Adventures of a Chunky Blerd in Pastry School

Documenting my various exploits in pastry school and beyond.

[delicious-snackies]

Sooo, I’m sorta hoping that baking at 2 a.m. doesn’t become too regular a thing, but here are some more macarons!  The roomie and I were organizing the kitchen and decided to play the “Let’s make snacks with whatever the hell is in the cupboard” game, which came out surprisingly well this time.  We found a tub of candy cane bits and decided to make Peppermint Chocolate macarons.  The damn batter came out really cakey, as it seems to do EVERY TIME I make chocolate macarons!  I think I just need more egg maybe, I dunno.  Still, they are remarkably delicious, if frustratingly delicate.  No added dye, the pink is solely from the candy cane bits.  I wonder if I just eat the whole tub will my poo be pink? #showerthoughts.  

Is it weird to put a hashtag in a comment area that provides its own separate space for hashtags?  Am I going mad?  It’s 4 a.m. what the hell am I doing?

[delicious-snackies]

Wow, it’s been a while.  Moved to a new house, in a new city in a new state, only just sort of beginning to adapt to the kitchen. It’s tiny, but functional!  So here are some “getting used to new kitchen” macarons.  Princess Grey tea and lemon mousseline cream filling with a vanilla lemonade cookie.  I ended up becoming really impatient with these, as I overworked the first batch(DO NOT OVERWORK YOUR BATTER, YOU WILL CREATE ABOMINATIONS), so they’re not particularly well finished and super uneven size-wise, but damn they’re tasty!  It’s nice to bake again. Hopefully this will mark the start of semi-regular posting again!

[delicious-snackies]

My third and final cake for the section.  Tumblr hasn’t liked me uploading multiple pictures in one post, so I’ll do this one and then edit it to see what happens.  If you can tell me what it says and/or which doctors are featured, I love you.  All of this is cake, fondant, gum paste and edible gold dust mixed with vodka. Oh and a little bit of wire for some of the words.  

[delicious-snackies]

Holy crap how did this get so many notes?!  Where are you people coming from?!?!  If I were capable of visibly blushing I would be glowing right now! <3 <3 

[delicious-snackies]

Part two of my Kirby Cake Toppers set!  Queen Sectonia was remarkably difficult!  The wings are fondant and candy, supported by lollipop stems.  the rest of her is modeling chocolate and rice cereal treats.  I was going to have her floating hands holding a plaque, buuuut I broke the plaque and am out of time to make a new one, so I'm just going to leave it as is. Now for shipping!

[delicious-snackies]

Part one of my Kirby-themed chocolate cake toppers!  Kirby, Meta Knight and Waddle Dee.  Made from modeling chocolate(my first attempt at making it at home!), fondant and rice cereal treats. 

[delicious-snackies]

Finally, a post!  Huzzah for chocolate!  I got two new molds, one of which is flexible, which is super new to me, still they came out okay!  72% dark chocolate for the first three, milk chocolate for the last.Fillings left to right: Hazelnut chocolate cookie, more hazelnut, but less crunchy(I had a lot of hazelnut stuff...), Spicy cinnamon dark chocolate ganache(special for my SO), and jasmine sage white chocolate caramel(both of the round ones). 

[delicious-snackies]

I've been looking for something to be passionate about. Acedemic College really hasn't worked out for me, and I need to find an alternative for it. I started baking literally 4 days ago, and so far its so fun and exciting to create things. I really don't know anything about what pastry school would be like, like the kinds of classes and the work load and things like that.

Pastry school is wonderful but incredibly taxing and time-consuming.  If you're new to baking, I'd say maybe try derping around on your own for a while to gauge your interest in sticking to the subject.  Maybe take a couple of introductory courses at a community college to get a feel for what it's like before blowing massive cash on a specialized school.

For me, classes were M-F from 7a.m. - 3p.m..  We spent literally every minute of that(sans a 30 minute lunch) on our feet working.  If you can't handle standing all the time and carrying around heavy equipment/food, this might not be for you. It's a great path to take, but only if you are really passionate about baking/pastry.  It's taxing, and the primary reward is having made something beautiful/tasty, rather than a big paycheck typically.  But if you persevere, you can always make a decent amount of money in the industry. 

If you're in America, I'd recommend checking out The French Pastry School in Chicago, CIA in both New York and California, and the San Diego Culinary Institute in San Diego, CA. 

Classes usually seem to focus on one subject at a time, but many of the techniques you learn in one class will translate over to the next.  My school began with Breads, then moved on to cakes/tarts/pies, then petit fours, plated desserts, chocolate and then wedding cakes.  I'm actually pretty sure I'm forgetting something there, but that's the gist of it.  

Baking and pastry is both insanely fun and equally frustrating.  You will probably end up crying at least once, but it doesn't take long to develop a thick skin, and if you love it, you'll stick with it!  

[delicious-snackies]

Wee Chocolate!

I finally got a hunk of marble to practice tabling chocolate!  So...expect more chocolate posts in the hopefully near future!

[delicious-snackies]

Itty-bitty blueberry bread pudding.

[delicious-snackies]

Some more little 7" cakes.  Weee!

[delicious-snackies]

Well here are some cakes, there were more pictures of the rest of them, but I'm also on a new computer, so this is all I have.  They're pretty tasty, and the results of my first experience working in a bakery, so huzzah?

[delicious-snackies]

A Thousand Apologies!

I'm so sorry for having not posted anything in SO long!  I'm in the process of moving and hopefully starting a small chocolate shop, so everything's been a bit crazy as of late!  No hard feeling to any followers who left, I totally understand!  And thank you to those who are still around, I will be posting more stuff as soon as I have the time to make/photograph it!  <3 <3

[delicious-snackies]

All of your stuff is wonderful and really nice-looking and just wow. Also, "I love you through time and space and into the darkness"?

Oh my goodness yes!!!!  Wondrous, brilliant, my heart sings with joy that someone managed to read it!  I was afraid I hadn't rendered them well enough in the gum paste.   

Also thank you so much!!  ^^

[delicious-snackies]

Aaand my first cake.  I'm super good at putting things in proper order!  Ugh, so it's supposed to be dragon-ish, and I suppose it is, but eh, I was just derping around, also screw Ombre.  Those stupid scales took me ALL day!  Literally 8 hours.

[delicious-snackies]

My third and final cake for the section.  Tumblr hasn't liked me uploading multiple pictures in one post, so I'll do this one and then edit it to see what happens.  If you can tell me what it says and/or which doctors are featured, I love you.  All of this is cake, fondant, gum paste and edible gold dust mixed with vodka. Oh and a little bit of wire for some of the words.  

[delicious-snackies]

Jeeeze all the stuff you make looks amazing. I wish I could eat it all... your momo/abigail was so cute too~ ^^ Following you is a must P.S. The tardis cake was awesome too

Gosh, thank you so much!!

[delicious-snackies]

My second wedding cake!  It was originally going to be a lot different but then it ended up with shwans.