Skulls and cakes

A little while back was our best friend's birthday. We all enjoy a certain book series called the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. In these books there is a character named Bob the skull, obviously he is a skull, that talks. So for tony's birthday we created a cake shaped like a skull sitting on a shelf surrounded by candles reading a romance novel. Which he does constantly throughout the books.
Yes I know it happened awhile ago, but I am still proud of the work that I have done on he cake. It took a lot of hard work to make the top of the cake to look like wood. Also his skull is covered in runes, cause he is an entity and the runes are like a protective coating. The candles are fondant covered rice crispy treats that have been molded into tapered candles. Also, yes those are lights you see glowing in the eye sockets. In the books his eyes glow orange.
So thank you for letting me go back into my recent history. Hope everyone is keeping it mixed up.

Mmmmmm....... Chocolate!

Making chocolates was amazing to learn, and is super easy! We melted the chocolate on a double boiler and the poured it into a mold. Then we layed them inverted over a bowl to let them drain a little while still coating the bottom and sides of the dish. Then when they cooled a little we scraped off the excess and put them in the cooler. While the chocolate hardened we made a raspberry chocolate ganache to put in them as a filling. Once the molds were hard enough we put a little dollop of the ganache in them. Then we poured just enough chocolate over them to cover, and once again we scraped off the excess. Next was the fun part, when they were completely done and hard we turned them upside down and banged them on the table to get them out.
These treats were so easy to make and delicious to eat, I can't wait to make them again around the holidays for stocking stuffers. Hope everyone has a great thanksgiving, and keeps it mixed up.

Birthday cake

Today we are celebrating the birth of Tori. My husband, my best friend (kristi) and her husband and children, and myself have made a 4 tiered cake. It was so much fun and kind of hard, but it turned out beautifully. Sorry it isn't a long blog, I just really wanted to share the pictures with everyone. I hope everyone's days are going good and keeping it mixed up.

Sweetie pie........and tart

We have recently learned how to make pie and tart doughs, which are similar but still slightly different. Tart dough is sweeter than pie dough. Something I didn't know before hand was that you actually bake the pie dough a little before you put anything in it and bake it again. Or if you are doing a custard or cream pie you have to bake the pie dough completely before using.
So in class we made apple cinnamon crumble pie, and pumpkin pie along with a fresh fruit tart. For the tart we had to make pastry cream to put the fruit on top of, along with making a glaze to seal in the freshness of the fruit(and make it look pretty).
This week was a lot of fun, and delicious. I didn't get a picture of it, cause we ate it to quickly, but we also made a chocolate cream pie. It was so rich and wonderful, I can't wait to make another one.
Thank you to everyone who got to try my pies and gave me the good reviews, and sorry to all those who didn't get to try.
Everyone have a good day, and keep it mixing.

Full of puff and fluff

Our next encounter in our baking and pastry class we learned all about puff pastries. One dough can make so many different things, but we made only 2. It all starts by making a dough. Once that is made it is wrapped around butter that is somewhat pliable but still cold. Then we roll it out, and then we fold it tri-fold style. Then it is rolled again and then tri-folded again. Then rolled out again to fit in a half sheet pan. After that we let it cool over night to be used the next day. Also so you know the dough and the butter in this recipe have third own special names in french. The dough is called the Detrempe, and the butter is called the Beurrage. They sound pretty much how they look, sorry I couldn't find the phonetics for those particular words.
That next day we made two completely different things out of the dough. We made cream horns and napoleon. For the cream horns we took the dough and cut it into strips and then wrapped the strips around metal cones. Then brushed a little water on them before rolling them in some sugar, and then into the oven with them. For the napoleons we just rolled it out to fit in the pan again and docked it. Docking is when you pierce holes in the dough with a fork so it can let out the steam and so it doesn't rise to much. Then it went in the oven.
Once they came out we filled the cream horns with cream (obviously) and cut the other dough into wide strips. We then put some cream on top of the pastry before laying another strip on top, and then just repeat that again and you have a napoleon. In the picture the. Ream horns are in middle and the napoleons are on the edges.
Hope you all enjoyed, and keep it mixed up.

Baking breads

The most fun thing we have done in class so far is making bread. I had never had a focaccia bread as good as when we made it ourself. It was huge and full of fresh cut onions and other fresh spices. It's the one that is on the right in the picture.
We also made delicious fresh yeast rolls from scratch. Those are the ones that are scattered all over in the front of the picture. Making the loads of wheat bread was so much easier than I thought it would be.
After that we made a traditional Jewish holiday bread challah (sounds like "halla"). Now that was amazing!! We got to actually braid the strands of dough. We ended up using it to make french toast at home, it was the best french toast of my life.
We are a lot farther down the road than when we started, but the end is still far away. I have confidence in myself on achieving my dreams, hopefully you do too. My next entry will be about pies and tarts. Until next time, keep on mixing it up.

Mise En Place [meez ahn plahs]

Mise en place in French means "everything in place". It is the first thing that my husband and I learned in culinary classes. It all started several years ago when we fell in love and dropped out of school. After years of working and just floating through life in each others arms we finally decided to figure out our future. So we sat down with our best friends and mapped out the rest of our lives. So Jon and I studied our butts off and went and got our G.E.D.s, then we went on down to the Art Institute of Atlanta. We were enrolled within a heartbeat and were running down our path towards the horizon.

So now that we have everything in its place we have been enjoying our cooking classes and have made some amazing food. Last week we took our midterms in our third quarter, and we are still loving it. So over the course of getting my diploma I will be posting pictures and recipes and all of my experiences. I value all of the support of my friends and family, and look forward to sharing my life with you.