Have you heard of the Cake Elf?

So the purse cake was a hit at the office.....
they made me cut it.....which was strangely exhilarating ...hacking up something that took 5 hrs to make shouldn't have felt that good(maniacal laughter)

Yeh I need to learn how to cut cleaner....it just looks like a crime scene doesn't it?

But I was told it was delicious once again which makes me happy.
After making that cake on Sunday, I actually still had to bake a cake for my regular class.
I was so tired I could not even look at a recipe for a cake and I didnt think anyone was going to want more cake at the office so I decided to cop out a little and at around midnight I busted out a cake mix (the crackheads next door don't care). In my defense, I did throw in a box of vanilla pudding to make it not so generic.
I also realized I need to invest in 2 of every pan I have because you REALLY do need to split the batter up to bake it...you can't just throw all the batter into one pan and then figure "I'll split it into two later"......It doesn't work....ask me how I know...
Since I only have one borrowed 7 inch pan from my Grandma, I ha to bake each cake seperately which was about 1.5 hours when you add in the whole cake-has-to-cool-before-you-release it thing (again, ask me how I know....)
So I set alarms and did my darndest to not fall asleep on myself waiting for the cakes to bake......I managed to bake and level both layers before I decided to fall asleep at around 3 am.

Now, this next part gets a little weird. My memory is a little foggy but if I recall correctly, I got up at around 4 or 5 to go to the bathroom. I don't know how I was lucid enough to do this but somehow, before I got back into the bed, I managed to fill (with strawberry filling...where did that come from?), frost and cover the cake then hop back into bed.
I woke up around 8 and the first thing I thought was "OH CRAP!....what the hell did I do to that cake???"
And I sprung out of bed and looked at the counter expecting another bumpy-cloud-cake disaster.
Believe me when I say, The Cake (yes it deserves capiltalization) was perfect...I have never covered a cake better...I had to take a picture of it, I was so shocked.
It was level, smooth and covered all around.....thankfully sleepy me realized it was not a good idea to wield a knife while half comatose so it wasn't trimmed up but dang.......if I didn't remember getting up at some point during the night, I woulda sworn there were magical cake elves who did it.
What a good start to the day! I could just come home after work, grab my perfect cake and go to class.

5:00....work is over (I left early shhh)...woo! I get into my car and I notice how quiet it is....hmmm weird...but a quiet car is better than a really loud one right? Isn't that what all the new cars boast? quiet start? Still, I get a little wary with my car so I pulled out my rosary that I keep in my car (hey I'm trinidadian.....) and I tried to hang it fom my rearview mirror...then i realised I don't have one....oops! LOL....

Anyway, long story short, a quiet car does not mean that my 1996 Toyota decided to act like a 2010 Lexus......it means my 1996 alternator decided to go kaput.

Luckily I got a mechanic to come look at it and patch me up so I could drive home, but it was already 7:15 by that time...class began at 6:30
I thought to myself, you know what, I'm gonna go......I'm gonna show up , all disheveled....with my rolling pin in hand(I keep it in the car as a weapon) and learn what to do then try it at home on The Cake.....don't say I'm not dedicated!

I showed up and I swore up and down to everyone that the world's most perfect cake lay on my counter at home and I didn't just flake out on it and sleep last night......yknow...like normal people.....

but alas, of course noone believed me, nor cared......they kind of didn't make eye contact with me at all.....hmmmm maybe I looked crazier than I thought...

Anyway, we learned how to do draping and quilting and I was so tired when I got home I couldn't put more effort into The Cake if I tried.


I also poked the sides of the cake in anger LOL so you're gonna have to trust me when I say it WAS perfect....(I'll find the picture)

Onto the last cake of all the Wilton courses next week...I'm no looking forward to it because I have to go to conference, move apartments and bake the cakes all this weekend....but I have to admit I'm gonna be pretty bummed on Tuesday next week...4 months of cakes and classes and now I'm left to my own devices...what shall I do.....
But I'm pretty excited I'll have all 4 Wilton certificates :)

(Oh and I signed up for the Topsy Turvy cake class november 15th...so that should be a fun post to look out for.. :))

Purse and Shoe Cake Class Day

If you're wondering, yes this is the third consecutive weekend I've spent in the kitchen....
This class was more fun than I thought it would be....it's always nice to meet up with people who like the same stuff you do. So when I saw people walking in with 20 lb TUBS of satin ice fondant, I knew we would get along swimmingly. LOL

