Baking a Birthday Cake

I baked a cake for the neighbor's daughter who is having a birthday party today. I baked two 9" layers of white cake. On top of the first layer, I coated it with a milk chocolate ganache, then put a layer of fresh raspberries, then another layer of ganache and the top layer of cake.

I covered the cake with the milk chocolate ganache. I made the yellow and pink butter cream roses last night. This is the first cake that I've ever made butter cream roses for and I'm pretty happy with the outcome. The yellow roses were the last that I made and they looked better than the pink ones. The more I made the better the roses came out. I made some green icing and made piped some green leaves. The cake, icing and filling were all picked by the birthday girl and she was very happy with the cake when I delivered it. Happy Birthday Skyler!

Monique and Skyler

10:07pm - Update: My family and I also got to taste the cake. It was very good. The neighbors were very happy with the taste as well. This puts a smile on my face.

Day 28 - Flambé

As usual, the day started out with the Chef instructor demonstration. He showed us how to make Cherries Jubilee, Bananas Foster and Crêpe Suzette. Then we started our production for the day. I made all three dishes today and all three were very simple to make. The fun part was doing the flambé on each dish.

I started off making Cherries Jubilee. We used canned cherries, which is a first for me. It came out tasting good but I kept wondering if it would have been better with fresh cherries. It didn't look as appealing to me since the canned cherries were dark looking. This dish required brandy for the flambé.

Next I made the Bananas Foster. The dish used rum for the flambé. I liked the Bananas Foster.

Last of all I made the Crêpe Suzette. This dish required Triple Sec (an orange flavored liqueur) for the flambé. I liked the Crêpe Suzette but I thought it was missing something for my taste. Maybe cream cheese, whipped cream, just something. All three dishes would have looked better if white plates would have been used and a little more careful platting, but we didn't have time for that.

Today was a short day as they told us to leave about 1.5 hours early due to the snow. The birthday cake I made on Wednesday night was hit at my mother's office. Mom came home with the empty cake carrier. Tonight I'm starting some butter cream roses for another birthday cake for a neighbor. I'll bake the cake and decorate it tomorrow morning then deliver it tomorrow afternoon. I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Day 27 - Chicken and Roses

A friend of mine in class helps her mother, who is a cake decorator, decorate cakes. I asked her to come in early this morning and teach me how to make roses using butter cream. Thankfully she agreed. I'm making a birthday cake for a neighbor and wanted to put roses on it, so now I can attempt it. The purple roses are my first attempt. I can do better with a little practice now that I know how to do it. I was excited to learn.

Oddly enough, what we cooked today in class had nothing what so ever to do with Patisserie and Baking. You may remember that just the other day I complained about not doing enough baking in class and class getting dismissed 30 minutes quite often. Well, they top that today. I cooked Chicken Marsala. It came out OK, but me being used to eating New Orleans style food, well, I thought Chicken Marsala was a little bland. It could have used a little Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning on it.

Today I got my quiz results from the last two Friday practicals. I earned a 97 on one and 100 on the other.

The last thing I did today was to make crepes. I definitely need a little more practice. The crepes that I made today will be used tomorrow when I will make Crepe Suzettes, Bananas Foster, and Cherry Jubilee.

Extracurricular Baking

Tonight I baked a birthday cake for a lady who works for my mother. She'll take it to work tomorrow for the lady's birthday. I made a two layer cake. One layer yellow cake and the other layer french vanilla cake. I made a milk chocolate ganache for the icing. I decorated the top with some little green leaves and premium M&M's for little rose buds.
I started making a bitter sweet chocolate ganache, but it was just too bitter for my taste. So I started over using a milk chocolate. I can't wait to learn more about cakes in school.

Day 26 - Macaroons and Savarin

The chef started with demonstrating how to make the savarin dough and what to do with it. Then I went back to my table and started producing. I made the savarin dough and while waiting for it to rise, I started on making macaroons. I thought I would make chocolate macaroons with ganache filling. The macaroons (see above) look great but the were a little crunchy. The last time I made them they were just right. They look right and I don't think I cooked them too long. But without any critique from the chef, I have no way of knowing.

The savarin looks good, but I didn't care for the taste at all. After baking the dough, you then soak the little ball in a rum syrup. Then I topped it with whipped cream. It wasn't a very busy day. Mostly it was wasted time waiting for the savarin to rise and to bake.