Cookie Lynn

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.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

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.

Whew. Four weeks into the new semester of school, and I’m finally getting into the habit of bringing a camera regularly… My goal was to post weekly updates from my classes, so I’ll have to start with a bit of catch-up.

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.

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

The pate choux and pastry cream both turned out very well, which was surprising, as I’d never done it before and was a little intimidated. However, I did manage to ruin two batches of caramel, despite the fact that I have done it before… on many occasions, even.

I apologize for yet another super-short (and late) challenge post, but my work/school load is kicking my butt lately. I have a few pictures of classwork laying around that I need to work on, and hopefully a semi-interesting update can be made of them.

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

My first Daring Bakers challenge in over a year was a lesson in time management.

I’ve been working and going to school seven days a week since the beginning of the year, and it really seems to make the time fly by. I had every intention of getting this challenge done with plenty of time to spare, but the post date really sneaked up on me. I ended up having to do each of the components in tiny increments whenever I had the chance between classes and other obligations throughout the end of this last week.

This Orange Tian is made up of a pate sablee crust, homemade orange marmalade, stabilized whipped cream, segmented oranges, and an orange-caramel sauce. I substituted agar for gelatin in the whipped cream recipe, making the recipe vegetarian.

I forgot to adjust for the larger size of my desserts – which were made in small springform pans, rather than the biscuit-cutters the original recipe called for – and wound up taking them out of the freezer a bit to soon the first time. They unmolded into a goopy mess, but I was able to salvage most of the components, adding some of the leftover whipped cream and orange segments, and made them again. Ta-da!