I spent all day yesterday (well not all day, I went to Zumba in the morning...and messed my back up AGAIN wtf?) baking cakes.
I made red velvet again (it's the office's favourite) and a vanilla sour-cream white cake. My intent was to use just half of the white cake batter for my monday regular class cake and use the rest for a cobwebby marble cake for halloween, but upon googling, I realised freezing cake batter is just asking for a cakewreck.
So I used the rest on an extra ten inch layer to go in my purse cake. So my cake was a whopper....3 layers of deliciousness stacked high and frosted in my homemade buttercream...mmm
Anyway, so this morning, I bundled myself (cold front, yes!) and my cake in the car and headed to the classroom with bags of equipment and materials.
I rushed over there too, Egg McMuffin in hand only to realise, I got there a half hour early.
So I set up and chatted with the other girls (I've noticed whenever there's a lull in convo with cake people...the ice breaker is always "So did you cath Ultimate Cake Off/Cake Boss/Ace of Cakes/ Challenge last week?"....resounding "oh yeh....it was awesome" s LOL)
Do you see that MASSIVE wad of fondant....that sucker is homemade ya'll and tastes SO good. I recently sampled fondarific and looked at the ingredients and while delicious, there was nothing on there that screamed "so exclusive you must buy me!"...especially not for 15$ for 2 pounds.... so I tweaked my fondant recipe with a rolled butteream recipe and it as fantastic! and yeilded like 5 pounds, for about 4$. Everyone was impressed. I explained to them , I give my cakes away and I can't be giving people cakes that have nasty fondant.....I mean hello! trying to get business here!!! LOL

Miss Patty got there and she brought her display cake with her....
cute right? but I swear to you this thing was 3 inches tall....maybe 6 with the handles.....
I stared at my bazooka of a cake and was like uh oh.....this is not going to end well....good thing I made that massive hunk o fondant right?

So the first thing Miss Patty had us do was cut our cakes to form a base, in her cake it was cut halfway through, I cut mine a little further.
(One of the girls who cut her cake cut into little sample cubes....it was dominican cake....DELICIOUS! and totally something we make in Trinidad..)
I don't really like the semi circle look of the display cake so I asked if it would be ok to level the top a bit....I didn't go to overboard though, because it's a pain to ice freshly cut cake without letting it rest in the fridge and set up first....
Then she instructed us to cover our cakes with our fondant....sidebar: that HUGE hunk of fondant takes a LOT of colour and kneading....
Anyway after FINALLY getting the colour I wanted, I took my burning arms and rolled it out.
I'll let the pictures do the talking for the rest of the process.


I LURVE my buckle....so equestrian.
Wheww! So that took a long while.....
best line ever (from another girl in class): "I am so over this handle thing.....(throws handle aside)...look, it's a clutch now"

.... I looked at my cake (tiredly) and I felt like it was asking for something LOL
"what do you need...what do you need...."

...the devil is in the details....


And i was done! I love this cake so much, I wish I could actually pick it up and walk around with it like a purse while munching on it to freak people out......

I didn't finish my gumpaste shoes, because honestly, that egg mcmuffin only lasted so long and i was losing steam.....it always surprises me how much work these cakes take......
Before I post my good pics of my cake, these are my classmates' cakes:


cute shoes......omigod shoes.

cubed dominican cake mmmm
Lolita's Dooney and Burke lookalike....gorgeous...she makes beautiful cakes.

and my fav
Charo's Coach....the colours are SO spot on....I am in love with it...
She made a shoebox for her shoes! cute!
Miss Patty made a small one for her friend who was having a Birthday

And the class busy at work.....

the layered cake in front is my extras! see the colours?
Ok....glamour shots of my cake!
Pose for the camera now

ooh yehhhh

what's this? a makeover?

quilting! I have like a million pics of this cake.....I love it. LOL

P.S. My cake just got "favorited" three times on cakecentral.....omg i may cry.....lol baby steps :D

Cookbook Wishlist!

I just spent an inordinate amount of time surfing through cookbooks on amazon......

I am currently looking at buying:

The Cake Bible - Rose Levy Beranbaum; Hardcover

Paris Sweets: Great Desserts From the City's Best Pastry Shops- Dorie Greenspan; Hardcover

Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis, Renato Poliafito, and Tina Rupp (Hardcover - Oct 1, 2008)

Tartine - Elisabeth Prueitt


and something by pierre herme thats not 200$!
Oh and this
I Love Macarons - this hasn't come out yet...but hey I do love macarons....and all the other books on them are in french..... (*Joey from F.R.I.E.N.D.S= "je me plee plooo...toot de la froot" hhha)

But before I try anything new, I must finish some things that have been on my to-do list forever

Pumpkin whoopie pies
Macarons


that is all. check back for updates :)

Gumpaste is yummy

Just some pics from class yesterday....gumpaste flowers....
It's difficult getting the ruffling just right on those carnations, but I'm sure with practice (just like the roses) I'll be ok :)
I've also realized I need to visit a florist's shop.....because I'm working from memory on most of the flowers, some I haven't seen really. I'm an islander....when I first started making flowers all my roses looked like hibiscus.....:)



first steps done.....daisy petals an carnation bud...finished carnation!
I put shimmer dust on it...but you can't tell LOL
yay! my daisies and carnation


snug as a bug in an eggcrate (wait...that's not right....) :P
More fun stuff later!

