Wedding Cake Day Playlist

Many things are important in the process of creating a wedding cake. There's the tasting, the sketching, the planning, the stalking of wedding blogs and videos for examples - and that is all before the dust even comes close to coming off of my kitchen aid. When I really think about it though, one of the most important things that goes into a successful Wedding Cake Day is the playlist. Whenever I've accomplished anything particularly notable in life, there's always a solid playlist on in the background. Be it running, studying or piping homework, the second that my iPod dies is the second that productivity goes out of the window.

Next weekend is Memorial Day and I have possibly the most exciting wedding cake I've ever made coming up for Molly and Michael. So this weekend I'm finishing up all preparations to make this cake day go off without a hitch, and the playlist is on the top of my list! When baking, I need a good mix of 'positive vibes', 'heart pounding' and 'sing-your-heart-out-into-a-whisk' kinds of music. Here's what I have so far for next weekend:

1. I Would Walk 500 Miles: Kenny and the Scots (Stuck in our heads during bakeshop these days)
2. Mirrors: Justin Timberlake (Okay, so the rest of his new album too...)
3. Stir It Up: Bob Marley (Should have seen that one coming)
4. Crystalize: Linsey Stirling (Girl KILLS it on the violin)
5. Sweet: Dave Matthews Band (A pick me up)
6. Radioactive: Imagine Dragons (Jammin' out while decorating)
7. Only You: Ellie Goulding (Latest obsession)
8. Brown Sugar: The Rolling Stones (Never hurts to hear this one while baking)
9. Stronger: Britney Spears (One that is sacred to the bride and I)
10. A few selections from the Julie and Julia soundtrack for good measure.

What do you like to listen to when you bake/cook? Check back this week for updates on how this cake is coming together!

Classic Raspberry Linzer Torte

Sculpted Bunny Cake

If you remember back on my first week at the CIA I met Derek Corsino, head chef and owner of Corsino Cakes, a gourmet cake bakery out of Wappingers Falls, NY. Derek graduated from the bachelor's program at the CIA in 2009 and has gone on to not only start his own successful business, but also appear on Food Network Challenge three times. He was so approachable the day I met him at the cake competition here that I emailed him to set up a workshop for classmates and I to supplement our CIA experience. I will take classes on cakes here, but we don't use fondant or gumpaste until after I return from my externship, and sculpting is not in the curriculum at all. Since cake decorating is obviously a huge interest of mine, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Derek and I designed a sculpted cake workshop for my class together over email. And then four of my classmates and I made the short trip to his bakery one Monday to sculpt and decorate a bunny cake at his direction.

We started out by talking about the different structural support that he uses and what we were using for the bunny cake. It was a pretty simple sculpted cake, but making the ears stand up required some hardware. Attached to the cake board were a male and female receptor to hold the PVC pipe vertically, and then wire was attached to the pipe with putty to form the ears.

We sliced his high-ratio (high fat content) vanilla cake and stacked it with Italian buttercream to make the head shape.

 From this step we carved into the stack to shape the head, and then put a crumb coating of  buttercream on to smooth the surface.

Next, he showed us his method for covering a cake in fondant and adding texture to make it look realistic.

We rolled out fondant to make the ears, eyes, mouth and nose, and he finished his with green grass.

His finished product.

My finished product.

Katie and Carlie with their bunny.

The whole crew!

Portfolio Expansions

My first semester in culinary school at the CIA is just about over (what?!) and I'd like to take the chance to share what I've been up to other than cake. I have learned more in the past 15 weeks than probably the past 15 years of baking at home by myself. We learn how to do, why we do, another way to do, and what we can use to do. I am now an encyclopedia for all things sugary, flour-y, fruity and chocolate-y. Just ask my poor sister, who made the mistake of asking me the simple question of can she substitute baking soda for baking powder in cookies (twenty minute explanation later, I finally told her 'no'). Between my awesome class and my awesome instructors, everyday here is a learning experience and a chance to improve. Here's a small sampling of what I've been up to:

Marble and streusel pound cake

 Sugar cookies

Roulade (aka jelly roll) sponge cake with raspberry jam filling

Buttermilk biscuits

Angel food cake

Pies on pies on pies...blueberry, pecan and apple from top to bottom

Eclairs 

Creme caramel - the first dessert we actually sent to the dining hall to be eaten

Croissants and pain au chocolate 

Lemon merengue pie

The "CIA" cake. We have to do this for our skills test and my second term practical before I will leave for externship. You didn't hear this from me, but this is possibly the grossest cake I have ever tasted...

Chocolate pot de creme 

Creme brulee

What our bakeshop looks like after a successful day in rotations. Each row of tables makes about four different things for critique every Wednesday!

