Caramel Delight

As a culinary student, I am often asked to come up with concepts for potential dishes or desserts and then put them into production. For my advanced contemporary pastry class, I had to dream up a dessert utilizing methods that we had learned in class. Being a bacon lover, I attempt to incorporate it into as many dishes as possible which resulted in this:

Chocolate sponge cake with caramel mousse topped with bacon crumbles and a caramel drizzle. This may sound like a very odd combination, but it has a similar flavor to chocolate covered caramels sprinkled with sea salt with an additional smoky depth added by the bacon crumbles and the salty/sweet combination worked out well thank goodness. 

Batter Up!

I went into making this cake with the thought that carving a cake into a ball could not possibly be too difficult. Fortunately, I wasn't completely wrong but on the other hand, I also wasn't completely right either. One thing you definitely need is a turntable because no matter how perfectly round you think it looks, it does NOT look like that once you turn it around. And around. And around. After about ten minutes of carving and five minutes of spinning and staring at it to check for imperfections, I finally deemed it "baseball shaped" and stuck it in the fridge to set up while I made the fondant. I typically use store bought fondant but I recently found a recipe using marshmallows, powdered sugar, water, butter, and vanilla extract and decided to try it out. The texture ended up being a lot easier to work with and it tasted a lot better too. A little melted red colored chocolate stitches and voila, a baseball! 

I used this recipe for my fondant: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/marshmallow-fondant/ but if you prefer a different flavor, by all means change it up and switch out the vanilla for something a little more unexpected. Until next time, happy baking!

A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet

Over the summer, I started my internship at Montilios Bakery where I was promptly stuck in cupcake land. Since the end of my very first day, I've had swirls of frosting running through my mind and sometimes catch myself automatically moving my arm in the tell-tale piping cupcakes motion. Finally in the midst of sprinkling, one of my coworkers asked if I could pipe roses. I said yes but asked for a mini refresher and nervously reached for the bag after she went from a clean and shiny rose nail to a hot pink buttercream rose in approximately .5 seconds. After a few tries, I found my stride and ended up with this:

THAT is the moment that I fell in love with piping roses along with everyone else loving that I loved piping roses. Apparently its everyone's least favorite job, but to me it's another step up from where I started. Happy baking everyone!

First Official Cake

This is a bit of a throwback, but the first cake that I officially made was for my cousin's safari themed baby shower.

All of the animals are handcrafted and everything on the cake is completely edible aside from the baby topper.  I like to believe that her little one's love for sweets comes from her eating this during her preggy days (or the cupcakes and cookies that I bring over whenever I visit!)

Who, What, When, Where and Why

Hi everyone! I'm Nicole and I am trying to establish a name and reputation for myself among the incredible chefs of the baking and pastry world. I am currently in my final year of culinary school and gearing towards launching my own business specializing in custom cakes and specialty desserts. I have created this blog as a way to showcase my work and hopefully gain customers in the process. I will be posting at least weekly, so please follow me on my culinary journey and feel free to contact me if I can help make your next event extra special.