Assembling the Wedding Cake

I was very pleased with how my wedding cake turned out for the ICE Pastry graduation reception. When I began thinking about this final project, way back in July, I decided I wanted to create a cake fit for a sophisticated October (my absolute favorite month) wedding.

This time, I remembered to take photos throughout the assembly process, so you could all see how the components came together.

This was a two-tier wedding cake, one 10" tier and one 6" tier. After the cakes were filled with buttercream spackled and, I covered each tier with rolling fondant I had colored to the perfect shade of ivory. Five dowels were placed in the bottom tier, to support the weight of the top tier.

After centering the top tier, I added the a beautiful fall, brown ribbon around the bottom of each tier.

Then it was time to add the piping, which I did in an ivory royal icing.

Finally, to bring the whole piece together, I completed luster dusting my foliage and assembled two bouquets of oak leaves, acorns, mimosas, five-pedal flowers and calla lilies.

For me, the bouquets really took the cake from pretty, but plain to something really special and unique. I was pleased to have achieved the colors I desired on each of the elements.

I very much enjoyed the entire process of this cake, from the initial research and design, to shopping for the perfect elements and finally putting it all together. It really was a rewarding experience to take a vision and see it become something tangible - and tasty!

Pastry School Graduation

After six months of long nights, hard work and lack of sleep, school came to a close last Thursday night. While I still must complete my externship before I receive my diploma, ICE hosted a small reception to celebrate the end of classes.

The biggest draw of the evening was the presentation of our wedding cakes. We each created our own design and assembled our creations over the previous few evenings.

After munching on the hors d'oeuvres and sipping the champagne, we received our chef hats as well as Nick Malgieri's newest book, "The Modern Baker".

I shared the evening with Mike and we enjoyed each other's company while breathing a sigh of relief - the end of this crazy schedule was finally within reach.

The next morning we began a four-day weekend, which we spent relaxing in Virginia.

Week Twenty-Four: Piping Skills for Wedding Cake

We did not have class Monday night, as it was a faculty development day. Instead, Mike and I braved the rain and headed downtown to enjoy a special dinner together at Gramercy Tavern.

We sat in the tavern, cozy and safe from the falling rain visable through the large windows at the front of the restaurant. We talked over delicious food and drinks as I enjoyed watching couples swoon over the desserts from my corner of my eye.

Tuesday we were back in class, beginning the final portion of the final module: wedding cakes. This evening was focused on reviewing some basic piping techniques, learned what seems like forever ago, and then a few additional techniques.

After whipping up meringue butter cream as well as stiff buttercream, we set about our list for the evening: rosettes, large shell, star flower, reverse shell, fleur d'lis, straight line, circle, small shells, zigzag, zigzag with large shell, zigzag with small shell, basketweave and rope.

I forgot how difficult the business of piping was and my right arm quickly grew quite sore.

This continued on Wednesday when we spent another four hours learning to create swags, pearls, ruffles, rosebuds, among other techniques.

On Thursday, we piped full-blown roses, which I found incredibly fun to make - it was exciting how little blobs of icing could so quickly transform into something so realistic and beautiful.

After we learned this new technique, we wre able to put our hard work from the previous nights to good use: decorating cupcakes.

I had so much fun sitting and creating the decorations for the tops of the cupcakes.

While the previous two nights were quite tedious, our hard-work was evident.

However, it was also evident how important it would be to continue practicing these techniques - it almost seems as though you could never quite reach perfection.

Week Twenty-Three: Chocolate Showpiece & Practical

After the previous two weeks spent learning to work with chocolate, the time had arrived for our class to complete our chocolate showpieces.

The class brainstormed ideas for a theme, and we decided on 'nature'. From there, each person was given the freedom to dream and design a showpiece fitting into this theme. The showpiece had to be constructed of 50% chocolate and the other 50% could be from any other medium, such as sugar.

Our chef-instructor has competed in a number of showpiece competitions and he suggested we all sit down someplace quiet and write-down the first five things that came to mind when we thought of our theme. He also encouraged us to have a glass of Maker's close-by "to set the mood". From the list of five items, he said three can usually be grouped and we could take our design from there.

I arrived at class a bit early the next day and found a totally empty and quiet kitchen. I sat and began my list (sans Maker's, unfortunately):

1. Running in Central Park

2. Fall

3. Hiking

4. Waterfall

5. Cascades

And there I had it: I could group the last four ideas together and create a showpiece around the Cascades, a favorite hiking spot not-too-far from Christiansburg.

At home later that night, I pulled-up photos from my hike. And per my request, Valerie also passed a few photos along.

