Here is picture of my class and our cakes!

End of Basic Training

Halfway done school! Its a crazy thought. 
Also Christmas is soon!
So excited to go back home and see my family! I know it has only been 3 months but i have learnt and grown so much that it seems like much longer.

Plus it seems weird to have christmas decorations and no snow!But that doesnt mean this City doesnt have christmas stuff everywhere!

Well I have some catching up to do! oops!
We moved onto frozen desserts, We made Ice cream, sorbet and granita !

Vanilla Ice Cream
Shocked to learn what the base is
Creme Anglaise Basically

                 Chocolate Sorbet
                            

Lemon Granita
Delicious!












We then moved onto Confections!
I must admit that i love these.
We made Pate de fruits (pronouced Pat - Du- Fwee!)

I made Mango Pate De Fruit, and it was amazing!!

 



 We also made Nougat.
Also Phenomenal!!
Although the first time my partner and i made it we did it wrong so it turned out bad. Second time around though it was dead on!







Then we moved onto Plating desserts.
This is something i need to improve on. First day i was thinking too much!

So Its the same components but just plated differently.
Buttermilk Panna Cotta, Raspberry Ganache, Macarons, Mango Agar Squilles Almonds with caramel Sugar strands and a berry coulis

The next day we plated pears. 
This time i tried not to think much. And i was done in like 10 mins!
So this is a poached pear, with caramel sauce, chewy caramel twist, Nut Brittle, and Cherry Compote.










Last day of actual class in basic we made a bunch of cookies for the Childrens Hospital. We did individual cookies to go into baskets, some larger cookies with a backdrop and also decorated some rum soaked pound cakes to sell and raise money for the Childrens Hospital.

Well that has been my exciting life in Pastry School so far!
<3 Amz

Okay going to finish off the week that i started!
We finished our cakes on thursday!

My very first Fondant Basket Weave!

The grapes! I love the bunch to the left sitting up!  it looks way more real than the other one i think.

This is my wine label.
I named it Pica Noir because Pinot Noir is a legit type of wine and PICA is the initials of my school, which opened in 1996. Also March 23,2012 is my grad date!

 The back side, which you can see the flowers.

This one shows the bread and then cheese, also a few more flowers.

I love how you can see how shiny i got my wine cap to get! Also a little shine on my bottle :)










Friday was Souffle day, it has been quoted that"you must wait for your souffle, but your souffle will never wait for you"!   We made and tried a few varieties!

Cheese Souffle

Chocolate Souffle

Creme Anglaise Souffle

Chilled Lemon Souffle, which tasted so good! 

Also Made Bread Pudding!












 Well that was my week at school, Today(saturday) went down to the states with a classmate and her mom! SO much fun! It was excatly what i needed! I got 6 christmas presents and also spoiled myself a bit with some knitted Bearpaw boots, craft and baking stuff from Micheals and movies from walmart! :)

Well have two tests this week! Eek!
<3 Amz

This week has a lot going on!  And next week i have test #3 and my Wine Test! Then two weeks is midterm!

Monday was more chocolate. These are my Garnishes. Yeah im not very good at small detail :(
Just need to practice being steady!

This is Ganache, which was my center of the truffle.

I tabled it on the marble (not very much but still made a huge difference)
i set a little portion to the side so that i could see the difference.














So With the Ganache and our tempered chocolate we made truffles!

As you see they all had little trails behind them, as when you roll it when you are depositing them it will take the little bit of extra chocolate off and then you dont have feet :)

Tuesday i got to help the Gingerbread Team again :)
So here a few pictures!

Then class was Petit Fours, And Dobos Slice

So these are them before i poured fondant over it. My partner and i made them almost perfect with the fondant but i completely forgot to take a picture!

p.s. Before the fondant these take like the jam jam cookies Aunt Clara makes!  Makes me excited for christmas time!!

 Then Dobos Slice,
This was a learning experience. lol.
The top layer of cake is covered in caramel so you have to cut it before it hardens (or else it will just crack!) and you have to oil your knife or else it will stick. And well i was oiling the knife over the cake.. so the top is kind of oily.. and not smooth cuz the oil droplets..  But we finished!


So Wednesday and Thursday is our cake decorating days!  I have drawn out like almost 10 different cakes! But The last one was design elements from the previous ones all combined into one. 

So my final drawing was a basket weaving the bottom tier, making the top tier into a wine bottle, having a checkered picnic blanket drawing off the side and then filling in the basket with roses around the wine bottle.













Day 1 threw me a few snags that i didnt think about. So my final cake is the same idea but just situated differently.