My oh-so-talented sisters. I spend just about every waking moment with these beautiful ladies.

Although these products are not cake, I can apply just about every technique I learned making them to making cakes, frostings, fillings and decorations. These products were all made in my Baking Techniques course, which was my production class for the past 13 weeks. My class is two weeks, one final and one skills test away from our second semester at the CIA. Much more deliciousness to come!

Spring Wedding Cake Tasting

Last September I did a cake tasting with one of my oldest and dearest friends for her Memorial Day weekend 2013 wedding. It's safe to say that Molly and I go way back. Like Britney-Spears-talent-show-dance-routine back. It's not every day that you get to reconnect with a friend like her, and to do it over wedding cake samples and sketches was exciting to say the very least. We sat down at her Mom's kitchen table in Charlottesville, Va this past fall to discuss these beauties:

Clockwise from left: raspberry lemonade cake with citrus cream cheese filling, dark chocolate cake with raspberry ganache filling, and lavender cake with raspberry mousse filling. Molly and Michael love chocolate and raspberry, so they knew they wanted chocolate in their cake, but also other seasonal flavors to give their guests a variety. We ended up with a delicious flavor combination that will accomplish both! For the design she wanted to have the cake compliment her wedding gown, so we settled on a design that incorporates delicate lace detailing as well as a ruched banded middle cake layer. 

Without Molly, I never would have made it through glitter eye shadow, glasses, or calculus. I can't even express how excited I am that she chose me to make her wedding cake, and I can't wait to be there now when she gets married! At the risk of extreme embarrassment, here's a picture of us circa 1999:

And to redeem myself a little, 2008:

Piping, Piping, Piping

My homework has been  looking a little different these days since I joined the ranks of baking and pastry students at the CIA. I'm frequently asked how a culinary school assigns homework and the truth is, for the most part it's pretty similar to any college. We get lots of reading, writing (Suprised? I was.) and researching. On top of that I watch a lot of videos of chef's demos to prepare for class, write out what I'll need for mise en place for the day and we get to fill up this bad boy before every single bake shop class:

I usually practice piping if I have leftover frosting from a cake on hand, but nothing as serious as this. We do loops on loops on loops, and they are all [supposed] to be all the exact same size and shape, including the connecting swoop in between. 

Different filigree designs.

We also have to make a marzipan rose for each class - made without ANY tools, completely by hand.

Definitely a slight departure from the norm, but I'll take a piping bag in my hand over a highlighter any day.

Reflections on Fair Trade Chocolate

A year ago this week I did the craziest, coolest, most notable thing that I had done in my life (uhh..still). I flew to Lima, Peru in search of answers about the fair trade industry, and then spent three days on an organic cacao farm in the middle of the jungle. I have never learned so much in one short week, or had one individual make such a lasting impression on me as my dear farmer, Carlos. Now, it's a year later. I can still remember how I felt during my stay in Peru and the emotional 'high' I came back to the States with.

This week I have been  re-reading my original post about my trip and remembering all of the things I learned and all of the wonderful people that I met. Fair trade, as opposed to 'organic', is not a buzz word. It is not a marketing ploy, it is a trading system regulated by organizations like the World Trade Organization, the European Union, and the United Nations. It is a system put in place to protect the people who do not have the resources to protect themselves in an international market. Crops like coffee, chocolate and sugar cane biologically cannot be grown in certain areas of the world, yet they are consumed in every area of the world. This is where the problems start.

I could go on and on about the importance and ethical arguments, but that's not what this post is about. This week is about remembering Carlos and his family, his community in Echarate, Peru and the kindness they showed me: a random American girl with a college education and an iPhone. Fair trade is a hard thing to understand and shell out the money to support if you haven't seen its effects first hand. Which is why I'm reminding myself of what I learned, but most importantly who I met and who is still affecting my daily life one year later.

Pomegranate Cupcakes

It's finally starting to warm up around here (although we got a few inches of fresh snow last week) and this cupcake is the perfect one to wrap up the winter season with. My favorite part of winter are the citrus flavors that come in to season- I will never get tired of the light and fresh flavor. Pomegranates are sweet and tangy, and they make for a really uniquely flavored cupcake.

They're topped with fluffy citrus cream cheese frosting, that gives it a little extra tart-ness and balances the dense texture of the cake. To garnish, there are pomegranate seeds and strips of candied ginger. 

No extra coloring was added, the bright pink hue is all from the fresh pomegranate juice! These are the perfect little bites to treat yourself with in this Winter-to-Spring in between time; sweet, tangy and a little spicy from the ginger.