Internship Week 3...

Today I began the 3rd week at my Internship. I can not believe that it is going by so fast. I find myself excited to go in and do my internship and a little sad that I have to leave and come to school :( . Some days at my internship are a lot of busy work, but today was a good day. I feel like I am getting into the groove of things and I have begun to feel confident while doing things.

The bakery counter seemed to be wiped out so we had to replenish.

These guys are quick to make and they are popular. I had made them with Valentine sprinkles and heart headrests.


These whip cream frosted angel food cakes go fast! The first time that I frosted these it took me probably about 20 minutes for one. I think that I finished all four of these in 20 minutes


I've always admired Martha's Birthday Cake


So I decided to give a shot at the piping technique on her cake and came up with this.


After I did the angel food cakes we then moved onto making monster cookies. These are so cute, popular, and easy to make. Here is Connie's monster and my production line of monsters next to hers.


You can start to see their faces/personalities coming out as I piped eyes and eyebrows. You can change their expressions by positioning the eyebrows in different places.


Noses...


Here is a tray of monsters ready for the counter...


Here is a black forrest cake. I love how the bakery that I work at has freedom to create various products. Here is a chocolate cake with cherry filling, chocolate whipped cream and chocolate cake!


These two took about 10 minutes to make!

Sweet & Salty Caramel Cake

For the January birthdays at the CSP I decided to make the Sweet & Salty Caramel cake I must have been off my game or something because I had to make the caramel three times! I burned the first two batches of it, luckily it is easy to make and is just sugar and water. Have a look at my trial and error(s) while making the Sweet & Salty Caramel Cake.

The Sugar, water, and corn syrup need to be heated until they are an amber color which is about 350 degrees.


While cooking the caramel you also have to heat up heavy cream and salt.


So the first batch I burned the heck out of and made the stupid mistake of pouring it into a plastic bowl. The hot caramel melted right through the bowl!


Second batch...


At this point the caramel needs to be watched very carefully, I would recommend taking it off the heat before it reaches 350 degrees because it will continue to cook and get darker in color...


Once the cream has reached 350 and has been allowed to cool down for a minute I added the heavy cream.


This part seems a bit scary but the caramel will bubble violently.


A quarter cup of sour cream is then mixed in.


And whisked until smooth.


Here is a delicious stream of caramel!


This cake was originally intended for last Friday, but due to the weather we had a snow day and campus was closed. The caramel only lasts 3 days in the frige so I made Brian go out and get us some vanilla ice cream and we had caramel sundaes!

I did not have much time to take a good picture of this cake and I did not have any cake boxes at home (BAD BAKER!) So I snapped this picture right before I left this morning. I adorned the cake with Milk Duds (milk & caramel candies).


This cake is assembled by torting the cake (slicing it in half horizontally). In the layer of the cake the salt caramel is generously spread and then frosted with the whipped chcolate caramel ganache and a sprinkling of salt!

I heard the phrase, "this is Louis' best cake yet" so I would say that people liked it. I had a piece of it too and it was DELICIOUS!!!

Kind Words & Bad Day...

Yesterday while the nation was rejoicing I had absolutely no time to partake in the feeling of joy that the entire nation was feeling. I was literally on the verge of falling apart. It was an absolutely awful day, I am glad that it is over and today was a much better day.

I think that when I arrived at my internship this morning I was still upset about yesterday and it was really apparent and manifested itself through me being frustrated while icing cakes and not being able to do things that I know how to do such as create a shell border on a cake. My cake was also full of crumbs!!! Have a look...

This right here is the first cake that I decorated and it looks awful! Look at that border, I feel as though I was so consumed and upset with yesterday that I was not able to concentrate. LOOK AT THOSE CRUMBS, ROUGH SURFACE, AND JACKED UP BORDER!


I was very lucky to have found a "supervisor" (my internship boss/teacher) Connie. She is very patient, I know that when it gets busy that it can not be easy having me tagging along all the time looking for direction. Connie is always happy to break down the steps of cake decorating into smaller steps and provide instant feedback.

Here is my second attempt at a rose.


