Wedding & Special Occasion Cakes

Wow so I've been slacking really bad and yeah I've been hearing it from a couple people so here's a little update. Since my last post we have gone through the Wedding & Special Occasion Cakes module. That was really a lot of fun. Nothing like actually getting to sit down for a change while making gumpaste flowers and other decorations.  In this module, we did one occasion cake which we could choose anything like birthday, anniversary or whatever. The only thing was it could only be a one tier cake covered with buttercream and have some of the techniques we learned as far as piping with buttercream which included piping buttercream roses and other flowers. Then we covered a dummy with fondant (which I marbled blue) and practiced some techniques there as far as string work, filigree, and draping. Then it was on to my first Topsy Turvy cake. That was interesting and not that difficult. I need to work on my "whimsical" side lol. Overall it wasn't too bad though. I did get a great idea for later though which I might have to do. Stay tuned....though at my current posting rate that could be a while haha. After that I made my first wedding cake. That was awesome. We all made the same size cakes (everyone had to have a 3 tier cake...10in, 8in, 6in) and had to be covered in fondant, but then it was up to us how we decorated them. I made 30 gumpaste roses for mine as well as a monogram and added quilting to the top and bottom tier. That was my first time quilting so that was a little challenging and something I'll have to practice again but it didn't look too bad for a first effort. I originally was going to paint some of the diamond shapes in the quilted pattern as well as the monogram but since the fondant was a neutral off white I decided to just dust the whole cake instead so the entire cake had a nice shimmer to it (though you can't get the full effect in the pics unfortunately). In addition to the monogram on the middle tier I added some stenciling with royal icing. Overall I was very pleased with my first wedding cake.
Then we had a cake challenge over the last two days of the module. The theme was "A Day at the Beach". We were all given three cake dummies and it was up to us what we did from there. The winner of the challenge gets to design and execute the cake for our graduation in October. I'll cut the suspense...I didn't win. Oh well. I would have liked to have done some things differently with this cake but as I said many times, it is what it is. Naturally towards the end of the competition I had some good ideas but no time to do them. Maybe next time....

Petit Fours

Ok so I've been slacking again getting updates out there so you'll have to forgive my laziness. I have to think that's the only reason because I can't come up with another one. I was hoping to pull some pics from one of the guys in the class but looks like he's gotten a little behind uploading his pics as well. I needed to borrow because for some reason I haven't taken my camera in the last several days. I think mostly because since we started Petit Fours, the first week was pretty slow with mostly cookies (double chunk chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin with white chocolate and cranberry, hazelnut, linzer, checkerboard, spritz, madelines and mini cream puffs and eclairs.
We also did some traditional classic petit four glace which are small iced cakes. These cakes are dipped in poured fondant and then some type of chocolate design like filigree is piped on top to finish them. These did not turn out so well, so no pics of those haha. We kicked those traditional petit fours up a notch today and did not dip them in the fondant but instead made chocolate plaquettes and put them on top to finish them. We added some pulled sugar deco on top but since I didn't have my camera with me today and had to wait until I got home to take the pics the sugar is not clear and shiny in the pics (due to the petit fours being placed in the refrigerator). We also did a chocolate caramel pot de creme mini half sphere on top of a pistachio biscuit. This was delish. Lastly we did some macaroons, one filled with pistachio ganache and one filled with white chocolate vanilla ganache.

Plated Desserts - Day 7-10

Day 7 of Plated Desserts had us working on some deco since we haven't really had much time to concentrate on that much. Chef Isaac showed us how to do a lot of cool stuff with sugar and then let us spend a few hours practicing on our own and making some stuff that we could use for our practical coming up. We made sugar baskets, fans, rings, and did some piping as well. Chef whips out sugar deco like it's nothing. He piped a swan with wings and added some fans around all in just a couple minutes. Ridiculous haha. I guess when you've been working with this stuff for 30 years you get good at it. Takes me a while.

On Day 8 we did pineapple fritters with coconut pastry cream and a spicy dipping sauce. So good. We also made a ton of chocolate crepes and chocolate diplomat cream to build a Chocolate Crepe Gateau.

Day 9 had us plate up Espresso Chocolate Mousse with Lemon which was inside an almond jaconde with pate chocolate decor. This looked and tasted amazing. The rest of the day was prep for the practical on day 10. Talk about a busy day. For our practical we had to prepare 2 plated desserts and 2 buffet desserts of 10 portions each. So for the days prep, I had to prepare Chocolate Caramel Pot de Creme, Creme Caramel, mini tart shells for Chocolate Raspberry Cremeux Tart, and White Chocolate Mousse.

Day 10 was practical day. We took our written final on Plated Desserts first thing this morning followed by essays that each of us had to do. Each section we are assigned a short essay on a particular dessert or ingredient that has to be shared with the rest of the class usually on the day of the practical. Mine was on the Pavlova (named after Russian Ballerina Anna Pavlova). Once that was done, we had 5 hours to complete our desserts, plate them up and have them on the table for Chef Isaac and Chef Notter to critique. I had to finish my mini chocolate raspberry cremeux tarts so I had to prepare the chocolate cremeux and the chocolate Chantilly cream. Next I had to spray my chocolate caramel pot de cremes with chocolate cocoa butter and then spray the white chocolate mousse dome with white chocolate cocoa butter and then throw all of those back in the freezer until I was ready to plate and decorate them. Time goes so fast and I ended up running out of time so I didn't get to do some of the deco I had planned like piping chocolate Fleur de Lis for the mini chocolate raspberry cremeux tarts as well as some additional pulled sugar I had planned for the chocolate caramel pot de cremes. Oh well, at least everything ended up on the table.
 
White Chocolate Mousse (plated final)

Creme Caramel (plated Final)    Chocolate Caramel Pot de Creme (in back...buffet dessert)

Previous 4 pics are some of the buffet desserts of the class.





Some of the previous days work.
Espresso chocolate mousse    Chocolate Crepe Gateau

 
Pineapple Fritters                                   Piped sugar swan

Plated Desserts & Ice Creams - Day 5,6

Monday kicked off with us spinning ice cream. We made Sour Cream ice cream, Caramel ice cream, Coffee ice cream, Chocolate ice cream, Strawberry sorbet, Gianduja sorbet,  Raspberry granita, and Pistachio gelato. Later in the day we plated the Chocolate Caramel Pot de Creme and Lime Parfait domes.
Today we plated Chocolate Raspberry Cremeux Tart, Chocolate Molten Cake with Caramel ice cream, and Savarin (which is soaked in a Rum syrup...yum).

Plated Desserts & Ice Creams - Days 1-4

Ok so I've been a bit behind in posting this week. We started a new module on Monday, Plated Desserts & Ice Creams. Turns out the first four days of this section have been a little slower than our previous sections. I've been assured that things will start to pick up next week and by the time we get to the practical we'll be wanting to pull our hair out. We shall see. I haven't decided yet if it's a bad or a good thing that we didn't bring anything home all week. I guess that gave us a chance to clean out the fridge of all the cakes we still have from last week haha. Sadly there isn't as much there as should be. Why do I have to eat it all...just because it's there...
So, let's see...what did we do all week that I have not updated you on? Creme Brulee, Creme Caramel, Chocolate Souffle, Poached Pears, Chocolate Pot de Creme, Strudel, and Lime Parfait.  I believe that's all. We have a few things in the works that we didn't get to or just didn't get to finish and we'll pick up with those next week. The Chocolate Pot de Creme is one of them. I'm sure many of you know what that is, but we'll be presenting that in a totally different way. Stay tuned and I'll share that next week.