"the first birth is always the most difficult"

Or so says Chef Doug. I should start off by saying that I really like my chef instructors...incredibly talented, knowledgeable and to top it off...stellar personalities. Chef Doug has a very dry, quirky sense of humor and as he guided my class through our first layer cake it became apparant that you need to be able to not take yourself too seriously in this industry.

Almond sponge cake with Swiss meringue buttercream and short dough cookies

Basically, this cake was designed as practice. It was an exercise in slicing layers, preparing sponges, making buttercream and assembly. I will not lie, I shed a few tears. It was difficult, emotional, and took FOREVER! Worth documenting because in a few months this will be child's play.

Speaking of play...
Caramelized sugar globe

More caramel decorations

We got to play with molten hot lava caramel! This was so much fun! For some reason, I have wanted to make a globe since I got my fancy pastry book and saw all the sculptural decorations. The chocolate globe will be better, and oh yeah my second attempt at this will be better but for a first time at this stuff I think it turned out well.

I really cannot wait to make beautiful items that are also tasty. These are all pretty good but I know that more exciting things are up ahead.

Baking 101 - formulas, leveners, tenderizers...oh my!

More three sister cookies and a variation using almond paste.

It is a much slower pace...although I hear it picks up. To be fair we've only been in the lab for 4 days. Still learning the ropes and well, the formulas. One thing that I am finding the most interesting about professional baking is using bakers percentages and weighing out ingredients. It is safe to say that volumetric measuring is out. Gone. Goodbye. Well okay I still have many treasured recipes that use cups and I am not converting them all but in the bakeshop, we weigh it out. Surprisingly enough we use imperial measures but whatever.

A baker's percentage works on the idea that the amount of flour in a recipe is 100% and you base the rest of your measurements from this set amount. For example, the above cookies were made from a short dough that is 100% flour, 66% butter and about 24% sugar. There are also eggs and a touch of salt and yes I know, this adds up to over 100. That does not matter! What does matter is that you have a quick and easy way to scale up and scale down formulas.

Cream Puffs!

These babies were made in class on Friday and I made a few with a Bavarian cream to feed the culinary students however I took most of mine home so I could make a tasty savory appetizer for guests on Saturday. They were very crisp and tender and surprisingly easy. I see more cream puff based dishes in my future of entertainment. I am wondering if I can use a tofu instead of an egg . . . As long as there is moisture it should rise it just may not have the right structure or tenderness. Nonetheless I am going to try. The world needs vegan creme puffs damnit!

New kitten - Regina.

And no, I do not plan on eating the new kitten but I had to share with the world that our adopted kitten is here! She hates sleeping at night but loves to nibble on faces so it all works out! If I sound cranky it is the sleep deprivation typing. She's worth it though, incredibly sweet, playful and fun. I am really looking forward to watching her grow up and teaching her how to do all sorts of kitty tricks.

I get to finally make a cake in class tomorrow! Hooray!

Week One - Saftey / Sanitation class and some more vegan cuppies!

Phew...The first week was well, long. While I did meet my chef instructors (who are absolutely fabulous) I had to sit, in a room, with all the other students for 5 hours and listen to lecture about safety and sanitation. Important yes, and well a little dry. I felt like I was stuck in a Professional Development only without my many partners in crime...instead I was with well students.

I am happy to say that I am not the oldest student however I am by no means the youngest. I think that I honestly have a little of an advantage over the 18 year olds thanks to college study habits and the professionalism of running a classroom and yearbook.

Today I took my exam and I know I aced it, I will be 'ServSafe' certified for 5 years, although thanks to CA I have to retest every three. Why is it so difficult to get out of a system where you have to be certified with standardized testing?

Tomorrow is the first day in the lab, and yeah we're cooking. Easy short dough, but my first time using their equipment, which is much much much cooler than mine.

Oh yeah, I also made a few more vegan cupcakes. Dulche Sin Leche and Cookies and Cream. So so sweet and so so good.



Check back often, with school underway and being in the labs everyday there will be photos, stories, and hopefully a few disasters. I know you're looking forward to cake fails!

Birthday Girl! Mini cuppies!

My dear friend Kathleen is growing year older and throwing a fun tequila filled party tonight to celebrate. She asks me for cupcakes as her prezzie from me, with a chocolate and lemon flavor request. I am not one for the chocolate citrus combination myself, but this is not about me.

I thought about it and came up with lemon cupcakes, dipped in chocolate with lemon butter cream polkadots. I made them mini to be more crowd pleasing and will be taking them to her on the bus shortly.


Maybe I'll have a few photos of these beauties being enjoyed later, but I am not counting on it. The best part is that they taste just as if not better than they look!

School starts on Monday and I have to finish homework for my first day of class. I think other than that, I am set. I'm nervous but mostly excited. More updates soon!

Chocolate goes best with Chocolate

About a month ago I could not stop craving chocolate cake. I would go to a bakery look around and not see what I wanted then leave disappointed. This went on for about 3 days when I finally realized that I should have just made them myself in the first place.


So for some reason I had not tried to make a homemade ganache before this project. Now that I have done so I can't believe I went so long without it. Again, following the recipie in Confetti Cakes I got an intense chocolate ganache that was silky and lingered on your tounge, fingers, lips, counter tops and somehow my ceiling. Dipping the chocolate cuppies was easy then a few berries were plopped on for color and bam!

Generally what happens when I make anything, sweet or savory is that by the time the creation is complete I am so tired of it from all the tasting that has to happen along the way. As a result I always try the not quite fully seasoned or sometimes over seasoned process work and rarely the final product because I am full and tired of it by the time it's complete.

This is where living near me comes in handy . . This batch went with Andy to his work where they received great reviews. The only downside was that I had to send another batch of cupcakes in last week and will most likely be sending another in the next. I hope that once established I can cater for them...and then their other start up friends.

I have all my gear for culinary school and have already begun playing with most of it. Chances are I am developing bad habits and will have to unbreak them in a few weeks but I am having fun which is what I am all about.

Hello Cupcake!

The class was awesome and I will write a post tomorrow. For now here are the photos.

So excited!

Cupcakes for yearbookies

Every year I do something for my yearbook staff to show them how much I appreciate them. The first year we had the standard pizza party and it was fun, free (since the publisher royally screwed up) and the kids happily stuffed themselves with greasy slices. The second year I felt like I needed to set a better example and I brought them all Jamba Juices. It was sticky, refreshing, and there is still a stain on the floor of G21 due to a mishap.

Well this year the students really lucked out because I decided that I was going to bring in homemade cupcakes. I figured almost my entire staff was graduating in a few days so I'd make a graduation theme by assembling hats out of chocolates and making the cupcakes flavors to match the school's colors.



What are these tasty creatures? Green tea cupcakes with matcha frosting and french vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting and a touch of yellow dye. Green tea recipe here, vanilla cupcake recipe here, and the vanilla frosting came from "confetti cakes" one of my all time favorite books.


The green tea were just fabulous. Dense, moist, and an intense matcha flavor. The vanilla was incredibly sweet and buttery, it reminded me of vanilla ice cream. The kids really liked the vanilla the adults really liked the green tea. All in all, a success and well worth the hours of creation in my tiny kitchen.

Next week is my cupcake class and I can't wait to see what we make. Today wrapped up my last full week teaching! I teach the kids one more time next week, then finals. It's starting to hit me that this is it and it's a little sad sometimes but overall I feel very excited.

In other news...heat wave! So much heat, so little insulation.