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