summer school

Well since I last posted, I have started my summer semester at school. This semester I am taking Chocolates & Confections (yay!), Contemporary Cakes & Desserts (yay!), and Food & Beverage Cost Control (blech).

So far Cost Control is pretty much as expected...boring, pointless, and not even close to a challenge.  But, I have to take it to finish the program, so I guess I will just have to grin and bear it.

I really like Chocolates class so far, but that's just obvious.  The first week, each group made a different kind of truffle - my group made Bailey's truffles with toasted coconut.  The other flavors were brandy with cocoa powder, blackberry liqueur with cocoa powder, and coconut rum with toasted pistachios.  Yum!!  I never realized how easy truffles were to make!

Bailey's Truffles with Toasted Coconut

Brandy Truffles with Cocoa Powder

Coconut Rum Truffles with Toasted Pistachios

The second week, each group made another truffle and then one other item.  My group made caramel milk chocolate truffles and candied almonds.  Some of the other recipes were cashew & pistachio fudge, pralines, almond torrone, and mocha truffles.  For the candied almonds, we cooked them with sugar on the stove until they caramelized - this was the easy part.  Then we had to dump them on the table and separate each one by hand while they were still hot (ouch!).  Then, once they cooled, we had to go stand in the cooler with them for what seemed like at least an hour - brrrr! - and toss them in melted chocolate, a cup or two at a time.  We tossed them until they were completely dry and separated before adding more chocolate.  It was quite a process, and by the end my shoulders were sore, my fingertips a little burnt, and my nose was numb, but our chef said he sells these for $2 a nut at his other job.  Two dollars for ONE ALMOND!  I guess that would make it worth it....

Tossing, tossing, tossing...and more tossing

The finished almonds

Almond Torrone

Cashew and Pistachio Fudges

Walnut Pralines

Mocha Truffles

Caramel Milk Chocolate Truffles

In Contemporary Cakes, I am feeling a little overwhelmed.  A lot of people in the class have had other classes that I haven't taken yet, and I was more than a little intimidated on the first day.  He gave us two recipes for our mousse cake (we needed 6 components) and told us we could pick whatever we wanted for the other four.  Well, I didn't bring any of my other recipes to class, so I started to panic immediately.  I ended up choosing recipes from the book, but they are pretty basic and boring flavor-wise.  I just wanted to get the thing made, and we didn't have time to try to come up with any exciting flavors.  We ended up making a pate brisee, a genoise, a Cassis simple syrup, a white chocolate ganache, a vanilla pastry cream, and a white chocolate mousse.  Not very exciting in the flavors or colors.... oh well.


 My group was the last group done (by a while), and our ganache never set and so it didn't make it into our cake.  So I was definitely feeling frustrated and worried about the rest of the semester by the end of that class. 

The second week of cakes went a little better.  When we unmolded our cake from Week 1, it looked a lot better than I expected.  We used some raspberry gelee to decorate it, so that added some much needed color and flavor (although I still didn't like the white chocolate mousse).  And when we cut it open, only one of our layers had moved to the side!  Definitely not as bad as an outcome as I had expected after how much of a disaster the first week felt like.  And garnishing the cakes was really fun because we got to pick from all kinds of different decor items that I have never used before. 

My group's cake

After we cut it

All of the cakes from Week 1

The second cake my group made was a Chocolate Mint Mousse Cake, and I can't wait to taste this one.  It has a chocolate biscuit (sponge cake) layer soaked in mint simple syrup, a mint creme brulee insert, and milk and dark chocolate mousse.  Things went a lot smoother making this one, except that when we made the mousse and poured it into our mold, it wasn't nearly enough, so we had to rush to make another one to add to the first one before it set.  Oh, and apparently there is a picture of me picking mint in the rain in my chef uniform on some facebook page somewhere - a lady came along and started taking pictures of me after I had been out there for about 20 minutes.  Turns out you have to pick a LOT of mint to get 50 grams worth. 

So anyways, I feel a little better about Cakes class now, but I am still feeling a little overwhelmed.  But I can't wait to taste the mint cake next week, along with the recipes the other groups made. 


