As I mentioned on Monday, Passover started this week. This has proven to be an exercise in extraordinary willpower for me, as more than ever before, I am surrounded by bread! On Tuesday the Culinary students made a brunch buffet and I thought I was going to collapse. There I was with my matzah, and all around me were bagels, french toast, foccacia, etc. It was torturous. It was also a really busy day (there wasn't a lot of time for a lunch break) so Chef Katie told everyone that if they wanted to grab a plate from the other kitchen and keep it under their work table till they could take a break, that they could. Every time I stuck my head under my table to get something out of my toolbox, I got a big whiff and could barely pull myself back up again - it all smelled so good! The only upside of this situation is that I had an ironclad excuse for leaving my finished products at the school. After all, if I took each cake that I made home the only one who could eat them would be Dave, and even he can't eat that much cake. I've already warned my classmates that if I seem really twitchy on Tuesday, it's because I know that I'm finally getting bread again later that night.
So Tuesday we got to work with fondant for the first time - tricky stuff!! It's expensive and it dries out quickly, so you have to be very careful with how much you take out at a time, and how you use it. You also have to smooth it out quickly over the top and sides of your cake or you'll risk wrinkles, folds or cracking. I decided to try and color my fondant purple, but had a hard time getting it to mix completely. This wound up being a blessing in disguise because I had this awesome swirl pattern going on. I also had a lot of extra fondant, so I took my extra and added some more dye to it till I got it to be one uniform color and used it to make some extra decorations for the top of my cake.
Then on Wednesday, we started preparations for our first two-tier cake. We had already baked off the cakes required earlier in the week, were starting to plan our designs and figuring out what kind of icings and fillings we were going to use. Since Julie and I already had some leftover Swiss buttercream from the day before, we decided to make a double batch of that so that we would have as much extra icing as possible in case of accidents, mistakes and mishaps. I have to say - I'm not really a fan of Swiss buttercream, it's too high-fat for me. This kind of helped to keep me from eating any excess cake, but if it were a cake I was going to partake in, I'd definitely go with either simple or Italian buttercream - no question.
A lot of my classmates wound up going with Easter/spring themes for their cakes, which makes sense because then they could serve them at their celebrations on Easter Sunday. When I came into class on Wednesday, I honestly wasn't sure what design I was going to use, but then something clicked in my brain and I came up with what, at least I think, is a hilariously ironic cake idea. It's a Passover-themed cake that nobody who celebrates Passover can eat! I carved the top layer into a bowl so that I could decorate it to look like a bowl of matzah ball soup, and then I tried to decorate the bottom layer to look like sheets of matzah. It's far from perfect, but I think it's pretty cute, and it definitely got a lot of attention from my classmates and from the other students in the school.
carrot coins!
My favorite cake, made by one of my friends, was pirate-themed! She made the bottom tier blue with piped star waves on the sides. The top tier was kind of a chocolate brown, and then she made a little pirate out of molded fondant and a little spoked ship's wheel for him to steer with! It was incredibly cute, I'll try and get a picture of it from her so that I can share it with all of you.
While we were working on Wednesday, my teacher came over to me, laughing and clutching a magazine. She knows how much I love pie, and in the magazine there was an ad for the American Pie Council and the National Pie Championships that are taking place in Orlando, FL later this month. I told her about how I'd really wanted to go and compete in the championships and she asked me why I wasn't going. I explained that I didn't want to miss class and she immediately countered that I could miss a day or two to go. Then I jokingly asked if she would pay to send me to Florida and she laughed saying that if she couldn't afford to go there that she couldn't afford to send me. It kills me that I won't be able to be there. I keep torturing myself with the knowledge that there's still time to sign-up to compete, but there's no use. There's no way I'd be able to afford it, especially now that I'm only working part-time while in school. I guess I'll just have to wait and then go to compete in the professional division someday. The competition isn't going anywhere, right? *sigh*
I'm also eager to pick-up this toolkit from Wilton. I was going to order it on Friday, but I wound up having to spend $100 on a new battery for my laptop (thanks Apple!), so that will have to wait a little bit as well. But like the competition, that kit isn't going anywhere, and I can always get one in a few weeks.
I'm going to try and leave you on a more amusing note. One of my classmates, who's a pretty fantastic person, has a drawing on her toolbox that she calls, "the killer cupcake." She'd been having a rough couple of days, so I decided to surprise her with a little present:
A knitted killer cupcake!!!
Look at those fangs! The dripping blood! Honestly, I love it and may wind up making another one for myself. But mostly I'm just glad that I was able to brighten my friend's day, plus I got one of her patented amazing hugs in return - definitely time well spent.
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