This semester, I am taking Pastry I and Baking II, which will finally put me over the halfway mark of my certificate. Were I able to go full-time, this could be my last semester, but alas, I discovered earlier in the year that working and going to school 7 days a week is exhausting, stressful, and just plain not fun. So instead, I’ve been taking it easy and only taking two classes at a time, while working a bit less than perhaps I should in order to maintain my sanity. Here’s an idea of where I am at the moment;

Introduction to Hospitality Management
Sanitation and Hygiene
Principles of Nutrition
Culinary Skills
Introduction to Food Preparation Techniques
Baking I
Pastry I
Baking II
Pastry II
Basic Cake and Wedding Cake Design
Bakery Management and Merchandising

We’re required to have pictures for our portfolios, so I am once again given a legitimate reason to whip out the camera during class. (Still, the number of foodies unfamiliar with the concept of food blogging is astounding.) The lighting in the kitchen is harsh and awful, and my digital camera (Digital Dan, I call him) is now old enough to demand his senior coffee… but, I’ll do my best to document my classes, none the less.

A classmate spreading chocolate buttermilk cake batter.

Baked and delicious.

Chiffon cake. Also tasty.

Another group’s coconut macaroons.

My third and final project for my Cake Decorating class this semester was to create an 8-inch fondant-covered cake, with gum paste flowers and leaves. A few of us decided to tackle tiered cakes as well, adding a 6-inch cake to the top.

I chose daisies because they are my favorite flower, my birth flower… and I have no shame in quoting You’ve Got Mail when I call them “the friendliest flower.” The concept of this cake came to me pretty quickly after choosing my flowers, and I’m pretty happy with the design, even if the execution needs a little work.

I used chocolate buttermilk cake recipe that my chef-instructor developed herself while working at a popular local bakehouse, Zingerman’s. It’s sort of a super-secret deal, and she said she’d only recently given the recipe to her brother after he’d nearly convinced her that she may die any day now without having passed the recipe on to the family. So, I cannot divulge the recipe, but I will say that it was fantastic, paired with a chocolate butter cream filling.

The fondant and the royal icing were made in class from scratch, so the only purchased component here was the gum paste used for the flowers. Hopefully the whole process won’t seem quite so laborious once I get a little more practice in.

The instructor for this class is looking into starting an Advanced Cake Design course, which I would be very interested in taking, even if I finish my program before it comes to light.

Here is a small sampling of my last weeks in Baking I and Cake Decorating…

Apple, sweet potato, and chocolate cream pies.

Sweet Potato pie with whipped cream. (Can you believe I’d never eaten sweet potato pie until I tried this? It was delicious, though.)

Kneading bread dough.

Italian bread.

Biscuits.

Gum paste daisies.

Gum paste carnations. I really wanted to love these, but they just weren’t working for me. It’s not really clear in this picture, but the bottoms are all… wonky. Not carnation-like at all.

“Filler flowers.” Had I considered how hard these would be to photograph against the white Styrofoam, I would have made them a different color.

The only thing I wanted for my 7th birthday was a Fantastic Flowers kit. (I did get it, and I loved it.) Eighteen years later, I’ve discovered that making flowers, while essentially useless, is still pretty entertaining.

I’m going to be honest; I don’t really “get” using gum paste on cakes. Yes, it’s technically edible… but, you wouldn’t want to eat it. Most real and artificial flowers are equally non-toxic and don’t take nearly as much time and effort. Still, crafting something like this by hand is just fascinating. I’m really looking forward to learning other types of flowers.

The topmost rose was made solely by hand, with no tools at all. The instructing chef told us to imagine that we were stranded on a desert island without our kits, but inexplicably found a batch of gum paste and floral wire. (The conversation quickly diverged to reveal that most of us own all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls, and still watched them regularly. I don’t recall how.)

The bottom two roses were made with this kit by Wilton and was actually very similar to the aforementioned Fantastic Flowers kit.

I hope to make this one of my first step-by-step guides, as soon as I learn a bit more and can coordinate with my husband/photographer.

We’ve started fondant in my cake decorating class. I’d never had it before, but we did a taste comparison with pre-made commercial fondant and a few variations we made from scratch… I was pretty unenthused about all of them. (Though, my group made it with “homemade” bourbon vanilla, and was my favorite…)

The whole process was much easier than I expected it to be, and I do understand why it is more popular from an aesthetic point of view, as I was pretty pleased with my finished product. However, I think my interest in the baking and pastry field is leaning more towards creating tasty sweets than cake design.

Either way, I am still super-excited to be learning all the various aspects of decorating that I’ve never tried before, and will be very glad to have them in my skill set.

This cake was taken to my mom for her birthday, which happened to land on the same day as this lesson… Worked out nicely, I think.

I’ve got two lab classes this semester; Baking I and Cake Decorating. I think I’ve always known that cake decorating, despite being my job, is not my calling. I lack the patience, steady hand, and artistic skill it requires… and honestly, I’m not terribly interested in it. However, I’m pretty excited that we’ll be moving into things I’ve not yet tried soon. Perhaps I’ll find something I like.

Butter cake recipe by Rose Levy Beranbaum, homework for Cake Decorating.

The first take-home cake project fell on the first anniversary of our wedding. The second falls on my mom’s birthday. Handy little class I’ve stumbled into.

Double-Chocolate and Coconut Brownies.

Raisin-Chip Oatmeal Cookies.

Both of the above, plated.

Fort Brownie. (Hey, we get bored.)

“That Chocolate Cake” and Swiss Butter Cream.

So, this pie… essentially, it’s an orange curd folded into meringue. The resulting color was a pale yellow, not terribly different than a key lime pie. It didn’t look too bad, in my opinion, but the instructing chef wanted it dyed orange. These pictures don’t really convey the sheer atrociousness. I think a classmate was pretty spot-on in describing it as Cheez-Whiz… which effectively killed any desire I had to try it. (It contained gelatin, so I had no real intention of eating it to begin with.)

A few things made by other classmates that I may or may not get to try my hand at in the future; soft rolls, hard rolls with freshly made butter, challah, buttermilk biscuits, rosemary focaccia, blueberry muffins, dill poppyseed bread, pecan pie, and raisin scones. All of the breads have been amazing, and I’m really looking forward to starting that section myself.

I chose to go for the Baking and Pastry Arts certificate rather than an Associates in Culinary Arts for a few reasons…

1) I don’t cook much. I can spend hours working on a baking project, but when it comes to dinner, I’d rather have it done and over with. I can muster up the ambition and patience on occasion, but it’s really not something I like to do on a daily basis.

2) I don’t eat meat, and I’d rather not have to deal with it. I’m not terribly grossed out by it, but it’s been years since I’ve eaten or prepared it, and since my (vegetarian) husband and I moved in together, I haven’t really been around it at all. I don’t intend of becoming a chef or working in a restaurant, so the chances of needing to know how to braise, broil, or baste meat in the future is fairly slim.

3) Truth be told, I just didn’t want to deal with the prerequisites. An Associate Degree requires at least 20 credits of general education.

Skipping the general education portion of an Associate Degree has enabled me to jump right into the core classes… and this semester those are; Introduction to Hospitality Management, Sanitation and Hygiene, and Principals of Nutrition.

Having taken two food-related classes at my high school, attended the local career center for Food Service and Culinary Arts in my senior year, and now working over two years in the deli/bakery department of a supermarket, a good deal of my current coursework is review. Most of it is pretty interesting, though.

So, now that you know where I am… I should probably go back to working on presentations and studying for exams. I’ve certainly procrastinated enough already.