Monday, March 8th - Friday, March 12th

Phew!!! The week started off a tad stressful... While we are delighted to have Chef Gomez again, but the school blended us with another class who is also learning Plated Desserts so now, instead of 14 of us, there are now 34. We are SO not used to having that many people in a class and its tight and busy and congested and pushy and loud and we have to form lines just to use the ovens and the sinks. As you can imagine, yours truly is NOT thrilled. On the upside, we get the benefits of being taught by their Chef, Chef Rocque, who is absolutely hilarious.

So after a very stressful Monday and a refresher of fruit coulis and creme anglaise, we went out to our favorite burger place, Islands, to celebrate Vicki's 25th birthday!

I ordered the worlds largest beer...



And then we did a very-illegal-in-school-uniform-happy-birthday-Vicki shot:




... Which Monica passed on and instead ordered a chocolate milk shake...





Wednesday we worked on tuile cookies. Thursday we tempered chocolate for the first time and learned how to make chocolate cups and filigrees and we also made a mousse that would go towards plating our first dessert....

So here is my fruit coulis with creme anglaise with my tempered chocolate cup, flourless chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, quenelle of creme Chantilly and chocolate filigree. Phew! It is very important to have a crunch factor in a plated dessert, at least one sauce, a garnish as well as "negative plate space."




And a close up:

Friday we made crepes in teams of two... Vicki and I made a fruit compote to top our crepes which were filled with nutella (drool) and topped with Chantilly creme.

It tasted as good as it looks... So good, in fact, that Vicki and I absolutely devoured our presentation plate and had to make up another identical plate just so we could take pictures...

Monday, March 1st - Friday, March 5th

Hurrah! Its Friday!!

Thank you to those of you who called and emailed, totally antsy to see the cakes!

So without further adieu, here are our wedding cakes! We were graded on many different aspects ranging from piping, texture, flowers, color scheme and fondant coloring.

Here is mine! I chose to make hydrangea, roses and ranunculus, which are my absolute favorite flowers...



Here is a picture of the top of the cake... We were responsible for hand dusting each petal. We worked about 20 hours total on our cakes...

Here is a close up of the flowers on the left side of the cake...

And here are the flowers on the bottom.

I have to say that out of all the projects we have done, this is maybe the one I am most proud of. :-)

Here is Jessi's. No one did a cake like hers... I thought it was different and very elegant.

Here is a close up of the top of her cake.

This one is Monica's. We decided that her cake is for a couple getting Maui'ed...

And the lovely Pharyn's...

This one is Vicki's. She took the idea from one of Martha Stewart's cakes. I absolutely love Orchids.

Here is a close up of her detailed work.

While Chef was grading, Pharyn and Monica took a moment to show you the do's and dont's of Le Cordon Bleu school uniform. Monica is wearing black socks, while Pharyn, ahem, is wearing socks with ice cream cones on them. Shame shame.

This is Kimberly's cake.

... And Henry's...

Here is a close up of Henry's awesome Stargazers.

This one is Nika's. It is incredibly well done and she got 100% on it. She put SO much work into it.

Erica's...

And then I gave the girls a ride back to their cars... There was not a single square inch of room left after we managed to get our bags and cakes into the CRV.

Next week we begin plated desserts which I'm really looking forward to because that is what you really need to know how to do when you work in a restaurant... More details on that to come... But before I go, I want to give a little shout out to my brand new cousin, Eli Samuel Kestin!!! I can't wait to meet you!!!

Monday the 22nd - Thursday the 25th

Here it is, Folks!

Our Children's Theme Cakes!

Styrofoam middle (as this project was about modeling), and fifteen plus HOURS over the course of four days to work with modeling chocolate... dark and white, (and if you are anything like me and have a hand temperature of 289 degrees on a normal basis) that melts promptly and sticks to your hands.

We were required to have three figures, many different shades of chocolate (incorporated by hand), a border around the bottom of the cake that relates to your theme, the use of only one color that wasn't made of chocolate and could only be used in a very small quantity, and a pastiage item (another item made of sugar), which had to be painted with cocoa butter... SIGH. This has been, so far, my least favorite thing we have done since we started school in September... Even more so than my terrible Pate a Choux day...

So here is my finished product! I chose Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, one of my all-time favorite books as a child... (next time, I will choose a theme that does NOT require me to make realistic looking figures... Again, le sigh).



A view from the top (my pastiage item is the umbrella)...




And a view of the bottom... (and no, that is not a frown on his face, is a 'stash!)




A close up of my borders... Sandwiches and... a hot dog,




... Some blurry ice cream cones,

B-A-N-A-N-A-S,

... And a chocolate chip cookie.

Here is Monica's... Wallace & Gromit.

Donna chose a penguin-gone-fishin' theme:

Pharyn, true to form, chose a Disney theme: Cinderella. Notice her adorable and almost impossible to make mice.

This was the cake that Chef made to demo for us... Its a baby theme. She used Luster Dust to make those certain parts shiny and the sides of her cake are decorated with buttons.

Here is JM's who chose Sid the Science Kid, which I have never heard of, but his attention to detail is awesome. The pictures just don't really show how much went into these cakes.

Here is Vicki's - Winnie the Pooh. The best part of her cake is Tigger with his head stuck in the honey jar!

Kimberly's... Frog Family Picnic... yes... it seems all sweet and innocent until....

...You get a close up of Mrs. Frog's knockers!!!

This is Rebecca's. She did a Clown theme. (this one's for you, Lisa!)

This one is Jessi's and a class favorite. She did James and the Giant Peach. Remember that one?!

This is a close up of her eight-a-pied, as she couldn't fit 100 legs on him, laying back, enjoying a cigar.

Here is the spider:

Here is Henry's - He chose Lilo and Stitch at story time.

This one is Erica's. She made the pearls around the bottom look totally real with luster dust.

This one is Nika's a.k.a The Russian Spy. She chose a theme based off a Russian children's book. Her details were totally out of control awesome.

Here is a close up of some of her figures.

The last one is Brigi's:

Here is a close up of her hot air balloon which I thought was so cute.

Tomorrow we have yet another pizza day followed by a three hour demo on sugar flowers (gum paste mixed with fondant) as we start making our wedding cakes next week. While we wont be using real cake, we will still be responsible for covering them with fondant, three theirs worth, and constructing and coloring all the flowers and other decoration we might want to use...

Friday, February 19th

On Friday we finished our Princess Cakes... Three layer pound cake with butter cream frosting that I flavored with strawberry puree (with a layer of fresh raspberries) and covered in marzipan...



I had some extra left over so I made a mini princess cake that I split with the girls...



And since I was meeting Stephen for dinner (and he lives oh-so-far away in Santa Monica and never gets to try any of my sweets), I brought him the Princess Cake which Street (the restaurant where we dined) took to mean we were celebrating his birthday... I haven't seen this kind of smile since I last pretended it was my birthday at the local T.G.I. Friday's in Cleveland...




And here the "Birthday Boy" tries a piece of his cake...

Stephen was generous enough to let the restaurant keep the rest of the cake to enjoy, which they were very thankful for. :-)