First snag was the wine bottle. A wine bottle does not have a 6 inch diameter base, also i only have two days so my fondant wouldnt have enough time to set.

Second snag was the blanket.. oh the things you learn..

So here was my process after Day 1. And then today hopefully finishing it till im pleased with it!

Well that has been my week so far!
Might be a little delayed on posting these next few weeks as school is hitting crunch time! Two tests, midterm and practical midterm!
<3 Amz

Week 8

Only 3 weeks of basic training left!!

So monday! We did a raspberry mouse cake,  Pralines and Cream, as well as Marjolaine. I unfortunately didnt take any pictures this day as mousse cakes take our class awhile, so this day was a liltte hectic/rushed almost so i didnt even think about taking pics haha sorry guys!

Tuesday was more mousse cakes, although a chocolate mousse cake with a Pate Bombe base. Which you also have to be careful to not make chocolate chips.

We also did Bavarian Creme and got everything ready to put together the cakes on wednesday. Which included an insert, so instead of putting a floater of cake in the middle of a mousse cake would you put a fruit insert. 

Thursday was another day of mousse cakes. Its a good thing we have a couple days to practice these as my  class including myself just could not grasp this fully, we just could not pound these out like we should have been able to. 

My partner and i did a lemon blackberry mousse cake together
To the right hand side you can see where our Jaconde (which is the bottom stripe band) meets up and we did an awesome job of making it fit together




This was also an overflow day so we got to create and make our own creation,  My plan was a White Chocolate mousse cake with a coffee ganche floater/insert.

 The white chocolate mousse worked. And i made the coffee ganache and then out it in the freezer so i could handle it better and put in the cake. Although i put it on saran wrap.. Ganache and saran wrap are best friends and will never leave each other sides. SO i should have used parchment paper.  Both times we got to create our own i have learnt from the mistakes that i make, which i prob would have never thought of if not for these days.

These two cakes actually went to the bakery 101 to be sold!

The other project we worked on that day was the Sachertorte. This is cake with an interesting history. lol.

Depending on where your from, depends on how you fill it, and how you fill it depends on how you write the name, haha yeah.

 My partner Aoran and I  (A-Team!) with our Sacher Torte. Oou class made 4 different types, they were all similar idea, but did taste differently.










This is just a close up our sacher torte.











Thursday.
Last day due to Remembrance Day.
Side note: I am glad that we still have a day to honor and thank the soldiers who have fought so we can live the life we all live today. Hopefully we will never get this day pushed into commercialism or religeous political drama. 

Some of us got to help out the gingerbread team! When i didnt make the team i told gabby( the team leader) if she ever needed help, and if it was okay that i would like to help even though i didnt make the team, but that i also understood if i couldnt help.  But i was lucky and i got to help :)

I made ducks :) hah at first i was trying to make black birds but they kept looking like ducks but they said that was alright as there is a duck pond as well








I also made a tree (mine is the one on the farthest left) the other tree and lumberjack was made by nikki in my class!






Two other girls in my class, Jessica and Rebecca made a witch!


Tonya made a stool, table and then fire in the fireplace, and i helped complete the room by making a chair with an elf sitting in it relaxing, although i forgot to take a picture as i was almost late for class. lol oops!


Chocolate tempering... 
i officially had a meltdown at school. I was in tears. My Chef actually had to tell me to put the spatula down and walk away.
Still not sure excatly why but i think a part of it is that no matter how much you know the theory of it, the execution is all about practice and knowing how the chocolate should be. Not just knowing what temperature the chocolate should be and then doing what you should do at those ''specific correct temperatures''
It was very intimidating.

You temper chocolate So that when you melt it down to mold or write with when it sets it has the right apperance that you want. Chocolate can manifest itself in 6 different ways. So your wanting to heat it up to melt it all and then cool it down so when it sets its in the 'v' formation.

Textbook says to heat it all up to 49 then take temper some down to 27-29 and then when you combine the cooled chocolate to the remaining chocolate it should be at a temperature around 31-33 and then when you test it be perfect.
i tried that the first time, it didnt work.
So the second time my partner helped me, as he had correctly tempered and didnt use a thermometer so i tried that. and it did work although i had little chunks of chocolate from incorrect tempering movement.
So onto the third try.. I knew what temperature by feeling it with my finger and how the choc should be acting at the three different stages, the only part that i was doing incorrectly was the actual tempering on the marble. So my chef stood by my side and talked me through it.

So that is me with my test of correct tempered chocolate. Finally!


Monday we are doing chocolate again.. Practice will make perfect!









"We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude."
Hope everyone has an amazing Remembrance Day
<3 Amz