Day 134 - Chocolate Box Practical Day 1

Today was day 1 of a two day practical. I made the box and lid above using chocolate. Also I made the six molded chocolate candies to put inside the box. The two disc are made from caramel and will be cut into small squares to be placed in the box as well. On Monday, I'll finish up and take some pictures before turning it in the a grade.

Day 133 - Chocolate Box Practice

Today I was practicing making a box out of chocolate. I also was playing around making garnish out of chocolate.

Day 132 - Chocolate Candies

This is our first week of of our Advanced Techniques Module. I've been making chocolate candies the last three days. Above is a picture of some of the truffles I made; Lemon, Mimosas, Salted Caramel, Banana, Coffee, and Rochere.

Above are White Cherry Fudge, Caramel Pecan, Praline.

Day 131 - Honors Student

Hooray! Today I received my blue cravat for having a 4.0 GPA during the program. It was awarded during an Honors Society meeting today.

Wedding Cake Revisited

I was playing around with the wedding cake I made on Friday. I wiped off the Fleur De Lis that I had painted with silver dust. I then used black royal icing and piped some Fleur De Lis around the sides of the cake. I did some scroll work around the Fleur De Lis with the silver, but it didn't show up well in the picture.
On Monday, I start my last three week class at Le Cordon Bleu. This class will be the Advanced Technique Module which is chocolate, truffles, and sugar. After this class is complete, I will move to New Orleans to serve my externship at Sucré. Yippee!

Wedding Cake

Day 129 - Wedding Cake

Today was my practical on making a wedding cake. Above is the picture of the wedding cake that I turned in for a grade. The cake is really just Styrofoam disc. I covered it in fondant. The black bands are fondant with some black royal icing piped above and below each band. I put super pearl dust on the black and that didn't work so well, as it made it look faded. On the sides I used silver dust/vodka mixture to paint the Fleur De Lis, but I put too much vodka and they we very light. On the top layer I used black royal icing piped to make my initials. I really lost a lot of time this week making the flowers. I had planned to put roses and peonies on the cake. The rose I was comfortable with. The peonies were new to me and I was not satisfied with what I made. Instead of the peony, I made a few tulips to add to the roses. This was certainly a learning experience. I learned a lot but was not satisfied with my execution. I just didn't have enough time to produce what I had planned.

Day 127 - Flower Sprays

Above is a picture of some flower sprays I made for class and they will be graded. These are meant to be placed on wedding cakes, but I will not be using these on a cake. These flowers and leaves are made out of gumpaste.

Day 125 - Great News!

This past week, I nailed down where I am doing my externship at. Last Monday I mailed my cover letter and resume to six places I would like to serve my externship. Three places responded quickly. Two of the places where my top two choices. By Saturday, I had made a decision, then firmed up plans to go to New Orleans and extern at Sucré. I had read about the Pastry Chef, Tariq Hanna, in several places and was very impressed by his skills and success. Also all of my family is basically from New Orleans and N.O. is one of the great food towns in the country.
My externship requirement is for 6 weeks and then I will be finished with the Patisserie and Baking Program at Le Cordon Bleu. But hopefully I will continue working at Sucre for 6 more weeks. The required six weeks is just not enough time to learn very much in my opinion. I am very excited and can not wait to start on August 16th. Who knows where this could lead, the sky is the limit.

Day 122 - Fondant and Piping Practice

We haven't been doing a lot of things that I can actually take a lot of pictures of lately. So I just threw this picture on the blog to show you some of the practice that I've been doing. This was to learn to use fondant and to practice different techniques of royal icing piping. This was not for a grade. Actually, on the other side of the cake, I practiced different piping techniques but I don't have a picture of it.

Day 120 - Pastillage and Marzipan

Here is my sugar sculpture made out of pastillage. Pastillage is a sugar dough used for modeling. The white sculpture you see in the pictures is pastillage. The minature fruits you see are made of marzipan. Marzipan is basically made from sugar and almond paste. The sculpture wouldn't be good to eat, but the marzipan fruit would taste good.

Day 117 - Croque en Bouche

Today I made a Croque en Bouche in class. I had fun pulling the sugar to make the bows and ribbon. The sugar is very hot to handle but it is manageable. Just think about jumping in your car on a hot summer day and grabbing the very hot steering wheel. That's about how hot the sugar feels. But it's fun.

If you are wondering about the lack of post to my blog, we had a school break all last week and on Monday of this week. But we are back at it now.

Baking Practice

I baked a birthday cake for some practice. The request for the little girl's cake was for a pink cake with maraschino cherries and snow white on top. The cake filling had chopped up cherries. I wasn't real happy with the results. The pink color was not to my liking. The snow white design was hard to pipe due to the detail and being small, mainly the face. I probably spent way too much time working on it, but I'll build up speed with practice. This was the first time I used an 11" cake pan. Each time I make cakes, I learn a little more. It's frustrating when I have an idea in my mind but then I end up being less than satisfied with the results. But I still enjoyed the challenge. It's great to have a real purpose for making the cakes, so I'm very thankful for the people that allow me to make cakes for them. I love the feed back I get as it helps me improve.