I sketched out my design and met with my chef-instructor the following day. He changed very little in my design, but gave me some very helpful ideas in terms of construction. From there, we had to develop a time line to keep us on track for the following four nights:

Thursday:

- Melt/pour/cool/break chocolate (3 full sheet-pans of bittersweet, 1 full sheet-pan each of milk and white)

- Roll/cut/shape/dry pastillage for rocks

Monday:

- Melt chocoalte for construction

- Begin constructing clif

- Air-dry dark and light brown sugar for trail

Tuesday:

- Finish clif construction

- Airbrush rocks

- Melt/color/pour/dry sugar base

Wednesday:

- Clean-up visable mortar on clif

- Attach clif to base

- Construct trail

- Melt/color/knead (x2) sugar for waterfall; pull waterfall

- Final clean-up; move and present at 9 PM

Each night was a full four hours of work. After Monday's class, I was a bit discouraged as I had not made as much progress on the clif as I had hoped. But I tried not to rush through it Tuesday night, as I reminded myself that this was the focal point of my piece. If it looked rushed, the whole piece wouldn't work.

My mind was more stressed than my body, as I slept fitfully Monday and Tuesday nights, dreaming of nothing but constructing the pieces of broken chocolate into the cliff.

Wednesday night gave me two hold-your-breath moments: moving the clif (which had been constructed seperately) to attach it to the sugar base and then moving the entire showpiece across the hall to present.

All went well, as my piece was solid, and as heavy, as a rock. I was more than pleased with the outcome.

The night after our showpieces were presented, we took the practical exam for the fourth module, as it was focused on chocolate. We had to create molded chocoaltes, which involved: making ganache, tempering bittersweet chocolate, lining and filling the molds and finally, unmolding the set chocolates. I finally ended the streak of 99% on my exams, scoring a 100% for my effort.

Weeks Twenty, Twenty-one & Twenty-two: Plated Desserts and Chocolate

Time to play catch-up with updating you all on pastry school. I cannot believe graduation is only three weeks away. Granted, the next three weeks will be long nights filled with the intricacies of wedding cake design, but the end is more than in sight at this point.

Since the time I last wrote, we finished a second night of plated desserts, took our module three exam and moved into chocolate work.

Crepes Suzette

Greek Yogurt Panna Cotta

Grapefruit, Avacado and Basil Foam

Felchin

Calliops Tropic

Chocolate Souffle

Vanilla Ice Cream

Raspberry Mille Feuille

Ice Wine Granita and Litchi Sorbet

Felchlin

Milk Chocolate and Raspberry Mousse

Lemon Fromage Blanc Mousse

Rhubarb Compote, Carmelized Phyllo, Pine Honey Ice Cream

After the conclusion of plated desserts, we took our third exam. The first hour was again spent on the written portion and then we moved into our practical. Our practical for this module was to split, ice and decorate a cake. This had become second nature earlier in the module when we were spending each night doing these techniques. But since we had moved on to other things since, I felt a bit nervous and out of practice.

Overall, I received a 99% on my module, keeping me on track to graduate with highest honors in October.

It was then time to begin the fourth, and final, module of the program. This module was split into two portions: chocolate and wedding cakes.

We began the chocolate portion by learning how to temper chocolate (bittersweet, milk and white). This was a fundamental technique for all chocolate work, which involves melting the chocolate up to a certain temperature, working a portion of the melted chocolate on a marble in order to drop the temperature back down and then slightly warming the chocolate again.

We used this during the following nights of chocolate work, where we created free-form chocolates, truffles and molded chocolates.

During the first night of chocolate work, I thought this was a medium I was really going to enjoy - perhaps something in which I would eventually want to specialize. But this turned out to be a fleeting thought - the following nights of chocolate work made me realize that this most certainly not something I would want to specialize in.

Don't get me wrong - I did enjoy chocolate work. The skills are something that I know I will use not-so-far down the road. I found molded chocolates beautiful and they will make lovely gifts during the upcoming holidays. I just would not want to only work with chocolate as I felt a bit stifled in terms of creativity, both in taste and design.

Trail: Gramercy Tavern

On a rainy Saturday afternoon, I headed down to 20th Street to trail at Gramercy Tavern. Unlike my first trailing experience, I wasn't at all nervous. I wanted the experience to go well and I knew that I would really like the trail to result in an externship offer, but I was surprisingly calm - espeically since this was one of my top choices of where I would like to extern.

When I arrived, the dark woods and comforting colors of the Tavern welcomed me into the restaurant. The host called down to the kitchen for Nancy Olsen, the executive pastry chef, and one of her assistants greeted me shortly thereafter. We walked into the kitchen, which was enormous in comparison to Blue Hill. She quickly pointed out the pastry service counter, which, again from my previous experience, I was surprised to find out was not also the prep station.

We headed down a narrow flight of stairs. She pointed out the uniforms and the women's locker room. She told me to meet her around the corner when I had finished changing. I was immediately happy I brought my own pants, as the longest inseam they had in my size was 30".

I walked around the corner and was surprised to find a whole other kitchen - the pastry kitchen. An entire kitchen devoted to just pastry and, if that wasn't exciting enough, the entire kitchen was meticulously organized and labeled.