I know this has been a long blog post already, but I have been slacking off on writing lately and I have a few other things to catch you up on!  Remember that chocolate festival I went to?  Well I entered a drawing and "won" a free wine tasting party at home.  So I invited some friends from school and made a bunch of goodies to go with:  amaretto truffles with toasted almonds, vanilla cupcakes with coffee-flavored Italian buttercream, chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter mousse frosting, and chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing.  Plus I had to throw in some fruit and cheese:

All in all, it was a great time!

Also, Trevor has been asking me to make some goodies for his work meetings on Thursdays.  So far I have made cream puffs and cupcakes (practiced my royal icing skills to make the Waffle House logo and a Notre Dame leprchaun for his birthday cake, see below). 

But this week was a quarterly meeting where they always have a big birthday cake for people whose birthdays were that quarter.  I was a little nervous because I had never made a cake this big (okay, maybe a 1/4 sheet isn't that big, but still, I was nervous to try something for the first time when people were actually depending on me).  I made red velvet cake with cream cheese icing.  They pretty much gave me free rein when it came to decorating, so I had a little fun with it.  Trevor said everybody liked it, except that it was still a little frozen in the middle.  Whoops!  We always freeze our cakes at work and tell people to let them thaw for about an hour, so I figured if I took it out a couple hours ahead of time, it would be fine.  Usually I don't freeze cakes, but I had school 8 am to 8 pm the day before and I did NOT want to wait until the morning of in case something went wrong, so I made it on Tuesday.  Well I didn't think about the fact that this cake was much denser than the cakes we use at work.  But they ate it anyways, and I now I know for next time!  I don't mind learning through trial and error, but I just wish it wasn't in front of other people....oh well.

And last, but certainly not least, I made Trev's birthday cake.   I made carrot cake with lemon curd filling and cream cheese icing (I feel like I have gone through a case of cream cheese in the last couple weeks).  I didn't do a great job icing it because I put too much lemon curd in between the layers and they were sliding all over the place while I was trying to ice the outside, so I had to cut my losses and call it a "rustic" look, ha!  But I was really happy with how it tasted and especially happy with how my royal icing leprechaun turned out.  Even if he was backwards because I forgot to mirror the picture before I printed it...oh well! 

festival of chocolate 2012

well I love myself a good festival anyways, so when I heard that there was going to be a chocolate festival in Orlando last weekend, I was super excited.  And even more excited when a friend from school said she could get us tickets!!

It was everything I hoped it would be and more.  There were about 25 booths of different bakeries and chocolate shops from around the area, a pastry school competition, chocolate sculptures, chocolate and wine pairing classes, a liquid-nitrogen ice cream booth, and even a candy-wrapper fashion show.  And most importantly, lots of samples.  I ended up going home with two packs of bon bons (chocolate cayenne pepper, chocolate amaretto, chocolate salted caramel, and white chocolate key lime were some of my favorites!) from two different booths, some caramels, chocolate face clay and chocolate massage oil from the chocolate spa, and something else I'm forgetting....  I also got a chocolate caramel orange popsicle and a chocolate raspberry petit-four while I was there, but they didn't make it home...

I even tried to participate in the cookie stacking competition, but even though I waved my arms harder than anybody else in the crowd, I just didn't get picked.  Probably for the best though because I would have won and broken the tiny heart of the little boy that took the prize, and then I don't think I could have slept at night.  We watched most of the pastry school competition (Valencia didn't have a team), and were mostly unimpressed.  A lot of the components were made ahead of time and just plated.

And of course, I took lots and lots of pictures. 

Unfortunately my pictures of the fashion show didn't come out all that great because we were kind of far from the stage and I was taking them on my phone...but I had to share my two favorites (#3 on the first row and #4 on the second row) and then some of the most ridiculous.

All in all, I had a great time hanging with some of my school friends who share my passion for chocolate and just gorging myself on sweets.  And I definitely plan to go back next year!

semester #2...done!