I am leaving with a baked good whether you like it or not.

So....FrenchPastries part 2!

My teacher decided that in order to NOT starve us this week, she would let us make something substantial...so we made quiche...and because i requested it...creme brulee.

Now if you recall from a couple posts back, I'm not a fan of custardy things, I prefer a chewy texture to my sweet stuff. Then why creme brulee?

Because I'm a closet pyromaniac of course. You get to use a blowtorch! And my teacher obviously sensing my pyro-ness, didn't bring a wimpy little kitchen torch...oh no...she brought a industrial size one...ok not really but it was hefty.......like fire extinguisher sized (oh irony....)

Anyway, I feel like my teacher lost her steam and she said since the class was so busy last time that we would just watch her make one....UM NO. I definitely paid money for the class and I intended on leaving with some kind of baked good. But I did it on the sly...

"oh can we each make the pastry dough as well?" "Yes sure"

"Oh as long as I have the dough and we have time, do you mind if i just make a quiche too? I'd like you to tell me what to do if anything goes wrong"

"Uhhhhh....Yeh sure I guess that's a good idea"

Cut to me separating myself from the rest of the class to make a quiche.....while they made creme anglaise....which is a cool recipe but it's pretty basic....

SO I made me a quiche! but i didn't take a picture of it cuz i'm a moron and forgot before my family dug into it, but here's a picture of the teacher's that we all shared...mine looks the same except for the gooieness in the middle because I prefer it firmer.

So onto dessert......

The creme brulee was cool, i can see myself making smaller ones, but because they cook in sturdy cookware, I don't know how much of a sellable item they would be. My little cousin wants to try it cuz she keeps hearing about it so I told her we can make it soon (yay more blowtorching!!)

So here's my first creme brulee! It looks a little burnt... creme brulee means BURNT cream,, but it didn't taste burnt....it tasted lovely.....and i got much betteron the second one

my fav part was cracking the hard sugar top...such a violent dessert.....torching the top then stabbing it......

oooooh yeh


(oh and it was my idea to bake them in teacups....jus cuz it added a supercute factor....aww)

and the extras...made in bowls.....(not as supercute) the teenage boy in our class came up with that idea)

We made so many, and my teacher just threw away the extras!! I was like WTH? why r u throwing away good food....we even suggested she leave it in foil for the janitors to enjoy but she just threw it away.....sigh.......wasteful.....

All in all fun stuff.....I'm taking a class next week at another campus, where I was told the classes are much more hands on....yay!

EDIT: The class got cancelled ....apparently 2 hands was not enough...sigh

I also have fondant and gumpaste class 2 tomorrow

I just received my free samples of Fondarific....good stuff! not a fan of the melon.....on a cake its a little cloying i can imagine

(hahahah cloying...what a fun word)

The camera loves you!

So.....got a new camera....LOLI don't waste any time do I?

Actually I needed a camera for work (I know....I work! whodathunkit?) and my plan was to buy it and then return it for Target credit....(yay black friday)

It hink I may just keep the darn thing tho. I need a camera to document my cakery and stuff and it was only 88$. It's pretty decent, I don't want to spend money on a camera unless it's an SLR and is huge.

So anyway I decided to have a photoshoot jus to get a feel for the thing. and since I'm probably going to photograph food more than anything else, than what better to practice on. I took some shots that night then waited till the morning to get some natural light......

and since we are making cupcakes, why not make them pretty :)

natural light
and not:

Bon-jour!

Soooo this weekend was fun....
I signed up for a community education non credit course in french pastries at MDC.
I live like 45 mins away from the campus on a good day and the class starts at 9:30am.
I'm a notorious night owl so that time on a weekend would usually be impossible for me. But I literally sprung out of bed all movie like at 6:45 am thinking "pastry class!" To convince myself i wasn't completely psychotic I made myself go back to bed until 7:30.
So after getting appropriately lost thanks to my trusty discounted GPS and my inherited bad sense of direction, I arrived at the classroom at 9:00am...

