Friday, January 29th

Today, along with my racking cough, we had our first practical and had to replicate our Celebration cakes.

This is how we felt about them:



This is what we decided to do with them:




And this is how we dealt with our less than stellar grades:

Have a good weekend - and bottoms up.

Thursday, January 28th

YAWN.

I forgot to mention that in order to try and accomplish everything that we need to in a day, we have been starting class an hour early... I went to meet the lovely Trina for dinner (if you haven't already, take advantage of DineLA! JiRaffe was AMAZING!) this evening and upon arriving early for a change, I locked my doors and reclined to close my eyes for ten minutes. I literally could not keep them open.

Anyway, yesterday we finished our dreaded Celebration Cakes. Tasteless and covered with American butter cream, they were intended for us to get used to cutting even cake layers, spreading frosting evenly, working with butter cream and piping. So here it is...



And yes, before you start making fun of me, we were required to pipe our own names...

But check out my roses!!! Chef said that I went a tad overboard with them, but come on! How could I not?!




Yesterday we also did a Boston Cream Pie. This was SO good. I mean... can we discuss the chocolate ganache oozing down the sides of the cake?!




Yesterday we got a head start on our cake for today, the Triangle Cake with Dobos sponge filled with chocolate butter cream... And just in case you had any delusions about how much butter actually goes into butter cream frosting:



So here is how my day went today... Below is a picture of the Triangle Cake... Its Vicki's...

And here is mine:

A picture is worth a thousand sighs.

Tuesday, January 26th

Greetings from the capital of Complete and Total Exhaustion.

The Cakes module is totally kicking our cake loving arses.

Yesterday we started our Celebration Cake, and worked on it more today... And will finish it tomorrow. Hopefully.

Today we made our Black Forest Cake (below) which is comprised of Devil's Food Cake, cherries (on the bottom layer), cherry flavored liquor sponged onto the layers, and a cherry liquor flavored Chantilly Cream topped with maraschino cherries.

Today we also baked the cake that will comprise the layers of our Boston Cream pie which we are to assemble tomorrow.

This class is so crazy that the Chef called us around at the end of class to explain that in order to be successful in this module, we need to get lots of sleep, make sure to eat a good breakfast every morning, and to focus on being zen.

Zen?

We are a bunch of high strung OCD pastry students! I digress.

I was coming up to my apartment this evening in the elevator, weighed down with grocery bags, obviously in my school uniform, with a mother and her super cute 6 year old (or so) daughter.

The daughter gave me the once over from slip resistant steel toed shoes to frizzy rain soaked hair with her pink fur coat - hood up over her head, and asked:

"Are you a doctor?"

I smiled down at her and said "HA! No. (smile) I make cakes!"

She replied with large brown doe eyed interest: "You're a cooker?!"

Amazing.

Friday, January 22nd

Happy Friday from rain soaked Los Angeles! It has literally rained everyday since Sunday and I have loved almost every minute of it....

Since I have neglected you this week, dear blog, here is a nice healthy dose of pictures and fun...

Apologies, Erin and Jesus... I didn't take pictures of the really good Tiramisu we made on Tuesday... Ill make it for you the next time I'm home!

Wednesday we learned how to use our ice cream machine which was a serious departure from my Kitchenaid here at home. In teams of two we made vanilla ice cream (Vicki and Moi decided to add chocolate chips to ours), and then we got to pick whatever flavor of sorbet we wanted so we went with Raspberry...



Thursday we started our finals... As usual we began with the written which I received... wait for it... 106% on. Just saying. Then we made the Ribbon Sponge cakes again. Here is my finished product below (99%). This time I made a raspberry mousse instead of black currant.



Another pic...




This one is Vicki's. I love the colors she chose to use. Her mousse is mango flavored.



Here is a great action shot of Kim cutting her cake. She used a special stencil to get the circle effect...

The Russian Spy also used a stencil... I think hers came out great...

Here is JM's cake... Poor kid sprained his ankle last week and has been playing a mad game of catch up.

Then, as per tradition, we had yet another pizza party. I want to take credit for the below shot, but Monica took it of Henry showing off...

Today also happened to be Chef Gilbert's birthday so we surprised her with roses...

... and a piece of non-pepperoni pizza (per her request), with a candle in it that wouldn't light.... Regardless, she was touched.

Monica is the designated pizza cutter... Here, she is giving the camera what I like to call... some sass.

Here is Vicki taking a graceful bite out of her famous "suprima" (insert "Italian" accent) pizza.

Never a dull moment, I tell you. So Monday we being class with Chef Mushet again... "Cakes."