As the day went on I realized that it was already a much better day than yesterday and I was having a good time. Here is my second cake with an improved border!


Here is another cake with balloons, sprinkles, and yellow borders. I think that I need to start making the balloons a bit bigger at the top. These cakes go into a case and customers can pick them out. We leave a blank spot for writing.


Since Valentine's day is approaching we have begun making Valentine sweets. I made this cake...


I had one last cake to decorate before I left for school so this is what I came up with! Cute huh?



My friend Gary's mom (who I work with) said that the top penguin looks like he had one too many!


Okay so enough about my internship for today. I receive many comments on my blog and emails with kind words, but these two just came at just the right time to cheer me up and believe me I have needed it with the past few weeks that I have had. I would like to thank everyone who reads my blog and all of the bloggers who's blogs that I read which provide me with the inspiration and aspiration to be a better blogger!

Email:
"This is just to tell you thank you for your blog on clothespin cookies. My mother-in-law taught me a year ago, how to bake bread and this past christmas I figured I would step up and try these cookies. She could not find her usual recipe, and when she did, even she did not understand it.So with her recipe in hand, I got online and after many, many searches I found yours. It looked similar to hers except with more info,so I printed yours and went straight to baking. It took me hours but the end product was oh my gosh, perfect. It was not until just tonight that my husband and I, were going through our saved recipes that I saw that you are from our home town. I know you said that the dough was too much work for it not to turn out good, so you went for the store bought puffed pastry, however I was determined and so I want you to know that I followed your recipe from scratch and it turned out wonderfully. It was "puffed-perfection". Just like in the store windows only better because I made it myself (with your help).My hubby even says its better than his mom's and if I may say so myself, he is right. It's the best ever. Thank You! So very much for sharing it online."

Blog Comment:
"OMG! Please forgive me for using such overused slang but I can think of nothing better to describe my reaction to your BBQ Pulled Pork recipe!!! I haven't even served it for our dinner yet but had myself a sample while I was pulling/forking it (don't tell anyone! haha)...it's amazing! I have no idea how I came across your blog but am so glad I did! So many fun recipes and inspiring crafty things! LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!
I look forward to more! : ) Have a great day!"

Internship Week 1

So Yesterday was the end of the first week of school and my internship. In the 23.65 hours that I have worked with my intern supervisor Connie I have had so much fun and have learned a lot. My feed hurt by the end of the day, but it is worth it. Time goes by so fast and I usually do not want to leave.

I am also usually excited to arrive and eager to learn. Have a look at a few pictures from my first week...

Look at this mixer! I need one of these at home.


Here is a huge batch of buttercream whipping to get fluffy...


A bit fluffier...


It has tripled in volume and has become light and fluffy.


The buttercream has to be scooped into a VERY large container.


This day I had to decorate 96 cupcakes and 9 cakes...



The rest of the cupcakes were made in preparation of "the big game"...


Here are the cakes that I made.


Here is the display with all of my cakes and cupcakes. We also put pizza there to make this a one stop shop!


here is a cake that took Connie about 10 minutes to make. I can not wait until I am as proficient as her with buttercream!


Connie taught me how to make balloons today. Here was my first attempt, not too shabby! and I might say that my piping on the borders has drastically improved. I still have a long way to go!


These guys were one of the last things that Connie and I decorated before I left today.


These little clown cars are made out of filled puff pastry.

Dog Cupcakes!

Today at my internship I learned how to use various tips that I have never used before. One that took a bit of getting use to was the grass tip. My internship supervisor and I used two cupcakes to make the base of the dog and then the grass tip to create fur. Have a look...

I know that it doesn't look like much of anything right now, but I promise it will start to take shape.




With eyes and a nose the little guy starts to emerge.


I LOVED DOING THIS PART! The airbrush was so fun to use and quick! My supervisor is so confident in my skills that she took out the airbrush and said, "here you go!" As usual I was nervous but did it and I tell you I could do this for hours!


So here is my little guy all finished!


Connie let me use a few colors and color the cupcakes that she made!


So here are the little pups waiting to be bought...