Well I have officially survived my second semester!  I had my written exams Wednesday and yesterday, and now I am DONE!  It actually feels a little weird, I felt like this semester flew by.  I did well on my exams for Pastry Techniques and Cookies and should be getting A's in both of those classes, but I'm not so sure about Basic Cakes.  I got a B on the practical for that class (my buttercream was way too cold....), and since I already had an absence, the Chef told me there was a slim chance of getting an A in the class, even if I did well on the portfolio and written exam.  But I will have to hold out until grades are posted to find out....

Our last two days of class before finals were pretty fun in Pastry Techniques and in Cookies because we were pretty much done with the semester.  In Pastry Tech, we made souffles... and they weren't nearly as scary as I thought.  Each group made a cheese souffle, a fruit souffle, and a chocolate souffle.  My group made peach for the fruit souffle, and it was my favorite of the day.  Our cheese souffle didn't come out quite right because SOMEHOW the oven got turned off twice while it was baking - and that is pretty much fatal.  It tasted okay, but it just didn't have the volume it should have.

Peach Souffle

Cheddar and Herb Souffle

Milk Chocolate Souffle

Then in Cookies class, we were allowed to choose from a lot of different techniques to just learn or practice something new.  It was a very fun and relaxed class.  Some of the options were piping with buttercream, writing with chocolate, and color flow with royal icing.  Now I get plenty of practice piping with buttercream at work these days, so I chose color flow.  I had only ever tried it once before, so I was excited to experiment some more.  Unfortunately, I forgot to go back at the end of the day and pick up my dried masterpieces, so they got trashed. 

After my Cakes practical, I was a little bummed about getting a B, so I got creative at home and made myself some comfort food.  I had some heavy cream that needed to be used up, so I made my go-to peanut butter mousse, and then I made a quick flourless chocolate cake (I picked flourless instead of regular cake because I could eat it immediately, warm out of the oven, instead of waiting for it cool, but it is also a great option for people who are gluten-free) and a chocolate sauce to go on top.  Yum!  I felt better immediately :)

And then this week we had some family visiting for a few days, so I made a white chocolate cheesecake with a salted caramel sauce.  The recipe I used called for about double the amount of graham cracker crust that I usually use for a cheesecake, and I wish I had cut it in half.  Other than that, I wouldn't change anything.  And I will definitely be making that salted caramel sauce again to use for other recipes.

survived my first practical!

and it was crah-AZY!  I am talking cutthroat, chaotic, stressful craziness.  Let me give you a little background....  So our practical exam for Pastry Techniques was this week, and most of us had never had a practical exam before (non-written, hands-on, etc).  So all we knew going into it was that we would have three hours, undetermined groups, and have to make multiple recipes from memory.  Oh, and that SEVERAL people cried last semester.  Not to mention that it's 15% of our grade.  Needless to say, we were all terrified.  We already have enough trouble sharing the mixers and other tools between 6 groups, and this exam was individual, so I brought everything I could carry from home, and I am so glad.  I am talking all my mixing bowls, all my utensils, a hand mixer, anything I could think of.   And it's a good thing because some people showed up an hour early to pick the "best" spots and hoard all of the equipment. 

So we started the exam and I was so relieved to get a great group (the test was individual but we had groups that we had to share counter space, ovens, stove burners, and stand mixers with).  This was a huge plus because we all get along really well and we were able to communicate about who was using the stove next, etc with no problems.  Not the case for all the groups, just saying...  We had to make three mini tart shells (the dough for these was the only thing we made ahead of time), and fill one with ganache and one with caramel pastry cream.  Then we had to make pate a choux and pipe and bake eclairs and cream puffs.  We filled those with the caramel pastry cream we made and dipped them in ganache.  Last, we made a swiss meringue and piped it on top of the pastry cream tart and torched it.  All from scratch.  Chef gave us the ingredients but we had to know the process to make each recipe from memory.  All in three hours.  Actually the time limit wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have to share the stove burners.  For example, my group had two burners (one behind the other, so you have to lean over the other person to use the back one - not great for those of us that are 4'11") between the three of us and we each needed to use it four times during the three hours - once for pate a choux, once to make the caramel and then the pastry cream, once for the ganache, and once for the meringue. 

