Last Day of Baking School

I'm sad to say that yesterday marked my last day of attendance at the Chinese Baking School I've been going to for the past five weeks. I've learned a lot about cakes and baking--so much that I've gotten to the point where I don't even want to try what we make anymore. lol. It took me a little over two years to get to this point. I'm sure it's just a short phase though. I'll get back to my old self pretty soon.

Anyway, here are some of the things I baked yesterday....

Napoleon
I'm not really sure if that's what it's really supposed to be like. I remember having some with lots of cream in it...but maybe that one wasn't the real thing. Not so sure. I didn't try this because yesterday I was just not feeling any sweets. My mom says it tasted good though. (By the way, it's green because the center is whipped egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar, and green pandan cake crumbs)



Next time, I'd like to try a fruit version of this. Maybe some puff pastry, pastry cream, raspberries, more puff pastry, pastry cream, etc.

Cream Horns
These are real lookers but they're actually really easy to make! We were supposed to use white sugar crystals but the teacher only had red sugar crystals at the time. It looks festive--maybe a good color for the holidays? These are filled with some buttercream, which is pretty good, but in small doses. The key to these are to have the right equipment. She uses these metal almost cone shaped molds to wrap the puff pastry around.



Maple Cake
This cake smells really rich, but the cake is actually really light and soft! The only REALLY sweets parts are the raisins in there.

Today's Goodies

Fruit bowl
This is my first stab at cutting fruit in a different shape than just straight. These are angled lines! I'm definitely going to try fruit/vegetable carving! Next time I do this though, I'm going to scoop melon balls out of the cantaloupe so it'll be easier to eat...and look pretty too!



Mango cake filled with strawberries and bananas. If you're going to attempt this, make sure to slice the mango thin (probably about 1/8" thick so it sticks to the sides easily.

Pictures from Last Week

I know, these photos are a tad bit late, but I really wanted to share them with you, and well, what better time than never?

Cake filled with canned Lynchee and Lynchee flavored frosting.



Crispy Walnut Cake
(Filled with crushed walnuts, pastry cream, and a sheet of puff pastry. Topped with Strawberries, Kiwi, and an Apple in the center)

It says, "Happy Mother's Day"


From the top:


Cheesecake (I prefer the taste of a homemade rich cheesecake rather than this one--it's practically from the box--but for what it is, it's still good!)

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!
I had dinner with my boyfriend and his family to celebrate his upcoming 20th birthday. I decided to bake a cake, so I made my famous (fine, it's only famous among like 5 people) chocolate cake. I had about four hours and for those of you who have experience baking a cake and frosting it all from scratch, well, it's not THAT much time. I was able to pull it off. Sort of. I didn't wait long enough for the sugar, eggs, and milk mixture of the frosting to cool down before I added the butter so it kind of melted it making it hard to pipe it.... Oh well. It kind of came out nice. Especially for only about three hours (one of the hours was spent at the grocery store. I didn't get a chance to take a picture or anything but oh well.

One Step Closer!

First Cake
Originally uploaded by succeedingmartha.

So I'm taking a cake decorating class (as well as a baking class but we'll discuss that another time) because well, what good is putting all this work into a cake (or whatever you're preparing) if it doesn't even look appetizing? Now some people put all of their effort into presentation and none into the actual product and well, there's no point in that either. Nothing more disappointing than a beautiful cake that doesn't have a taste to match! That's also the case for people...
I'm only in the third week of class so we're still learning the basics: pressure, angle, and well I forget the other thing, but it's also important. Today's assignment was to recreate a cake with six different designs on it. I have to admit, I was a bit apprehensive about starting the cake, but once the first bit of piped icing adhered to the cake, I just couldn't find myself stopping. I realized that I love decorating cakes. I can't wait to learn more. My teacher graded the cake and well, I didn't do so bad! Probably about ten points shy of a perfect score! Not too shabby for a first timer.
I felt a little embarassed when a classmate keep talking about how great my cake was...I personally feel that I can do a lot better. But I felt so happy when my boyfriend pointed out that her idolizing me (I'm serious, she told me I was going to be her new idol) was just one step closer to being the next Martha. One day at a time..