Friday, January

Three Chocolate Bavarian Layer Cake: The bottom layer is a chocolate genoise cake soaked with a cocoa syrup. The first layer is dark chocolate, then milk chocolate, then white chocolate topped with a cocoa jelly and piped white chocolate.

And now I'm too tired to type anymore.

Thursday, January 14th

Thursday: A day of Black Currant Mousse Ribbon Sponge Cake.

Here is mine:



Here is Erika's. She said that she didn't like the way her colors came out and I told her, quite appropriately, that she is down right crazy.



Here is Enrique a.k.a. Henry with his Ribbon Sponge. We had the option of putting patterns in as he has done (you can't see it that well... But read on)...




You can see the patterns really well here in Donna's cake. I loved the colors she used. We have to do this cake again for our final so I might gank her colors.

The entire cake is filled with the black currant mousse that we made and topped with a black currant gel. I think they look super cool.

Tomorrow we being yet another test... Brain cake, again.

As a side note... I hear my neighbors rumbling around and I suspect they are getting out their dusty treadmill as they, in broken English, told me to stop giving them the things I make in class...

Wednesday, January 13th

Why, hello there!!!

A few things to catch you up on my week!!

Monday was a lot of preparation for the week so we did not have any finished products to present.

Yesterday was more preparation, but we also had the chance to make our first warm souffle of the module! Below is a chocolate souffle with a vanilla creme Anglise...

Yesterday we also presented our frozen souffle. We were allowed to pick any flavor we wanted so I went with Black Currant. It was really good, if I do say so myself. It is topped with a quenelle of chantilly creme.

Today was a big day. We presented the two Charlotte's that we have been working on all week... The first, pictured below, is called a Charlotte Royal, also known as a brain cake because of the way it looks. We got to pick the flavor of our inner mousse so I went with blood orange (very tart) and strawberry (very sweet). Super tasty when blended together. The white in the middle is vanilla Bavarian and it is surrounded by a raspberry filled jelly roll. It is covered with nappage for shine and taste and the bottom edge is coated with chopped pistachios. We will have to do this again next week for our final. Looks pretty cool, right?

View from the side.

Aaaand a top view for you.

Below was extra for anyone that wanted to give it a shot so needless to say, we did. This is a Charlotte Rousse. It is surround by lady fingers that we made and filled with the vanilla Bavarian, topped with chantilly creme and fresh raspberries and blackberries.

Looks tres fancy, no?

I thought that you might appreciate a little sneak preview for what lies ahead of us tomorrow...

I'll leave you with that quizzical look on your face until tomorrow!

Friday, January 9th

Now, I don't want to brag.....

.............

But I'm gunna...

100% on both my practical and the written, bitches!!!!!

Here is the written - I thought you might be curious to see what these tests entail...

Page 1



Page 2



Page 3


Practical portion evaluation:

Here is the Brandy flavored Panna Cotta that we made on Wednesday and froze until today. I had great texture but I completely over decorated the plate (I couldn't help it!) with my fresh fruit coulis.

Here is an example of what Creme Caramel should look like... Notice the difference in coloring from Tuesday to today's...

Here is what is called a Paris-Brest... Pate au Choux, Praline pastry cream, and creme Chantilly...

Next week: Bavarians....

Tuesday, January 5th

Happy New Year!

Sending all my friends and family in snow covered Cleveland some LA heat!

Yesterday we started PBK 141: International Patisserie, Custards, Fillings and Creams with the cute Chef Gilbert (who some of us call Mini Chef as I think she might legally be an L.P.... I digress).

Yesterday we started with a bit of a refresher with Creme Brulee, Creme Caramel a.k.a. Flan (a.k.a. feels-like-swallowing-snot), and Pot de Creme au Chocolat:



Chef said that I did a very nice job (even though I think that I over cooked it a bit).



My texture came out great but I needed to let my caramel color a bit more (but it burns so quickly that I didn't want to take the chance!) Ill have to make the Flan again for our practical on Friday. The plates are garnished with little sugar cookies made from some pate sucree dough we made today for something else.



Unfortunately no ones Pot de Creme came out well - the fat separated (which you cant see without cutting into it), but we didn't feel too bad since the same thing happened to Chef. We also learned out to make our whipped cream look like that...




Today we made Bread and Butter Pudding (above) with a caramel sauce. I LOVE bread pudding but mine was totally undercooked even though it was in the oven for... oh, about ever. Boo. Looks pretty good though, right?!

We also made an Almond Tart with poached pears which we will present tomorrow along with Panna Cotta, Baked Rice Pudding, Fruit Coulis, and Paris Brest.

Im off to do homework: Discuss the history of Paris Brest and St. Honore...