I walked in and it was *angels chorus* ..a fully functioning professional kitchen. I looked around and i saw walk in fridges, professional sinks, industrial ovens and mixers oh my!

..I was in my personal heaven. I never wished I was a culinary student more than I did at that one moment....
that was the second angel chorus this week....the first was when i found a new cake supply store on my way home that has EVERYTHING and will soon be offering classes. (I 'favourited' it in my GPS....that's the sign of a good find to me)
anyway.....i digress.....
So the teacher was already there (she looked french.....but she wasn't..her name was Debbie...which bummed me out a little I'm not gonna lie lol)
Just me and another lady were there at that time, and we got to talking....she's Colombian and move to the US and became a personal chef. She goes into people's homes and cooks all day and makes meals for the week...pretty clever gig if you ask me. She thought so too....I felt like she was giving me not-so-subtle hints that I should do it as well to cuz it was in demand and paid well. In her words "These americans hate to cook, but are now realizing the benefits of cooking your own food. So they want the home cooked meals.....but they still hate cooking"
It's not just Americans. Trust me. lol.

Eventually a few more people trickled in and we began. So we were doing 4 things that day: Choux pastry, pastry cream, ganache and almond tuilles.
We made the pastry cream first since that had to chill. enter my biggest "fear" in the world....touching raw eggs. The teacher cracked and separated the eggs with her hands and I swear I almost cried. But I didnt want to look like a cooking wimp so I took a deep breath and jus did it...
It's pretty basic stuff, it's just a matter of technique...heat milk then mix milk with flour, temper eggs, mix eggs in, stir till thick, but not glutaneous.
Meh, I hate cstards and the texture of custardy things so I kinda didn't really look forward to that recipe.
So we let it refrigerate in the fabulous walk in fridge (which I want!) then onto the choux pastry.
Choux pastry is a cooked dough that is used to make eclairs and profiteroles (puffs for my trinis)
My mom actually makes a signature dessert that uses choux pastry and it's a staple at every family event (and going on my future menu) so I'm familiar with the technique. And I've made the puffs a few times before so yeh...I got this.lol
The recipe was a little funky: it used shortening instead of butter which I believe may actually be a cardinal sin in France. The teacher explained it made it a little more "idiot proof".
what a blight... call me the ultimate idiot cuz for some reason my puffs decided to rebel and refused to 'puff'..I'm going to blame it on the funky recipe tho

Before

After

I've made them before so I know I can (edit: see bottom of post). I did learn some good tips from the teacher and from the colombian personal chef that I was very grateful for. Example: Did you know if you add eggs to sugar the sugar will actualy cook them? It's a catalyst for the reaction apparently...WEIRD.....so don't add sugar to an egg mixture and just leave it.

We made a quick chocolate ganache to go on top of the finished desserts and got our pastry cream out of the fridge.
Ta Da!



Do we see the stainless steel? Doesn't it just make you happy? no? just me?
So onto our last recipe
Almond tuilles.....
So these were pretty cool....I could definitely see myself using these in future recipes....the technique itself was good to learn as i think it's a pretty versatile recipe....plus the risp almond cookie immediately reminded me of something my mother would request so I mae a mnetal note to memorize the recipe.
I kept thinking of all the other things I could fill these little cookie cups with.....I shall have to experiment
I learned the hard way that the cookies are unforgiving if you let them cool to much and they will harden up pretty damn quick so you have to work fast or they WILL shatter......

here's my best 2


ooh look at the sexy shape



and the teacher's:


I think mine are better....just sayin.... :P



Anyway, i had a great time. Just being in a full size kitchen with ingredients to burn was well worth the money. I have never wanted a kitchen more. I began to think of the SATC movie scene where Big basically proposes to Carrie in her massive walk in closet and thought to myself....her reaction was the only thing I could compare it to.
Google Pioneer Woman's kitchen.....I'm in love.

Oh and just cuz I'm psychotic i decided to try my hand at the famous Bakerella cake pops when I got home...
I've made truffles before as gifts but never with cake and never on a stick lol
I intended to make them into Hello Kitty pops but I realised that the red velvet cake i used gives a reallllllly grotesque image when u bite into the mini cat's head......so I gave them to my crackhead/stoner neighbours....(who are currently singing/screaming/being killed at the moment...)
these took a while to perfect....mostly cuz I suck at reading directions.....

oooh shiny :)
I also practiced piping on them in royal icing but those r meant to be shipped as surprises so I can;t post those pics :)

Tomorrow begins the last Wilton basic course.....course 4!

PS I wish I had a good camera

EDIT: I made the pate de choux again with my own recipe....and ta-da!
they poofed.
I'm not an idiot :)

ignore the edamame in the corner.  :)