April 15, 2012 • 4 notes
Lovely raspberry white chocolate cake that I can assure you is delicious.

Lovely raspberry white chocolate cake that I can assure you is delicious.

April 4, 2012 • 7 notes
Petit fours are a very diligent process. I personally did not make them but these delicious morsels were made yesterday and I got to watch HOW they were made so now I get to share with the world. You bake cake, let’s say for the sake of this conversation it’s a red velvet cake, very thin on several sheet pans. You let the cake cool then you layer it: cake, buttercream frosting, cake, buttercream frosting, cake. Finally comes a layer of fondant icing which is carefully drizzled over the topas to cover the entire cake. Then comes the design and there you have it, a petit four!

Petit fours are a very diligent process. I personally did not make them but these delicious morsels were made yesterday and I got to watch HOW they were made so now I get to share with the world. You bake cake, let’s say for the sake of this conversation it’s a red velvet cake, very thin on several sheet pans. You let the cake cool then you layer it: cake, buttercream frosting, cake, buttercream frosting, cake. Finally comes a layer of fondant icing which is carefully drizzled over the topas to cover the entire cake. Then comes the design and there you have it, a petit four!

April 4, 2012 • 13 notes
Maple bacon cupcakes. Need I say more? They sold out the day we made them.

Maple bacon cupcakes. Need I say more? They sold out the day we made them.

March 31, 2012 • 5 notes
Beautiful.

Beautiful.

March 31, 2012 • 1 note

This was a big week for Kirsten, she had to made a special cake for a wedding rehearsal and as you can see, it turned out amazing! It took several hours of dedicated work but she got through it and I decided it had to be featured in a post on tumblr. 

March 25, 2012 • 5 notes
We are open! Stop on by for some tea, a coffee, and something sweet!

We are open! Stop on by for some tea, a coffee, and something sweet!

March 18, 2012 • 2 notes

Yum!

March 18, 2012 • 1 note

Saturday was a macaroons type of day. The caramel that Kristen made served as the filled for the macaroons featured in the pictures. Friday and Saturday I focused on relearning how to measure ingredients. At the patisserie, we use digital scales to measure our ingredients instead of using cups and such (sometimes we use those but mostly we stick to the scales). I’m finally getting the hang of it which is awesome! 

It’s also exciting that I’m learning to use the different equipment too, like the electric whisker. I found out that whisking heavy cream can make butter though so a word of caution to all my followers and those who are reading this. 

So Friday and Saturday I helped to make sour cream pound cake and devil’s food cake for petit fours. I also helped to make pastry cream.. when making pastry cream, always go the low and slow route, constantly stirring the mixture of cornstarch, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla or else you will get a lumpy mess. :)

March 14, 2012

Butter

Butter, I learned briefly on Monday, is a tricky thing. If you add butter to caramel when it is too hot, you get greasy, separated caramel, not the smooth, tasty kind. When butter is too cold and it is added to a recipe that calls for it to be at room temperature, it can make a batter separate and loose (which is not what you want). 

Be aware when using butter. It is a necessity but I’m finding it can make or break a recipe.

March 14, 2012 • 1 note
On Monday, we started some of the prep work for the bakery so Kristen had me make a simple chocolate ganache! I say simple because it mainly consisted of three ingredients, dark chocolate, heavy cream and butter. First we had to bring the heavy cream to a somewhat boil (since you don’t actually want to boil heavy cream, more like you want to simmer it so small bubbles form) then you mix it in with the dark chocolate pellets. There is definitely an art to mixing the two together though, as Kristen taught me. You want to start mixing small circles in the middle of the bowl until the chocolate becomes creamy then work your way outward, otherwise you’re going to be mixing for a while and it won’t end up as silky smooth. Once you get that creamy texture, then you add in the butter. You don’t want to mix too much though because too much air will get into the ganache. 

On Monday, we started some of the prep work for the bakery so Kristen had me make a simple chocolate ganache! I say simple because it mainly consisted of three ingredients, dark chocolate, heavy cream and butter. First we had to bring the heavy cream to a somewhat boil (since you don’t actually want to boil heavy cream, more like you want to simmer it so small bubbles form) then you mix it in with the dark chocolate pellets.

There is definitely an art to mixing the two together though, as Kristen taught me. You want to start mixing small circles in the middle of the bowl until the chocolate becomes creamy then work your way outward, otherwise you’re going to be mixing for a while and it won’t end up as silky smooth. Once you get that creamy texture, then you add in the butter. You don’t want to mix too much though because too much air will get into the ganache.