I can't believe it! My classes at the French Pastry School are officially over. I got through my final wedding cake without too much drama and I'm very happy with the final product. We were given the outline for our final cake at the beginning of the program so we had 14 weeks to come up with our designs. The theme of the cakes was winter wedding. We each had to make a storyboard with a sketch of what we wanted our cake to look like. I wanted to make a cake that was rustic but still had some bling and sparkle.

Once again I don't have any pictures of the process of making the cake. My cake was very ambitious so I didn't have much free time. We had approximately 20 hours over 4 days to complete our wedding cakes. I had a lot to do and was busy ever day. I was really busy on the last day and was worried I wouldn't finish, but it all came together in the end and I am so happy with the result.

In the end my cake turned out almost exactly how I pictured it. I did a 3 tiered square cake covered in white fondant. I used a technique called quilting to create the diamond pattern and added edible sliver pearls for some extra bling. Our cakes had to include a monogram so I used my parents, Willard and Deirdre's initials. They never really had a wedding cake so I thought I would make them one. I wanted each tier to look like it was resting on sticks so I used cake separators to raise the tiers up and filled in the space with chocolate sticks.

To make the sticks I used a technique Chef Scott demonstrated. I got a large container and filled it with ice water. I then piped tempered chocolate directly into the water. Because it was so cold it set the chocolate immediately, giving it a natural, rustic shape. I also used this technique for the nest on the top of the cake.

The pinecones, roses and robins are all made from gumpaste. The pinecones were definitely the most time consuming part of the cake. For the large pinecones I molded each needle individually with a silicone former then assembled it all together on floral wire. Each has about 60 needles and took around an hour the make. I love how they turned out so it was worth it.

My time at the French Pastry School was an amazing experience and I'm so sad it's over. It was everything I hoped it would be. I learned so much from some amazing teachers and pastry chefs. It went by faster than I could have imagined. I got to meet some wonderful and talented people and had the best classmates anyone could ask for. Tomorrow is graduation and I can't wait to be with all the ladies in my class so we can celebrate our accomplishment together! Thank you everybody for reading about my time in Chicago. I hope you enjoyed hearing about the journey. I'll have pictures from graduation up soon, but until then.

Happy baking,

Kayla

Well I'm almost done my first week of finals! We spent the first two days of the week with Chef Nicholas learning how to make some new sugar flowers. Here are pictures of what we created.

Stephanotis

Sweet Pea

Cymbidium Orchid

Hydrangea

On Wednesday we began working on our cakes. We were placed in groups of two to create a Sweet 16 cake. We were partnered up a few weeks ago so we had time to plan out our ideas. After combining our two designs we came up with a flapper/fashion themed cake. We had six hours over two days to complete it. 

Each group had to do a sketch of how they wanted their final cake to look. After some thought, this is what we came up with. 

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the cake in progress as we were busy trying to get it all done on time, but here is our final product! 

The time went by really fast and we almost didn't finish, but we managed to pull it together in the end and I'm so happy with the final result! Everyone in our class did an amazing job and I'm so excited to see all the wedding cakes finished.

These are all the other cakes made from the people in my class. It was awesome to see them all together. So that's one cake done, and only one more to go before graduation! Our final cake will be a winter themed wedding cake. We'll have around twenty hours over five days to complete it. I'm a bit nervous but I think it will all come together in the end. Here's hoping anyway... Wish me luck! The next time you hear from me I'll be done my Wedding cake! Until then.

Happy baking,

Kayla

Well, my regular classes at the French Pastry School are officially finished. We spent the last two weeks working on Taste and Cake Building with Chef Joshua Johnson. We learned about different types of cakes and fillings that can be used in Wedding and special occasion cakes. It was awesome to be able to do even more baking and to learn so many new recipes. Chef Joshua, who use to have his own chocolate shop also showed us some of his favourite recipes including brownies, chocolate milk and caramels. I currently have five delicious cakes in my freezer so I'll be set for dessert until I leave!

The only bad part about all the baking we were doing was the dishes. Over the two weeks we made over twenty different recipes, so needless to say we had a lot of cleaning up to do.

This is the first cake we assembled. It's components are orange hazelnut biscuit, hazelnut japonais, bitter orange marmalade, coffee mousseline, coffee crumble and coffee buttercream.

Our second creation. Lemon almond biscuit, coconut dacquoise, lemon cream, almond pralinettes, fresh apricots and vanilla anglaise buttercream.

