All Chocolate Butterfly Centerpiece

Last week in my French Pastry class we devoted ourselves of making all sorts of Chocolate candies...from truffles to fudge. We had all sorts, we were not allowed to take any home, until the last day (which was today). This week we worked on our edible chocolate centerpiece. I absolutely loved this project, it was a ton of work but absolutely worth it!

My Butterfly Chocolate Centerpiece


















Some of the chocolates that we made in class...my favorite is the yellow flower one!!!




A close-up of my edible flower and such! The flower was made of white chocolate, and the chocolate branches were made of modeling chocolate! The trickiest part of making the centerpiece was the accessibly of it.




Here is my centerpiece from another angle!!!


I would love to make more centerpieces in the future! This was probably one of my favorite things I've done so far while attending Le Cordon Bleu!!!!!

I am officially on Spring Break for a week!!! I think I might have to make something cute...since it is supposed to be Spring!


Keep Posted!!! :D

Cake Pops Competition!!!!!

This past Friday was the Cake Pops Competition! It was a blast! There was so much talent, it was unbelievable! I hope everyone that attended had fun!!!!!!
This blog is going to be all pictures mostly because I can't explain how awesome the night was!!!




Here are all of the 135 cake balls that Stephanie, Bill and I all made the day before the competition!



Sprinkles....marshmellows.....and all sorts cute fun things!!! This is the day of the competition that was available to the competitors!



Mini M&Ms....Nerds....Hershey Kisses....and multicolored sprinkles!!!!




The contestants getting ready!!!!





And so the competition begins!!













Isn't he cute?????









A little girl made these...while her mom was competing.She did a great job and to only think she is 5!!!!!



THE FINISHED PRODUCTS!!!!









Leggos!!!!




The Roses! These girls on judges choice!!!



















These girls got people's choice!!!




The group photo of all of us at the end of night!!!

Happy Presidents Day!!!

Happy Presidents Day everyone! (If it is Monday and you are reading this)


This past Friday I decided to make Cake Pops. I felt like I needed a refresher since it has been a while since I have made them. This time around the theme is Presidents Day, so I made red, white and blue Cake Pops.

Furthermore, in a few weeks if everything goes well, at my school we are going to have a Cake Pop competition....I will not be in it, but I will be running it with another stuco member.


So I figured I would make them, just to get back into the grove of things!

These cake pops I had a lot of fun making them...you will see why very soon!!





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Can you name these presidents?????!!?? John challenged me to make them, because I made one of the presidents and sent him an email of it and that is how I ended up with the rest of them.







Red...White....Blue!!!!!! I have perfected them so they stay on the stick them entire time of making them. The first time I made them I ran into some problems...for future Cake Pop makers...keep everything cold(the cake) while making them.





I decorated the cake pops with different kinds of Candy for fun M&M's, Skittles, Reeses, and Sprinkles....!! I think they look adorable!


I can't wait to make Cake Pops for the upcoming holidays!!! But I think my next project are going to be Rose Cupcakes in the near future, or a Death by Chocolate Cake...something sweet! ;)

Keep posted!!

Cake Galore!!!!

Alright, it has been a while since I have updated my blog. Life has just taken over everything!!!!! But I have many different things I would love to share with you! As you probably know I have been taking a cakes and pies class here at LCB. Well, this Thursday I will be done with my 4th mod and will be entering my 5th mod. Time is just flying by. On top of baking in school and out of school, I have been searching for an externship for the months of August through November!


Before I start on with my pictures of everything let me just tell you that I am absolutely tired of Chocolate. I have been working with Chocolate for the last 2 weeks, the smell...the taste... is just over whelming. I was never a huge chocolate fan, I have always liked it...but I would rather eat Alfredo Sauce...or white pizza with green peppers and tomatoes. So these last two weeks have been a Chocolate overload!!!!


About three weeks ago I received a call from a friend of my moms asking me to do two birthday cakes for Mo and Peggy, they are husband and wife but their birthdays are about a week apart! Mo was turning 48 and Peggy was turning 60! So I did individual cakes for both of them!


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Here is Mo's cake! I did a Harley Davidson theme! For the symbol I used Fondant, but dyed the Fondant with Wilton coloring. The gel kind!




Here is Peggy's cake! It was a Red Velvet cake! I Torted it with a Pastry Cream in between the layers! The longest part was making the roses!I loved every minute of it!






Here is a Chocolate tort! Those little spiral circles are rosettes! The was probably one of my favorite cakes we made so far! I just had a lot of fun with it!



This is a Black Forest Cake! The cake took 3 days to make, because of all the different chocolate items, such as the house, fence, and trees. When making chocolate sculptures you have to melt the chocolate and bring it to 118 degrees. once it hits that take it off the stove. Pour 2/3 of the chocolate onto a non melting surface area. and bring that chocolate down to 80 degrees, by moving it around. Once it hits that 80 degrees, put in the bowl with the rest of the chocolate, all the chocolate together should reach about 90 degrees! That's how you get chocolate to be shiny and smooth for sculpting. It's a lot of work!




Pineapple Upside Down Cake! I have to admit I was never a fan of this cake at all. So I have this cake to a culinary student. But I thought it still looked really pretty!!!



I love carrot cake! especially with Cream Cheese Icing...homemade kind!! The little carrots are made out of Marzipan! I enjoyed making those little guys! Here is the thing, it definitely didn't look this nice when I brought it home...I dropped it! So it look like a horrible mess, but I heard it's really good!!!






