Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Sorry I haven't been around much lately, I've been a bit preoccupied with school and work. Last Wednesday we were told that we would be participating in a food show; we would each be required to entire one piece into the show. We could choose from sugar sculpture, chocolate sculpture or a show cake. I'm so happy that my last few weeks of BREAD prepared me for this! Quite obviously I chose to do a cake since the other options might require a bit more experience.

When I decided to go to pastry school learning about cakes was one of the major draws. Now, I have no experience with cakes other than the little Wilton class I took at Hobby Lobby with Paige this summer. Even in that class I think I ate more icing than I practiced with. Anyhow, as anxious as I am about learning cake decorating I confess that I was less than thrilled when we were informed about the show. You see, I don't like to do things that I'm either not already good at or not fully prepared for. This was a complete blindside. Now, I know that those are things I have to move past if I'm ever going to excell, but blah blah.... that's another conversation. All I could really do was jump in and just start going with it. I looked around online for ideas forever, but in the end I came up with my own design. If I tried to copy another design I know I would just end up even more frustrated because it didn't look exactly the same. I showed chef a sad drawing that didn't look like more than a few circles piled on top of one another, but I tried to explain my idea the best I could. I really don't think she understood what I was talking about (if I was her I wouldn't), but she just nodded her head and let me go with it.



In the end, I had an amazing time! That is not to say that I didn't get frustrated and angry with myself, but I was really proud of my finished product. Of course there were flaws and things I need to improve on, but for my first cake and first time ever working with fondant I was really proud. I'm really glad we were forced to do this project. I think it pushed me to move past my fears not being good a little faster. My cake ended up scoring high enough to earn a bronze medal and I proudly tied with Dora for 3rd in our division (I know I told some of you 1st earlier, but when I looked at the check tonight it said 3rd.... I'm sorry. It was really loud when they were announcing and confusing when they called 2 of us for the same award. But, hey... I'm still fine with 3rd. I still got a little cash.) Here are a few pics of the progression of my cake and the cakes of a few others in my class.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"wooo...horray for you!"
it looks awesome. and i still want to eat it if the school ever gives it back...i dont care if you say its old.

Unknown said...

Very impressive for never having done it before! I tried to make a bunt cake into a pumpkin, yeah, it sucked. You're doing great.

Anonymous said...

AWESOME! THE CAKE LOOKS GREAT! AND...3RD PLACE?...CASH?...GOOD TIMES!

rhid said...

Congrats! That pumpkin cake looked amazing! We haven't done anything of the kind! They seriously through you in the deep end though!

Tara Farms said...

I am so proud of you! You are amazing!!! I can only imagine how good you are going to be when you have acutally had classes!

Tori said...

i love it!!! i knew you always had it in you... the first cake decorating class was just warm-ups.

Anonymous said...

Cool cake Haley the baker Glasco

Keep it up and I may have to call on you for the ultimate wedding cake!

Ken said...

AWESOME CAKE ! you did a really great job with that! *I* would say it was all due to that little Wilton class you took at the Hobby Lobby.. but that is only because I am biased! LOL !! OK.. Truth is you were a WAY ahead of the teacher in that class.. You are doing great.. Keep it up!

Take Care There!