All in all, it wasn't as bad as I expected for me, but much worse for some people.  My group was the only group to finish on time, and some people finished at least an hour and a half late (you lost 1 point for every 5 minutes late).  I ended up getting an A even though something went terribly wrong with my tart dough and it puffed up like it thought it was a cake.  And now that it's over, I feel a little more confident going into my practical exam for Cakes this week.  A little. 

I was so flustered and nervous that I forgot to take pictures of my final products before Chef cut and tasted them, though...sorry!

I did get a bunch of pictures of the petit fours we finished up in cookies class the next morning though!  I had so much fun in this class.  We had pretty much everything made up from the week before, so we had plenty of time to get creative with our decorating. 

In cakes class, we didn't make anything :( because we prepped for the Grand Buffet the next day (all semester all the classes freeze their leftovers, and then there is a buffet open to the public for $20 each and they get to come eat all of our goodies.)  But our mini-entremets from last week were set so we got to taste them and I got a picture of ours.  So freaking good!

Stenciled jaconde filled with lemon cremeux, chardonnay-soaked blueberries, and topped with a lemon creme anglaise bavarian

Also, I have gotten braver about taking pictures of my cakes at work.  I have been working less hours (whew) now that Easter is over, so I am having way more fun again and less exhausted.  I have been learning all of the decadent desserts and cakes this week and even did my first airbrushed cake!

Alrighty that is all for now because I am supposed to be using this day off to work on my portfolios for cookies and cakes that are due this week and study for my cakes practical!  I'll let you know how it goes!

rough week, still good food

Well between working long hours every day and frustrations at school, this hasn't been a stellar week for me.  But I don't want to vent too much on here, so I will keep it short and sweet with a quick update on recipes from this week.


First, in pastry techniques class, we made mousses to pair with our cakes from last week.  My group made cream cheese mousse for the red velvet cake.  The mousse was good, but I wouldn't trade it for good ol' cream cheese icing.  There are just some recipes that you want to be dense and creamy, not light and airy.  The other mousses were chocolate, peanut butter, vanilla, strawberry, and black currant.  The black currant was my favorite by far, especially combined with the lemon cake.  Strawberry was the runner-up.  And actually, they were delicious combined too.  This was my first time tasting anything with black currant in it, and if you haven't tried it, it is tart and sour but I just loved the flavor.  It's the purplish-colored one in the pictures. 

I don't have any pictures for my other classes because we didn't finish any of our products this week.  In cookies class, we started our petit fours.  We made the cake, the buttercream, and marzipan, but we have to finish assembling, glazing, and decorating them next week. 

In cakes class, we had been moving so quickly this semester that we pretty much gained an extra week and so we got to get creative this week.  We made a coconut flavored stenciled jaconde and cut it to fit into molds, which we then filled with combinations of all the leftovers of the semester we could find in the fridge.  My group chose lemon cremeux and chardonnay soaked bluberries.  I may have sampled a blueberry or two...yum!  Then we made a lemon creme anglaise bavarian then went on top.  They have to set up till next week, so I will have pictures and tales of yumminess then.  I am super excited to taste those, can you tell?

Last but not least, I was finally able to sneak a picture of one of the cakes I decorated at work...the very popular Strawberry Peach Sensation!  Ooh-la-la!  This was actually my first time making one of these so I was pretty proud of myself. 

so much going on!

I have been so busy this week, I don't even know if I can fit it all into one post!

First, I graduated from Wilton class #1.  I was super happy with my final cake:

We finally learned the ribbon roses in the last class and also practiced handwriting and a few other things.  I signed up for the second class, and then an hour later my work schedule posted and I had been scheduled for some night shifts (I had only worked mornings so far so I thought I would be ok...).  So I had to postpone that, but I still plan on taking course #2 eventually because it covers way more flowers, including lilies, daffodils, violets, and more roses.

Work has been going well but I am just struggling with getting back into the swing of things.  I guess I took too much time off because working 30 hours plus going to school plus keeping up the house is kicking my butt.  I know I should just be grateful for all of these opportunities, and believe me I am, but I am tired!  I can barely find time for homework and housework, much less blogging or anything else fun!  Anyways, I have been decorating cakes and lots of other desserts at work, and this week we got in the Easter egg cakes.  Today I decorated 12 of those, which was fun because I could get a little more creative than with the usual cakes.  My borders and flowers are getting better, but they still need some work.

