*cake pilot!*

7.08.2011

and now...a little video for your entertainment

this is just a teaser... i wonder why i made marzipan carrots?? hmm...

** music rights belong to: Munich Symphony Orchestra & Alfred Scholz available from iTunes**

petit fours and OPERA CAKE. note the emphasis on OPERA CAKE.

did i mention i'm excited to tell you about OPERA CAKE?

now it's a shame to post about anything AND opera cake, because honestly, opera cake will win. if you said "new born baby or opera cake" i'd pick opera cake. if you offered me a bag of gold, or opera cake...i'd probably pick the opera cake. it has gold leaf on it and it tastes better. but i digress.

i sacrifice the petit fours to this post...i'll force them to stand in the ambient light that gleams around the opera cake. mostly because they are good, but painfully sweet and sticky. sticky as anything i've encountered. and of all the things i've made so far, petit fours are my least favorite. i mean, that's like trying to pick the least most amazing thing i've learned,or the least cutest kitten... but ...someone's gotta occupy the base of the totem pole, no? so it's not in disrespect, just with MILD excitement that i talk about petit fours first.

we coated the bottom in a quick-setting chocolate known as pate a glacer and used an apricot filling between the two layers of amazing almond sponge. we finished them by laying a layer of marzipan across the final layer of apricot before we covered them in a meltable fondant which my partner and i tinted pink. the process is quite simple: you cut the little cakes up, set them apart from each other on a cooling rack and pour! and i am amazed at how much fondant must be poured to cover a single little cake. suffice it to say i know why petit fours are expensive and yet so yummy. worth the $$ if you ask me

little pink cubes of sweet, sweet heaven. but for me? one is PLENTY!

but really, let's just get down to it. let's talk about opera cake.

for someone who considers herself somewhat verbose, it's actually pretty difficult to describe this tiny little morsel of perfection. it's... layers of ...well it's elaborately layered. filled with rich, indulgent layers of ganache, coffee butter cream and thin almond sponge. it's, well it's topped with a poured chocolate. it's cut into cubes. it's decorated with gold leaf (or in some cases chocolate piping). i mean...it's... well look:

i can only tell you that this is like mana from heaven. literally, if you looked up "food" in a cookbook of the gods... you would see a photo of opera cake. i imagine they must lay around, listening to harps, frolicking amidst waterfalls and soft breezes, eating little bites of opera cake every so often, whenever they feel they are running low on secret, god-powers. or whatever. this isn't religious, it's just amazing. literally, just amazing.

again, you can only eat a bite. it's small, but it packs a punch. an indulgent, rich, sinfully amazing punch. but one cannot fill up too quickly on opera cake. one might get gold poisoning or something. though, if one were going to pick their poison: may i suggest gold? and specifically, the gold leaf found atop a little decadent square of opera cake.

maybe that's how that 'fat lady singing' got to be overweight? must've been the opera cake.

7.02.2011

mini-mousse cakes, dobos torte and nougatine...

so it goes without saying that i adore school. it's become my life. consumed me. i rather like getting to put down my 'build-the-business' hat for a while and just focus on the acquisition of new skills! it's hard to imagine all the things i've learned in the past two months, but even harder to imagine what i still have yet to be taught. i'm exponentially better than i was two months ago, and i'm enjoying the evolution of my passion-to-profession. i mean, my unofficial business is getting busier and busier and soon, i'll need a real, honest-to-goodness, space from which to work. that's so encouraging to me! that's excitement at its best!

we made a very cool cake! it required the piping of pate a cornet onto a silpat, which we had to freeze to set. we then poured the buscuit d'amande over the top in a thin layer in order to just cover the stenciled/piped designs. additionally, we learned the the trick to keeping this thin cake from drying out during baking is to bake it in a hotter oven since it is so thin - doing so will help it to bake quickly and therefore stay more moist.

the finished look is pretty stunning.

the overall goal for this cake it to cut it into strips, which we then used to line small uniquely shaped cake rings and then into which we would pour an amazing chocolate, vanilla or berry mousse. it assembles quickly into a very fancy, modern looking plated dessert. while i don't see myself working the pastry chef circuit, i do see myself wowing my friends and family at my next bbq!

what was also great fun was learning how to candy flowers! taking beautiful deep red rose petals and fresh multi-colored pansies, gently (and LIGHTLY) coating them in egg white and dusting them with a fine sugar. totally amazing finishing touch.

we garnished the mini-mousse cakes with fresh creme chantilly, fresh berries, candied flowers, deco-chocolate and/or curls of gianduja (that hazelnut cream and chocolate combination from earlier in the course).

we also spent time making the components for the dobos torte. think layers of chocolate butter cream flavored with rum, a delicate sponge, and a layer of caramel coated sponge to decorate the top. ... it's harder to explain, easier to see:

of course one of my favorite things to make was the almond nougatine. it's just a delicious candy of caramel and sliced, toasted almonds. it reminded me of being in my nana's kitchen - where often you'd walk in to visit and something amazing and simple and beautiful was waiting for you. something old-timey and delicious. nougatine is one of those things that transports me back instantly to my childhood. for as much as i ADORE making cakes, i don't have much of a sweet tooth. BUT i do have a little space reserved for such refined, simple treats such as nougatine. lovely. tastes like home.

and wait until you see what we used it for!!

by the way... speaking of waiting to see more... two words: opera cake.

more to come!