Angel Food Cake! Best way to get it is with strawberries and whipped cream!!! yumm!



Alhombra Cake! With Marzipan Rose!!!!!





Opera Tort! This had Mocha Buttercream and it was to die for!! soooo good!!





Chocolate Mousse Tort! The chocolate on top took me 3 hours to do!!!! It was a lot of fun! This went up to my moms work, I heard it was good!!!!



I hope you enjoyed the cakes that I've made so far!!!!


Keep posted!!!

Opera Tort

This week we had our second practical, it was on the Opera Tort! I have to admit that this is probably one of my favorite things that we have made so far! But I think I say that about almost everything we make in kitchens! I was a little bit nervous about this practical, because I had a problem with making the Mocha Buttercream!

This story that I am about to tell you happened all in one day. My first attempt: When making buttercream, you have to dissolve the sugar in the water. But you have to bring the sugar and water to 241F but no higher than 244F. Well with this, if you do not put lemon just around the sides of the pot with a pastry brush the sugar with crystalize. So I forgot to do that, and when I remembered it was to late!

My second attempt: This time around I remembered the lemon juice. everything was going great. UNTIL, the dissolved sugar and water was taking forever to reach the temperature. The numbers on the digital thermometer were getting higher, but my product in the pot was get dark. It was at 212, and my product at this point was dark black like the color of freshly brewed coffee. Let me say all this happened in a matter of seconds from here on. All of a sudden steam, and smoke covered the entire room. It was so bad that my Chef thought it was going to set off the fire alarms. It was so bad that another student was telling me that the smoke was coming into their kitchen across the hall.

The reasoning for this happening, was because the digital thermometer was set on Celcius, so if it was in Fahrenheit the sugar would be reading over 500F.

So everyone Check your Thermometers to make sure that it is correct!!


So when it came to remaking the Buttercream, I was a tad bit nervous!

But the third time making the buttercream was a success! It was perfect, and sooooooo good!

Do you know what a tort is? It is a German word for a multi layered cake with rich fillings. It may also indicate cutting a cake into multiple (more than two) layers.

With this practical this was a three layered tort. There was 2 layers of buttercream, and one ganache! And then the top was buttercream with melted chocolate. We then had to Pipe Opera on the top!

I was really surprised I got a 95% on the practical!!!

Here are pictures of the Opera Tort!!!




Here is a side view of the tort! It's not very thick! But it's so rich you can't eat a lot of it!



This is the top of my tort! I'm please with it! I can't wait to EAT it!!!!!


I hope you liked my Opera tort and my story!

Keep posted there's a blog this Sunday coming up!

Pie, Pie Me Oh My!!

This past week I started my 4th mod at Le Cordon Bleu. I am currently studying Pies and Cakes! This class is straight up my alley! I love making pies, I don't know why but there is so much you can do with them. Plus pie is great anytime of the day! I love learning different pie! This week we started with Cheesecake which I absolutely love, I love it especially with fruit like strawberries on top!

But as I said this week we started with Cheesecake. Over the course of the week I brought home 4 Pies not including the Cheesecake!

Items I brought home
Cheesecake
Blueberry Pie
Pumpkin Pie
Chocolate Chiffon Pie
Peanut Butter and Chocolate Pie

And there is tons of left overs even thought I've given a lot of Pie away!





Here is my pie server my mom got me for Christmas. It's a high heel server. You will be able to see what I mean with the next picture.



The side view of the pie server. The pink heel is magnetic so you can remove it.



My ornament that my mom got me. This is a tradition in my family. Ever since we were kids, at every Christmas we would go out and pick out an ornament, so when we move out or get married we would have ornaments to put on our tree. My mom said these reminded her of my little cakes that I make!



My New York Style Cheesecake!

The Recipe!
New York Style Cheesecake....I had a previous blog earlier...this is different than my cheesecake I normally make.

1.5 pounds of Cream Cheese
5 oz Gran. Sugar
2.5 oz Sour Cream
1 oz Cornstarch
1 T. Lemon Juice
1oz Vanilla Extract
3 each Eggs
2 oz Heavy Cream

Bake at 350 F
about 30 to 35 minutes..there should be a slight giggle to the cheesecake, and lightly brown.

When making a cheesecake, you final result batter should be smooth and shiny. NOT LUMPY....'lumpiness,' can ruin the batter.

Before you would add all of your ingredients, make sure your cream cheese is a room temperature. then cream it in a kitchen aid using the paddle attachment. It should be creamy not lumpy...I can't stress that anymore.

Always work from thickest to thinnest at a low speed it helps with lumping.

Always...always add your ingredients slowly.

You want to scrap your bowl frequently

OVERCOOKING will cause your cheesecake to crack down the center!



Side view of cheesecake!



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My Pumpkin Pie with Maple leaves around the edges of the crust... unfortunately it burnt a little...but it was still really good!!!



Chocolate Chiffon Pie, I liked it, but many people at my school didn't care for the pie. It had a mousse texture, the chocolate had meringue whipped into it! It was a little different but nonetheless good! :)



This was my Chocolate Peanut butter pie! This tasted just like a Reeses!!!! I loved this one as well!


I hope everyone liked the stuff I made this week! There is definitely more to come for next Sunday!!

Keep Posted!!! :)