Despite the fact that I don't usually like chocolate, this cake was my favorite! Chocolate biscuit, pistachio cinnamon ganache, chocolate mousse, caramelized pistachios, cocoa nib florentine crisp and dark chocolate ganache. My dad loves chocolate and pistachios so I can't wait to try this out on him!

This cake was a close second! Almond genoise, caramelized almonds, vanilla anglaise buttercream and fresh strawberries. I would like to try making this again when strawberries are in season. I'm sure it would be even more amazing.

We were only scheduled to make four different cakes but we had some extra time at the end of the week so Chef showed us a few extra recipes to make another one. We also used some leftover components from the previous cakes. This is what we came up with. Chocolate genoise, dark chocolate ganache, almond pralinettes, vanilla crémeux and peanut butter mousse all sprayed with milk chocolate.

We had a little extra cake left over at the end of the week. Luckily one of my classmates took mine because I don't think it would have all fit in my freezer.

Of course we had to try all the different cakes we created! Luckily my chef pants have an elastic waist.

I had an awesome time these last two weeks. It made me realize that, although I love cake decorating and making food look beautiful, baking will always have to be a part of my job because I love it so much as well. Besides, it doesn't matter how nice something looks if it doesn't taste amazing. I can wait to get home and try out some new recipes on my family and friends. Next week we will be starting our final projects. First we will be creating a sweet 16 cake with a partner. Then for our final project we will each be creating a winter themed Wedding cake. I am equally nervous and excited to get started. Wish me luck!

Happy baking,

Kayla

Hello and Happy American Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends! This week we learned about petit fours. It was only a three-day week because of the holiday so it was very busy. Because of this I didn't manage to get as many pictures as I would have liked but I got a couple. This week we made a total of 13 different products from cookies to tarts. All the things we were working on made me realize how much I miss baking. The timing for this unit was perfect because we got to take everything we made home so everyone in my class had ample baking to take home to their family's for dessert on thanksgiving.

Here are some pictures of the products we made. The 13 different pastries we prepared included four kinds of tuiles, three types of cookies, three bite sized cakes, two different chocolate cups and one variety of tart. Some of the products were fresh and had to be eaten within a day and some could be frozen. I wrapped up some of the pastries and put them in my freezer so I can bring them home for Christmas. 

Chef created a display of all the products we made throughout the week. From left to right we have Coconut Sesame Seed Tuiles, Coffee Hazelnut Tuiles, Orange Almond Cocoa Nib Tuiles, Pistachio Poppyseed Cigarettes, Chocolate Diamants, Almond Bread, Vanilla Sable Cookies, Chocolate Fondant Cakes, Exotic Cakes, Hazelnut Cinnamon Sour Cherry Cakes, Chocolate Caramel Espresso Cups, Strawberry Banana Green Tea Cups and Lemon Cream Tarts. The dark drown cakes at the end are Canelé's. We didn't actually make these but Chef did a demo on how to make them and we got to sample the finished product!

All in all it was a very fun and crazy week. Everything was delicious and I can't wait to make it all again! Next week we will be doing even more baking in the Cake and Taste Building unit. Until then, thanks for reading.

Happy baking,

Kayla

Hi everybody and welcome to Sculpted Cakes week! I was very excited for this unit as I've always wanted to learn more about sculpting cakes and about creating a structure to build cakes on. This cake was the first one we worked on with partners. I'm lucky enough to like everyone in my class so I wasn't too worries about who my partner would end up being, and I wasn't disappointed. I generally prefer to work alone on cakes but we have a Sweet 16 cake as one of our final projects, and we have to do it with a partner so it was good practice for me. 

This cake used a lot of different techniques, many of which we learned about in the previous weeks of the program. Some of the components were made of cake, some of Rice Krispie treats and some of Styrofoam. We also made detail pieces from gum paste and pastillage.

The soccer ball was the only non-edible component of the cake, other than the structure. We made another ball out of cake but this one was Styrofoam. We covered it in white fondant then used hexagon and pentagon templates to create the design.

This was the board for the base of the cake. We covered a piece of particleboard in ivory fondant then airbrushed on the wood plank design. I was so excited to learn this technique and was amazed at how realistic it looked. It definitely convinced me that I need to get an airbrush!

Here are some close ups of the final cake. The bear was made from Rice Krispie treats. We made all the pieces separately (the arms, legs body and head) then covered them in fondant and attached them using tempered chocolate. We airbrushed the bear to add shading and depth. We were free to decorate the bear however we wanted so partner and I decided to go with sailor to match the boat.