Tomorrow I have to be there at 7AM. I have heard various temperature differences, but because we are suppose to have a low of -10 schools are cancelled. I hope that school is cancelled for me tomorrow too!!!

Internship 1st Day...

Today was the first day of my internship. I am doing my internship at a local market in the bakery. I want to learn how to decorate cakes and also how bakeries of a larger size operate. For the first day of my internship I had a wonderful time, everyone was so nice and my internship supervisor was extremely nice, patient, and excited to share knowledge. She was confident enough in me to let me frost cookies within my first 20 minutes of being then and then ice scissor cakes and another cake. Have a look!

Here are the smiley face cookies that I was assigned to do. I was nervous at first but they were rather simple.


I also had to do large smiley faces...



Here are all of the cookies I decorated ready to be packaged...


This was referred to as scissor bread or scissor cake. I had to ice the brown ones with a maple icing.


After a break we started to ice cakes. This part had me nervous! Here is the finished iced cake. NO I did not do the seashell border on top. I wish!


After frosting the cake we were ready to decorate. This is where my nerves kicked into high gear. My supervisor just whipped her rosebuds out so fast I practiced for quite a while and mine still looked awful. She gave me some tips and I got a bit better.


I am embarassed to show my finished cake, but I am in my internship to learn so hopefully by the end of this semester I will be proud to show you my cakes and I can laugh over this picture.

Camouflage Cake...

Today was the birthday party for Brian's nephew Sam's birthday. His mom asked if I would make a camouflage cake. I have not done too much with coloring frosting but I figured that this would be a good opportunity to do so. I layered two chocolate sheet cakes drizzled with simple syrup and then vanilla buttercream. I embellished the cake with some whoppers. Have a look!

This was the pattern that I used as the inspiration for my colors and design...


After a few tweeks of the buttercream and gel food coloring I think that I got it looking good!




I need to work on my shell piping around the edge, but it looked good!


I think the whoppers were a cute touch. Everyone loved the cake it was very moist and flavorful. In cake decorating news, on Monday I will be starting my final semester of college then I will graduate with my bachelor's degree in Hospitality Management. I will be starting my internship on Tuesday with a cake decorator! I am so excited to learn tips and tricks to decorating cakes and to improve my skills!

Long Time No Blog... New Juicer

So after eating a bunch of garbage (delicious garbage) over the holiday break I ended up with a stomach ache, a week long stomach ache. Every time I would eat something a stomach ache would follow about 15 minutes later. One thing that my body was actually craving was green juice. I am not sure why because I had never had any green juice, but it was a strong craving. I went to the grocery store and bought a bottle of some type of green juice and it was so delicious and my stomach ache went away.

I told Brian that I wanted to get a juicer, but I was afraid that I would get one and never use it. Well I ended up getting the juicer today and I love it. I was sold on one after I saw Martha make a green juice on her show. Back then it did not look good, but today it looks wonderful.

Here is my attempt...

Here is my new Breville Juice Fountain Plus.


I would not describe it as compact so I am going to have to find a place for it on my already crowded countertop...

Here is all of the fruit that I decided to use. It is all washed and ready to go. Doesn't it look like Rachael Ray's garbage bowl!


One neat feature of this pitcher is that it has a foam separator. Juicing creates a lot of foam, this pitcher has a design similar to a fat separator used to make gravy. It really works!

Here is the finished glass of juice. Now I have to be honest and say that this first attempt was not what I was expecting. For my taste I put too much ginger and cucumber. Other than that the juice is delicious. Next round (later today) I am going to do a few more apples and less ginger.


One main reason that I chose this juicer was because it only has three major parts to clean that all go into the dishwasher. I lined the container used to catch the pulp with a bag so that I can use the pulp in my compost bin.

Here is a little video of me juicing. The juicer makes noise and when I listened to this video the noise sounded like a loud screeching (which it did not in person) so I replaced the noise with what I have on my iPhone as my new ring tone! Enjoy!


Oh and I also wanted to post a few pics of our pups enjoying the snow.

Here is Lucy giving me a major case of SIDE EYE, I suppose she wants to know what I am doing all up in her mix...




Here are all of our beasts wishing I would hurry up and give them a treat.