Quick Projects

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year.  I had a busy time traveling for three weeks between Washington, New York, and Boston enjoying the holidays, but still going to school.  During the broken up weeks that we were in school we decorated sugar cookies using the colorflow method.  We made runny royal icing and piped an edge around the cookies and then "flooded" the cookies with the icing.

We also made some cupcakes trying out vegan and gluten free recipes.  Some were good, others just ok. We decorated them with fondant practicing making cutouts and using impression molds.  

Another project was practicing covering cakes with fondant and piping upside down swags with royal icing.  We also used fondant to make roses that are supposed to look like they are made out of fabric. To finish off the cake we stenciled on top of the cakes.

Hope everyone is having a great 2012! Thanks for reading and Bon Appetit!

The Eventful Voyage of a Lemon Cake

Last Thursday before our Christmas break we assembled a delicious coconut chiffon cake with lemon curd filling and covered it with marzipan that we made from corn syrup, almond paste, and powdered sugar.  The cake was beautiful and delicious!  It was adorned with marzipan roses and leaves and it was quilted and then decorated with royal icing.  The newest technique we learned for this cake was lace points.  We piped out small lacy like designs with the royal icing and then once they were dry we picked them up and attached them to the cake using more royal icing as an adhesive.  You can see how the lace points stand up so that they are 3D coming off of the cake.

Another try at quilting and piping dropped strings.

My monogram writing and 3D lace points border.

My Marzipan Roses

My finished cake before it's voyage.

Since I was leaving straight from class to fly home for Christmas I decided to wrap my cake in plastic wrap and attempt to bring it home.  It was a very involved voyage, but my cake made it to VA only mildly damaged.  I carried the cake on my lap in a taxi to Laguardia, I put it in a bin and sent it thru the xray machine at security, and then I carried it on the plane and held it on my lap for the entire flight.  

The best part of the trip was that I was upgraded to first class at the last minute and I only had to carry the cake to seat 1D, perfect!  Carrying a cake, which again was only wrapped in plastic wrap, and not in a box, gets you a lot of looks from people.  Luckily, I made friends with the girl in the seat next to me.  As many of you know I HATE to talk to people on planes, but this girl was very nice and we had a lovely chat (and obviously a few drinks) on the way home.

When I landed in DC Emily came to pick me up and when we got to her house we sampled the cake and both loved it.  After dinner I took the cake home and my Mom, Dad, and Grandma tasted the cake  and also loved it.  The next morning Greg took the remains of the cake to work and all of EJF Capital got to taste one of my creations as well.  Greg said the feedback was positive, but I'm working on another not-half-eaten creation for them for January 3rd.

Until next time thanks for reading and Bon Appetit!

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!