I did find a little free time this week to bake at home, including one of my favorite cookies, Oatmeal Scotchie Bars.  The neighbors brought us a housewarming bottle of wine, so I wanted to come up with something quick, easy, and yummy to thank them.  And of course I saved some for Trev and I...

I also brought home some of the puff pastry scraps from school last week and attempted my own jalousie (a streudel-ish pastry based on a type of window), based on what we were going to make in class this week.  I used some granny smiths that had been forgotten during strawberry smorgasbord, and some extra homemade caramel sauce I had in the fridge to fill it.  It was wonderful!

In pastry techniques, we baked all the jalousies that we made up last week.  We had a wide array of fillings to choose from (raspberry cream cheese, bluberry, cherry, pear, pear frangipane...), so there was a lot of tasting involved.  We also made some palmiers (aka elephant ears) from the extra puff pastry.  They look so simple and they are so easy to make, but they were amazing straight out of the oven!  I guess any pastry with that much butter would have to be, right?

The other recipe we made in pastry techniques was a fun and completely new-to-me technique.  We baked chocolate roulade in very thin layers and then cut it into even strips.  Then we covered it in French buttercream, and then rolled the strips up together.  When we turned it on its side and iced it, it looked just like any other cake.  But the fun part is that when you cut it open, it has vertical layers instead of horizontal.  I think this is a great idea to change up cake presentations, and would be a fun surprise for any occasion.  The only challenge is that not every texture of cake will roll as well, so only certain recipes would work.  I still plan to try it!

In cookies and tarts, we made an oatmeal-chocolate chip cookie tart with a graham cracker crust, and a rustic apple tart.  Neither was my favorite recipe.  The oatmeal-choc chip was good, but not amazing, and it really needed a scoop of ice cream on top.  I liked the crust on the apple tart, but since the recipe was French, it didn't call for any cinnamon or nutmeg, which I personally think should be a requirement for baking with apples.

In cakes class, we finished our Charlotte Royale.  We had made the outer mold and filled it with the mango mousse last week, so this week we basically had to pull it out of the freezer, cover it in apricot glaze, and eat it.  I loved the mango mousse.

We also made opera cake - layers of jaconde soaked in coffee syrup, coffee buttercream, and ganache.  Yum!  And that meant we got to practice writing in chocolate on top of all the tiny little pieces of cake.


All in all it was a good week, just crazy busy!  Learned a lot and had a lot of fun, but I am wiped out.  So I am off to work on some homework while I can keep my eyes open!

creams, tarts, and mousse

Well this should be a fairly short and sweet (no pun intended) blog post, because all of my classes went fairly smoothly this week. 

In pastry techniques, we were focusing on pastry creams and fillings.  We made a caramel pastry cream to fill our cream puffs and eclairs from a few weeks ago.  Then we made crème Chiboust and made a dessert by lining a mold with ladyfingers, and then filling it with alternating layers of ladyfingers, the Chiboust, and raspberry preserves.  We also made a praline flavored cream to fill our Paris-Brest from a few weeks ago.

Cream puff filled with caramel pastry cream

Ladyfingers filled with Creme Chiboust and Raspberry Preserves

Paris-Brest

In cookies and tarts, we have completely moved into tart world.  We got to taste our Bakewell tart and Pear Frangipane tart from last week, and we also made two more tarts.  The first was a fresh berry tart made with coconut pastry cream.  It was beautiful, but I didn't like the coconut flavor at all.

The second tart was a chocolate and peanut butter mousse tart.  Peanut butter mousse is always a favorite of mine, and then it was topped with a chocolate ganache.  Yum!

Finally, in cakes class we lined a mold for a Charlotte Royale with slices of the jaconde that we rolled up with preserves last week.  Then we made a mango mousse to fill it.  We also used two layers of almond japonaise from a few weeks ago inside the mousse.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to taste it yet, because it has to freeze and then we will glaze it and cut it next week.  I'm pretty excited about it, I love mangos but I have never had mango mousse.

Our mold before we filled it with the mousse