Baking Colleges

One thing I did this week was research school with a baking and pastry major, in case my vet school doesn't work out.
One school I found was the San Francisco Baking Institute.  When reading their website it seems major on their breads and pastries, which may not be the best choice since I enjoy cupcakes and cake designs more.  In this school they train you for domestic or international baking and a full career.
Another school that I actually considered before choosing to go to vet school was Johnson and Wales.  This school has a wonderful culinary and baking institute, which Felica is attending in the fall!  The thing that popped out most to me was that there was a ton of hands on experiences and expertise training.
Maybe as a second degree I could major in baking and make all my friends delicious treats daily :)

Set Backs

So recently I have called two different bakers, Wegmans and Just Desserts, I left my name, number, and email for an interview....and neither of them have gotten back to me.  It has only been a week since I contacted them so I'm still hope full that I will get in touch with them.  Thanks to Anna Kucher I will also be contacting another bakery this weekend to check out their business and wonderful designs. (Thanks Anna).

Best Discovery

I found this in my album! I made these last summer for my best friends graduation.  These cupcakes were in one of my book I got of christmas, and is a simple yet creative way to make someone happy and show that you care, which I love :)

Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting and toping ranging from apple jacks, reese's peanut butter cup, colored frosting, vanilla cookie covered in chocolate, topped with strips of gum and an m&m.

Cake Class #3

When I was told to make about 60 little frosting flowers, I thought, 'psh no problem!', wrong.  My hand might need to be taken off!  Cake makign should be a sport, it takes so much talent to not shake and the muscles you use in your hands and arm with the piping tool is amazing.
My final project also included my basket weeve on the side of this cake.  Learning the basket weeve was so incredible, it looks so difficult but it is so simple and including you on making a line about 1 in at a time.  In the end it fits together so well that it looks like a master did it, just make sure your lines are always straight and even.

4 hours of baking and creating butter cream by scratch ^^^

Cake Class #2

Holy Crap my hand hurts, in this class we learned how to make roses, and daisies with butter cream frosting.  So frustrating...if any part of it is crooked or slightly off you must start all over or, for example: the rose will collapse over sideways.

Next week I will be doing my final project and using all my flowering skills, along with my knowledge of balance and evenness on the cake.

Cake Class #1

Two weeks ago I had my firt cake class...who knew it was actually hard to make little flowers out of frosting.  Most of this class was just learnign how to mix fondont and gum paste together (the gum paste makes the fondont harden faster).  With this mixture we used a sort of cookie cutter to make a button flower.  Next lesson should be interesting...actual hard flower making!

Local Bakery's

     This week I've been doing research about our local bakery's.  In Ithaca you would think there were a lot of local business's since we are small and into the whole "buying local".  During my research it was REALLLY hard to find them!  Looking online is hard because no matter what you type in, the Ithaca Bakery is the one that pops up the most. 
     Through many hours of rewording phrases, I found three local places: Just Desserts (http://justdessertsithaca.com/), Wide Awake Bakery (http://wideawakebakery.com/), and of course Ithaca Bakery (http://ithacabakery.com/).
     My plan is to call and trying to make a time for an interview with a baker.  My top choice is Just Desserts, since on the website it shows so much about her background and all her baking experience.  But on the other hand I am really interesting in how they got into their business.
     As a last resort I could also call and schedule with the Wegman's bakery because a lot of their bakers are amazing and have some major skill. 

Oops

Yesterday I tried to make a cranberry nut cupcake/muffin from a recipe from memory...it didn't work.  I added too much oil and water and not enough flour and sugar resulting in a nasty mushy little sad cupcake.  In conclusion, I shouldn't be making recipes from memory quite yet.

1st cupcakes for wise

This project was especially hard because I ran all over town trying to find the perfect supplies.  I created a construction site including a road, sand/dirt pile, and a pond, with construction vehicles on top.  Since it was made for a friends birthday I took special care to make sure it was flawless.  The difficulty of keeping so many supplies, the cupcake, and different colors of frosting, textures, sprinkles, all separate was really hard this time because each cupcake was different from the others.  In the past I've had the practice of choose the right piping tool for grass, or water, or a straight line so I felt it helped me progress faster and finish the whole project in 3 hours.

One thing i did learn today is about color mixture with the color dye.  Believe it or not black is really difficult to perfectly get, it includes lots of blue red, and yellow, with the exact number of drops...or next time I can just buy black color dye.

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