We've been working with chocolate all week. I'm not too convinced I like working with it, but I do love eating it :)

Usually when I get the urge to bake something in particular it escalates into dire need rather quickly. A few months ago I bought 2oz of cocoa butter... not very much I know, but those 2oz were around $5. Ridiculous. I bought the cocoa butter for a presentation I was doing at school, but haven't gotten around to experimenting with it until recently. The urge to bake some cupcakes suddenly overwhelmed me, so I decided to play with a bit of the cocoa butter. I wont say too much about the actual cake because it wasn't that great. I tweaked the Magnolia Bakery's recipe for vanilla cupcakes by adding an ounce of the cocoa butter. The flavor was great, but the cake was too dense for my taste. I like light, airy, fluffy cupcakes, and this was not. Oh well. The icing on the other hand was amazing! I am not the biggest fan of American buttercream icings, usually I prefer Swiss buttercream, but this recipe was great! It is also Magnolia's recipe, so I wont take any credit for it. It is pretty much an old fashioned buttercream recipe, just butter, confectioner's sugar, milk and vanilla. It is wonderful; you must try it out!

Magnolia's Vanilla Buttercream

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
6-8 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk and vanilla. On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of a good spreading consistency. You may not need to add all of the sugar. Add a few drops of food coloring, if desired, and mix thoroughly. Use and store the icing at room temperature. Icing can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Makes enough for one 2-layer 9 inch cake or 2 dozen cupcakes.

Sweet Bread Anyone?

So, every now and then at school the culinary class invites our pastry class to sample some of the dishes that they have made that day. I always love it when they do because I am usually starving since I haven't eaten anything since 6:45 that morning on the way to school. Earlier this week I was relieved to take a break from working on my wedding cake, and sample a bit of their culinary delight. Mmmm... a little rice, Caesar salad, beef cooked some delicious way, and some kind of soup...looked like mushroom and I love mushroom soup so I took quite a bit. After a refreshing lunch break I was back to work on the cake cutting out little buttons and piping the border. A while later the other class' chef came in to see the progress of our cakes and see if we liked their lunch. We all agreed that it was very enjoyable, and then he asked if anyone tried the "mushroom" soup. I'm not sure if I was the only person who ate it, or if I was just the only person to say anything, but I courageously spoke up and said I thought it was great. A sly smile crossed his face as he announced to me that those were not mushrooms. Here is how the rest of our conversation went:

Me- "What?! They tasted just like mushrooms!"
Chef- "Have you ever heard of sweet bread?" (muhaha!!!...evil laugh)
Me- "No." (a sick look creeping up on my face)
Chef- "It is the thymus gland in the neck of a cow."
Me- "........" (blank stare as I contemplate being sick.)
Chef- laughing a little too much
Me- "Uh, oh well.... it was still good." (I shrug and start working on my cake again. At least I can say I've eaten something disgustingly strange and interesting now.)


Here are a few pics of the first wedding cake I've done. I could begin an overly critical rant right now, but I'm just going to let it go and enjoy the cute little buttons all over the cake. I really liked this design, and I can't wait to try it out again.

Leaning tower of cakes

Buttons!

Jen and Andrew reminiscing...

Hey! Check it out, I got an award from Jessie over at I Am David's Doll. Pretty cool. I've never received an award before, so this is fun! Thanks Jessie!!! It's a lemonade stand award which is great because my sister and I used to run our own lemonade stand every summer at the end of our driveway when we were kids. Our parents and the occasional neighbor were usually the only people to buy the lemonade, but it was fun while it lasted. Once we sold our older sister's poems that she wrote for a school project, but I think we ended up just giving them all away... haha. We got in a bit of trouble for that one. Anywho... thanks for the award!

Whew..... I can't believe it is already the 14th! Time has just flown by since I've started back to school. We have been covering wedding cakes, petit fours, and sculptured cakes these past few weeks, and it has been so much fun! It is definitely an intimidating field, but I can't help but be excited to try my hand at some of it.

Today we had another cake show to attend, but this time we were all required to enter a 3D cake design. I'll admit that I didn't love working with 3D cakes, but my pride is mostly to blame for that. I always want to be really great immediately. It doesn't matter that I have never done something before; I want to know how to do it and do it well right away. Guess I'll have to submit myself to good ole "practice makes perfect." I guess the mentality of "perfect practice make perfect" got stuck in my head sometime ago in high school when my swimming coach would pound it into our heads every morning at 5am. *Sigh.... good times.

Here are a few pics of my cakes progression. I decided to go with something fun and simple; trying my hardest to not take myself too seriously. I mean, how serious can you really be with Mr. Potato Head?? :)












I'll try to upload more pics from the show this weekend when I'll have more time. Until then... Happy Baking!