The main body of the boat was made of cake and decorated with fondant. The mast and sail were made from pastillage, the life preserve from gum paste and the rope from modeling chocolate.

And here is the final cake all put together. The luggage and the red ball were the other cake components. We used pvc pipes screwed into the base to support the bear and the soccer ball with the boat on top. I love how this cake turned out. It was also fun to see how each team decorated there's differently.

Well that concludes week 11. This also happened to be our last week with Chef Scott, which was pretty depressing. Next were learning about petit fours, but the week will be short because of Thanksgiving so I bet It's going to be busy! I can't wait to tell you about all the delicious thing we're making!  Thanks for reading, until next time.

Happy Baking,

Kayla

Hello again and welcome to chocolate week! In our 10th week of class we learnt about chocolate and creating chocolate decorations. By the end of the week we were to have a two tiered dummy cake with a chocolate topper. We started off by tempering chocolate using a process called table tempering. It involves spreading melted chocolate on a marble surface to cool it down before adding it to more melted chocolate. We then cast chocolate demi-spheres to build the cake topper on.

Here are some of the components we created for the cake topper. The butterfly wings were cast from dark chocolate. We spread tempered chocolate between bars to get an even thickness. Once the chocolate was partially set we cut the shape out with an exacto knife and left it to fully harden. We did the same with white chocolate to add details to the wings. The green leaves and stems were created using modelling chocolate made from cornstarch, cocoa butter and cocoa butter colour. We added everything to a food processor and blended it. Friction created from mixing melted the cocoa butter and the result was a stiff paste that could be moulded, but set very hard once it dried. 

In addition to working with chocolate all week we got to sample some of Chef's baking! He made us chocolate éclairs and pecan pie, both of which were delicious!

Another component of the topper was a white chocolate flower. The center was made by dipping a small chocolate sphere in melted chocolate and rolling it in yellow cocoa butter chunks to resemble pollen. We made the petals by dipping a pairing knife in white chocolate and pressing it onto an acetate strip. When you pulled the knife off it created the center vein. While the chocolate was still soft we placed the strips on formers to create the curve in the petals.

Here is a close up of what the flower looked like when it was completed. Unfortunately my flower got broken the night after I made it. I had to re-build it the next day. Thankfully I made a lot of extra petals so it didn't take too much longer. It just didn't look quite as nice as the first time I made it.

This is what the final cake looked like. It was awesome to learn more about chocolate and how to incorporate it into a cake design. Though I didn't take the whole cake home I did disassemble the topper so I could kept all the chocolate. I'm glad it wasn't made from milk chocolate or it would all be eaten by now! I don't really like dark chocolate so I will have a lot to bring home. Next week is sculpted cake and I can't wait to get started! As always, thanks for reading.

Happy baking,

Kayla

Hello everybody! I hope you all had an excellent Halloween and ate as much candy as I did! This week we learned about sponge and buttercream cakes. Aside from our fruitcakes, this was the first time we got to decorate real cake and not styrofoam. We learnt the proper method of cutting, filling, icing and stalking the cakes. We also got to learn some new buttercream piping techniques, including swags, Swiss dots and buttercream roses. 

We baked three different kinds of cake, white cake, yellow cake and chocolate cake. They each had a different Swiss buttercream filling, which included vanilla, chocolate and caramel. All the cakes were then covered in Italian buttercream. My personal favourite was the white cake with vanilla buttercream.

This is my current partner Ruby, who was very excited to be decorating our first real cake!

We decorated the cake differently on each side in order to practice more piping techniques. This side was the more traditional side and the decorations included fleur de lis, swags and buttercream roses. 

I've attempted to do buttercream roses before but have never had much success. I still had trouble with these ones but managed to get a couple good looking ones. Luckily we had several hours to practice the piping techniques on dummy cakes before we had to do the real thing. 

This was the other side of the cake, which was a bit more modern and simple. It was definitely the easier of the two to decorate.

Well our first full week of baking was really fun! I love decorating cakes but I've missed the baking and filling part as I haven't done it in so long. I now have about three quarters of the cake left in my freezer waiting to be eaten by someone... and as this cake is large enough to serve around 50 people, it may be there for a while. So if anyone wants free cake come and visit me in Chicago! Next week we're doing chocolate decorations so I get to take home even more food! I can't wait to tell you all about it. Till next time.

Happy baking,

Kayla