6.17.2011

sounds like top gear...

yup, well i'm feeling the momentum now. it's a lot like snowboarding. you ride the lift to the top of this mountain. it's a nice ride. you chat on the way up. you take a picture or two of the tree tops, of you and your snow-buddy, of your excitable grin. and you see that you are almost to the top and then all of a sudden, it's time to hop off. you pick your route down and then off you go. it's just you and your skills. and the cold, crisp air. and it all comes down to the trail you pick, your ability to call upon all the knowledge and skills that you already came with and those which you have learned. you fix your gloves, tighten your board, adjust your snow-hat (which is totally adorbs) and off you go. it's go-time.

that's what i think we're up to in class. and all that training i've been doing, all the late-nights, all the extra practice, all the reading, all the visualization. all the sacrifices i've made... i'm sensing that it's all adding up and building into something into which i'm more than happy to lose myself. you can in fact do anything you set your mind to.

this week we've gotten more into decorating and techniques that are involved in styling a cake. at least that's what i call it: styling. (though i'm sure that i didn't invent that :o)

monday we spent some time on sugar and gingerbread cookies. learning how to prepare the dough, how to make your cookies retain their shape without becoming gigantic, unrecognizable blobs of cooked dough. and then how to pipe a border and use run-out or flooding to fill in the cookie to decorate them. holy sugar batman! i can see someone ordering these cookies as a wedding favor! how adorable, yet tedious! haha, i'm SUCH a cake girl. but still, i'll be using these techniques around christmas, when i make the 7 billion cookies i make every year for friends and family. hope you all are looking forward to that! ;o)

we also practiced sponging color onto fondant and then practiced brush embroidery, piping and stenciling with royal icing. now if you know me AT ALL, you know how much i adore brush embroidery. i don't quite know how to explain it, but i can say that it involves music, being in a zone and just quietly thinking and working on some art work. it's just a place i am very comfortably "home." i had sponged a very vibrant floral yellow and green over my cake...i've been thinking a lot about australia lately, and the colors remind me of the daintree and the royal botanic gardens so that's what inspired my color choices. (god, how i miss you oz - can't wait to return to my home away from home!) i decided to only use white royal icing as an overlay because i didn't want to take away from my vibrant background. i can't say that i LOVE sponging color on cake, but it's a unique look that i'm sure has a place somewhere. either way, i loved getting to play with brush embroidery again and getting try some stenciling was fun - i will be incorporating that onto a future wedding cake someday! can you say 'elegant?'

fast forward to wednesday? CUPCAKE DAY! now cupcakes are delightful and i was particularly excited to learn about the vegan chocolate and gluten free versions! gluten-free and vegan are the new 'pink' in cake. and i love to be on the cutting edge of trends. and i can tell you with great certainty that the recipes i have for both are AH. MAY. ZING. seriously. i'm still dreaming about the mascarpone frosting.

oh and the toasted hazelnut. OH. EM. GEE.

here's our red velvet too! yummy!

either way, each team made a cupcake - our team made basic chocolate. (which was really delicious)

and when all was said and done, we all shared our cupcakes and got to take an assortment home. super sweetness.

i also got to play with marzipan to make little fruits and veg. of course, we didn't get a chance to airbrush them, so i played with my photos to give my creations some color anyway...and i have to say, i love how they came out. just remember: almond paste + corn syrup + powdered sugar = adorable yumminess.

today, friday, we have a major test. and that's why i've been a somewhat absentee blogger... i've been really busy studying. and getting my mind in the game. today will involve using the American milk sponge we baked last class to build a cake and eventually decorate it to demonstrate our proficiency with royal icing, etc.

i'm pretty confident about that so long as i can forget about the fact that it's a test and there's a time limit. it's so nerve-wracking! :o) but in a really cool way. i often feel like i'm in some sort of cake boot camp - but a fun one and luckily our chef instructors don't scream at us like they probably do in a real boot camp. cake is for happy, not for crying :o)

anyway, on that note, i've got to get back to studying and getting ready to leave for school. gotta a lot of thinking to do too! luckily i get to ride the train twice a day... helps me think!