New Beginnings

Well, after a brief time with Yardbird Southern Bar and Table, I will be taking my talents to a new place in South Beach, Cooper Avenue. Although I have definitely gotten used to the later hours a restaurant allows, my adventure will be similar to my time at the bake shop in that I will once again be at work before the sun comes up. I am so looking forward to my mornings being filled with the smells of fresh baked breads, and beautiful European cakes and tortes. If you are in the area stop by and check out all Cooper Avenue will have to offer. Otherwise, just stay tuned until my next update!

A regular Willie Wonka

I am currently in a class called chocolate confections and sugar centerpieces, where we are learning to make candy, whether it be chocolate or sugar, and giant centerpieces out of all different types of mediums. I am having so much fun in this class, everyday we make something not only fantastic to look at, but oh so tasty as well. I have been singing songs from Willie Wonka all week, my current tune is "The Candy Man Can".

This is a simple chocolate centerpiece with an assortment of chocolate confections. The centerpiece really only took about ten minutes to make, chocolate is so much easier to work with than sugar. Sugar has to be at such a high temp for it to stay malleable. Chocolate on the other hand is kept in the high 80s and solidifies very quickly. The assorted chocolates consist of rocher, which are absolutely to die for, sliced almonds covered in apricot liqueur and sugar, then toasted, then covered in gooey dark chocolate and set out to congeal. There are other confections on the display, but once you've tried a rocher, you wont want any other chocolate... ever!



This is my sugar centerpiece with assorted chocolate confections. It is a mixture of pulled sugar, poured sugar, and eruption sugar. Below is a bigger picture of just the piece.

This is an assortment of chocolates I made for my dad.

a Couple of Cakes

Although I love the cupcakes we make at our bake shop on a daily basis, the cakes people order are the real fun. There are those people who know exactly what they want, whether or not it is possible. Then there are those who just have an idea and let us run with our artistic abilities. These are the clients that are most fun to work with, don't get me wrong, I love each and every cake I make, because its something fun that I have never made before, but when someone calls requesting a 16 layered cake in the shape of a castle and wants a quote over the phone, hello, we are just two pastry chefs, one of whom is still in school, we are not Cake Boss!

This is a pull-apart cake I made for a childs birthday party. One of those awesome customers who wanted a fish cake to my hearts desire, the only requirement, that it be orange. It was so much fun to make, I really love the pull -apart cakes. They can be made into pretty much any shape you desire, and they require no cutting later!

This cake was for a little boys first birthday, we were debating at the shop about this cake being his smash cake (the cake a one year old is given to destroy at his will). His mother called and wanted a cake with lots of colors for a little boy... ta da

These were cakes for a set of two year olds, one boy and one girl. Fondant might not taste very good, but it definitely is fun to play with!!

I have done wedding cupcakes before, but this is my first wedding cake. My pastry chef iced it, but since the wedding was at the Sunday House, which is litterally minutes from my house, I got to meet the owners of the shop there to assemble it and add all the finishing touches. I was definitely a little bit nervous, but all in all, I think it came out pretty good!

Rainbows and Butterflys... Lollipops and Sunshine

So there was a Gay Pride Day parade, on Father's Day no less, we had to make 300 rainbow cupcakes, and 200 rainbow cookies. After spending all day looking at the psychedelicness of all those rainbows started to take a toll on our sanity. We ended up singing every song we could think of that included the words; rainbow, butterfly, lollipop, and sunshine. Including both the movie version of "Somewhere over the rainbow" and the ukulele version.

And of course I had to make some extra for my Gators ... even though we lost. But as always, I'm still a proud Gator!

Its official... My life now revolves around cupcakes!

I just got a job as a baker in a cupcakery! Yes, I could not be more excited. I start bright and early tomorrow morning! And no worries, I will be posting pictures!

On top of that... As you all know I am in culinary school for baking and pastry, but there are a lot of others that are there fro culinary. So there is a competition every quarter called "Battle of the Blades" it is our schools version of Top Chef, but it is directed to the culinary side. In class the other day I was talking to my pastry chef about a cupcake competition, she told me to ask the dean about it. So I went to talk to him about it... His response "Do it," so I did. I went home and made flyers and hung them up around campus. So around Labor day my school will be having its first quarterly Cupcake Challenge! Woot!

This week we had a competition in class where our chef gave each group a picture of a gourmet cake, the group that made their cake look most like the picture won. The cake our group got was a Payard cake, it was pistachio meringue, pistachio mousse and vanilla spongecake. The trick about making this cake was the shape of it. So one of the guys in our group made a mold for us to assemble the cake in. Our hard work payed off because we won.

This is the picture we were given This is the one we made

I think we did pretty good!

Some Cupcake fun... or not

So every time I go anywhere cupcakes are served I have to try one... of course. I went to this adorable little shop called The Girls in Delray Beach. It is an ice cream parlor that has a shop similar to the shop at Cracker Barrel, filled with fun old fashioned and new fashioned toys, yummy candies, and fun trinkets. Out back there is a garden you can walk through that has tons of exotic birds, and a strawberry garden where you can pick your own strawberries. While inside I found a beautiful looking chocolate cupcake with bright pink frosting.

Although it looked fun and tasty, it was actually quite dry. And the amazingly bright pink icing tasted slightly of food coloring. Fail. Oh well. I will definitely be returning to this fantastic shop, although the cupcakes weren't very tasty, everything else was awesome.

thegirlsstrawberryupick.com

Also... check out the newest ink. I got it a while ago, but I haven't had a chance to post a pic yet.

Central Plains

Central Plains... this is basically the entire middle of the country. With foods like Kansas City BBQ and yummy macaroni and cheese.

Wild rice was in a couple of recipes, have you ever tasted wild rice? I'm not really a fan. I remember the first time I ever tried wild rice, my mom made stuffing for Thanksgiving dinner with wild rice in it. I asked her why the stuffing had sticks in it. It is a long grain rice that is very stiff, it doesn't soften when cooked like most rice. You will know when its done because it pops, but watch out, its hot. We made a stuffing with wild rice and corn and wild rice cakes. The stuffing I felt the same way about the first time I tried it, ugh. The corn and rice cakes were pretty good though.

We made pork medallions with a blueberry sauce. Once again, I absolutely love to make jellies and fruit sauces. They are so delicious and for some reason I feel a great deal of pride after each one. Macaroni and cheese is always a favorite. This particular recipe made for an extremely creamy mac and cheese. It only called for cheddar, but I can't resist changing things up, so I added goat cheese. It gave it an amazing little kick. We made Brussels sprouts, and it always amazes me that so many vegetables recipes call for pork. I know it adds a nice flavor, but come on, take the healthiest thing on the plate then add a ham hawk. Which, by the way, is a pigs foot. I just don't understand the consumption of pork. They say you are what you eat, which means you are what you eat eats too. Pigs eat garbage.

And last, but definitely not least, for dessert we made a sour cream coffee cake. It was pretty good, but not a surprise, it didn't have enough cinnamon. Plus I'm not a huge fan of dried fruit, which this was filled with.