bake another cake and then ruin it with gross Wilton buttercream, learn how to do a basketweave, and then use all of our flowers from the first few classes to decorate it.  Well, I am embarrassed to even give a cake away with that icing, and I definitely wasn't going to eat it, so that would just be wasteful.  Plus, I know how to do a basketweave from work, and I personally think it is kind of ugly and out-dated (sorry to anyone who loves it!).  Lastly, I decided I would much rather save all of my flowers to use on future cakes.  So, completely out of character, I skipped class and sat on the couch drinking wine and watching bad reality tv (ok, the second part is completely in character).

Anyways, in the second and third classes we used royal icing to make flowers.  I really like this technique because you make the flowers ahead of time and then save them for months.  They also hold their shape better than buttercream. 

Class 2 - clockwise from top left - roses, primroses, apple blossoms, and rosebuds

Class 3 - clockwise from top left - lilies, more roses, violets (yes, I know that violets aren't pink), and daffodils

Like I said, between the heat, and getting some home improvement projects done during my break, I haven't been doing much baking at home.  But my mom came to visit last week, and I got to try out a coffee cake recipe I had been saving for a while (Trevor doesn't like breakfast or raspberries, and I couldn't really justify eating an entire coffee cake by myself). 

It was great, but I loved the raspberry and cream cheese layers way more than the cake layer.  If I were to make it again, I would make the cake layer thinner or perhaps replace it with a different cake. 

Raspberry cream cheese coffee cake

I also made some rosemary parmesan foccaccia one night for dinner while she was here because of a deal I struck recently with Trevor.  Not really sure how it came up, but he made a pork loin on the grill about a month ago and it has pretty much become my new favorite food.  I told him that if he would make it once a week for supper, I would make fresh bread to go with it.  You can't really see the rosemary in the picture, but I used some from my garden so it was so delicious and fragrant.

And then this week I was off work on Thursday, so I made treats for Trev's work meeting again.  It is just too hot for rich desserts, including chocolate.  Well, at least during the day.  So I wanted to make something a little more summery and refreshing, so I modified a recipe I found on Pinterest - Key Lime Swirl Cheesecake Bars.  I changed some of the proportions a little (namely adding more lime curd than it called for, and I am so glad - I even wish I had added more.)  I thought they were great and Trevor said his co-workers did too. 

Lost a little bit of the marble effect by adding so much curd, but still pretty, no?

I had way too much lime curd left over and I love a good curd, so I gather up some other ingredients that needed to be used and made a mini tart.  I made a crust out of pretzels, butter, and condensed milk.  I found a recipe online that just called for pretzels and butter, but when I made it, it was not sticking together at all.  So I used the only thing I could find in the fridge - half a can of condensed milk.  Not the best experiment I ever tried, but not bad either.  The crust had good flavor, but it came out too thick - its quite a trick not to go to thick in a mini tart pan unless you are using a rolled dough.  I also expected it to be a little saltier because of the pretzels - I think next time I will add a little more salt. 

Crushed pretzel crusts

Then I candied some jalapenos from my garden - another recipe that didn't quite turn out how I expected, but I would make this mistake again.  I made a brown sugar caramel that is intended for candied nuts and tossed the jalapenos in it.  The caramel didn't stick to them like I had hoped, but it gave them a great sweetness that went great with the lime curd. All in all, a great taco-night dessert, even if it needs a few tweaks!

Finished Product - Lime Curd Tartlette with Pretzel Crust and Candied Jalapenos