Merry Christmas!

This week was my third week of class and we began working with fondant.  We covered 2 dummy cakes made of styrofoam and one Milk Sponge Cake filled with two layers each of pistachio buttercream and apricot buttercream.  We also made our own fondant and used it to cover one of our cakes.  We covered the other two cakes with a brand of fondant commonly used in professional bakeries called Satin Ice.  The Satin Ice was definitely easier to work with, but the fondant was fun to make and would make a great alternative if you needed extra fondant in a pinch.  The first dummy cake we made was wrapped with a fondant ribbon border and piped using a pattern called Swiss dots.

A 9-inch round cake covered with my fondant and the Swiss Dot technique.

The next cake we made was a 2-tiered Christmas present cake.  It had a little much going on for my taste, but it incorporated a lot of new techniques that I had never tried.  It was time consuming, but fun to make.  The first thing we did was cover the bottom tier with fondant and then we created a quilted pattern on all over the cake.  The quilted lines were very difficult to measure, but I think they turned out pretty well for my first attempt.

Probably my cake's "good side."

My quilted cake.

After quilting the bottom layer we filled the top of our second tier with something called Cornelli Lace.  To make Cornelli Lace you draw squiggles with your icing making sure that none of your lines ever cross one another.  The lace was time  consuming, but very beautiful.

My first attempt at Cornelli Lace.

The bird's eye view of my top tier.

After creating lace to cover the top of our cakes we painted holly leaves on the sides of the top tier using a technique called needlepoint.  We piped the outline of the holly leaves using royal icing and then used a paint brush to pull in the edges of the leaves and fill the middle making a kind of sewn looking finish.  My holly was not good at all, but at least I tried!  The holly berries were simply red fondant balls.  Our next step was to cover the bottom tier with a ribbon and create a red fondant rope border for the top tier and finally to stack the cake.

My atrocious holly leaves!

Did I mention we also made fondant ribbons and put used those as cake toppers?

My fondant ribbon.

My stacked cake.

And another view

To top the entire cake off, we made 100 yellow fondant buttons and painted them with a gold paste made from vodka and gold luster dust.  We affixed the buttons to the crosses in the quilting using yellow royal icing.  Et voila!  Here's my finished cake.

My buttons

The finished product

Thanks for reading and Bon Appetit!

Chocolicious Roses

Finally, after 10 days we made our first really rich and delicious chocolate cake!  We actually made two chocolate cakes.  They were very cute and only 6 inches in diameter.  We filled them with chocolate ganache and covered them with a chocolate glaze.  Finally we used modeling chocolate to start making chocolate roses.  We were a little rushed because we were running a bit over time, but I think the roses turned out pretty well.  I also attached a picture of my first rose in Paris, I've certainly come a long way!  The last picture is of the marzipan rose I made for my Alhambra at Cordon Bleu.  I think this rose is the prettiest, so I'm hoping to improve my modeling chocolate skills soon.

My first rose, yikes!

My beautiful marzipan rose accompanied by candied violets.

Thanks for reading and Bon Appetit!

Fruitcake Updated

One of the best lessons I've had so far was the basket weaving lesson.  While I've never had an actual urge to learn to weave those Charleston baskets I've always wanted to know how to pipe one onto a cake.  So, here's the basketweave cake we learned to make.  It's supposed to be a basket that is full of fruit.  What do you think?

Hope you enjoyed my take on a "fruit basket."  Bon Appetit!

First Exam

At the beginning of the second week of class we had a practical piping exam and a written test on the recipes we'd been learning and the techniques we'd been using to bake and decorate our cakes.  At the end of the 10th day of class we received our grades for both tests as well as a break down of our marks in the class.  I was very pleased and surprised to have earned some of the highest marks in my class.

Here is a picture of my exam cake.  It was a 3 layer genoise sponge cake filled with raspberry jam and covered with a pate a bombe buttercream.

I was pleased with my borders, but need to work on giving my rosettes more height.
Bon Appetit!

Mini Wedding Cake Anyone?

And, voila!  As you know, I made these two cakes and stacked them on Friday.  The cakes were white sheet cake that I cut into circles and layered to make a 2-tier layer cake.  The filling, frosting, and decorations were all made of Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  As a review from my other blog, there are 3 types of Meringue.  This buttercream was based on a Swiss meringue, but we will also be learning about and making a French meringue buttercream and an Italian meringue buttercream.

This cake was not necessarily the most beautiful thing I've ever made, but it was a great exercise in practicing piping.  From what I've seen from myself and the other students I'm definitely an efficient, clean, organized, and quick worker, but I'm not necessarily the best overall piper.  I'll keep you posted, but I hope you keep checking back in with me!

My Blank Canvas

My finished product!

Reverse Shell piping in purple and Ruffle edge piping in green.

 Bon Appetit!

Week 1 Completed!

At the end of Week 1 I can definitely say I am in love with this program.  I had a great time going to school this week and cannot wait to go back on Monday.  We rounded out the end of the first week by making a chocolate genoise sponge cake, a mousseline buttercream, and a chocolate buttercream.  We also stacked our white cakes and built our first tiered cake.  We will practice piping and complete and decorate our tiered cakes on Monday.  The best news of the week is that my Mom, Dad, Grandma, and the Tugwells all came up to sample both of the cakes I made this week.

An example of rosettes

A swag border

My tiered cake to be continued on Monday!

Thanks for reading and hope you'll check back Monday or Tuesday for the completion!

Bon Appetit!

ServSafe....what?

The French Culinary Institute could not be more different from Le Cordon Bleu.  The school is physically bigger, but in addition to that the kitchens are huge, the ovens are gas, a ton of the Chefs are women, all of the Chefs are super friendly, and the biggest difference is that all of the students take a food safety course and become Servsafe certified!  Apparently food safety certifications are a huge deal in the US.  Who knew?  I've learned more about hygiene, contamination, and food borne pathogens in 4 hours of class than I learned the entire year I was in France.  I'm not sure if knowledge is power, but it certainly is eye opening.

In addition to taking a food safety course the structure of the class itself is much different than at Cordon Bleu.  My class, which can enroll up to 14 students, only has 7 students.  We have one head Chef and each day we have an assistant Chef as well.  My Chef is Cynthia Peithman and she has quite a resume.  She is a full time pastry chef at FCI, but also runs a business out of her home making wedding and occasion cakes.  Her business is called Cakeline and I think she will be an amazing resource now and in my future.

For the past few days we've been working with Genoise cakes and learning about different kinds of Buttercreams.  While I did learn recipes for these items last year in school the learning process here is much more in depth.  I'm retaining a lot more information because I'm not just repeating a recipe, I'm learning how and why ingredients in that recipe interact and respond to each other.  We also have a textbook with our recipes, tips for executing each recipe, and the history and science behind each recipe.  The experience is much more hands-on and interesting.

On Monday we made a Genoise and refrigerated it until we could make Pate a Bombe based Buttercream on Tuesday and decorate it.  Today we made a Chocolate Genoise, a white sheet cake, and a batch of vanilla flavored pastry cream and refrigerated those to assemble and decorate tomorrow.  I was not very pleased with my Genoise, but we'll be making them again for a practical test on Tuesday.  Hopefully I'll perform better next time!  I do think the rosettes I piped on top of the cake were quite nice in relation to what Chef Cynthia was asking us to do.  Here are some photos.

Genoise Cakes before being decorated.

The side of this cake could have been MUCH smoother.

My rosettes.

My finished cake filled with raspberry jam.

Keep checking back and until next time Bon Appetit!