I paired up with one of the pastry assistants who had me wash, measure, hull and about five pounds of strawberries. Gramercy Tavern, like Blue Hill, prides itself on using local ingredients, so the strawberries were actual strawberries, small, plump and extremely juicy. I began observing the people around me who, while everyone was working extremely hard, everyone also seemed to really get along and enjoy each other's company.

I had not been working on the strawberries very long when Nancy Olsen came into the kitchen. All of the assistants were happy to see her, as she made her way around the kitchen, talking and laughing with each person. She introduced herself to me and while I was skeptical about extending my hand covered in strawberry juice, she had no problem extending a warm handshake.

I continued working on the strawberries as Nancy spoke to everyone to get an idea of where the evening's production stood and where she would be most helpful. At about 4:30 PM, the phone rang and someone promptly let out a, "Dinner's ready!" Nancy invited me upstairs for the family meal - two pasta dishes, couscous and two salads. We all took our food and drinks back down to the pastry kitchen, ate, laughed and then got right back to work.

After I finished the strawberries, Nancy brought over four long loaves of brioche and showed me how to dice them for bread pudding. Afterwards, I teamed up with another assistant to prepare the shells for petit fours. She attended ICE for culinary and after completing her externship in the hot kitchen at Gramercy, decided to switch to pastry. She had nothing but wonderful things to say about her experiece so far at Gramercy.

Afterwards, Nancy took me upstairs to watch service, which by that time was in full-swing. I stood to the side to avoid being in the way and watched as the two assistants organized and plated the incoming orders. When service slowed a bit, they would plate desserts for me to taste - all four of which I really had to restrain myself from eating the entire plate in order to avoid sugar shock. Everything I tried, including the bread pudding (which I normally despise) was beyond wonderful.

One of the chefs from the hot kitchen came over with a sample of the lamb ragu, which was much appreciated not only because it was phenomenal, but also because I would have given just about anything to eat something savory and salty at that point. I wasn't doing a very good job of not finishing my dessert samples!

Things started to slow a bit and, as it had been about two hours at that point, I headed back down to the pastry kitchen to meet Nancy. She led me back to her office where we sat and talked for about half an hour.

She asked me lots of questions about what I was looking to get out of my externship, what I considered by style to be and my goals for working in the industry. She offered lots of advice and wisdom from her previous experiences.

Then, she extended an offer for me to work as an extern at Gramercy Tavern upon completing my program. She told me she wanted me to take some time to consider it, so it took a lot for me not to jump up and yell, "Yes! Yes! Yessssss!". So I thanked her, told her I would take the time to consider it and would be in touch shortly.

As an extern in the pastry kitchen, I will be working three nights a week - Monday through Wednesday from 6 PM to 10 PM, a schedule that closely mimics my current school schedule.

Nancy walked me out of the kitchen, showing me the chocolate room on the way out. I left feeling excited and energized. I felt like I had just been asked to be part of a very warm family, one that I knew I would learn a lot from and be given a lot of opportunity to grow.

Week Nineteen: Cookies and Plated Desserts

The first two days of this week were devoted entirely to cookies. That's never a bad way to spend an evening, in my opinion. We made the dough for half of the cookies on Monday night and then held it in the refrigerator overnight so we could bake it off the following evening.

On Tuesday we worked on the other half of the doughs and baked those along with the doughs from the previous evening.

The spread was quite impressive.

From left to right: spritz, Italian macaroon, mamoul, biscotti, amandines, checker board

From left to right: biscotti, rugelach, spritz, madeleines, Italian macaroon, mamoul

From left to right: madelines, marbled, checkerboard, linzer, chocolate chunk, marbled, pecan ball, biscotti, rugelach

From left to right: brownie, Sicilian fig, Scottish shortbread, oatmeal raisin, biscotti, madelines, marbled

It was a fun (and delicious) two days. I brought an incredible amount of goodies home and Mike enjoyed picking out his choices to keep in the apartment. The remainder went to the office with me on Wednesday and, just to give you an idea of how many cookies I had, people in the office could not finish them.

After our two-day cookie adventure, it was time to move on to plated desserts. I think most people in the class were excited by this, as looking at restaurant dessert platings can be a bit overwhelming.

But before we could plate the desserts, we had to actually make the desserts. So Wednesday night, each team was assigned a different dessert and we were to make all of the components, which would in turn be plated on Thursday.

My partner and I divided up the work and set about mise-en-placing our ingredients. But my partner was having a bit of an off night. The first clue was when I looked over and the milk and cream for the ice cream custard was overflowing on the induction - she had walked away to go get eggs.

There were many other "Oops!" moments through the remainder of class. I am by no means saying that I never make a mistake in the kitchen or have nights where I just can't seem to get it together. But working alongside such a disaster was incredibly frustrating - especially since I knew it was affecting the result of our desserts.

Thursday night we were to put the finishing touches on our plating components before moving on to preparing items for Monday and, finally, assembling plates. There was not too much on our plate for the evening, until my partner decided she wanted to make the plating group that had been left out the night before (there were four plating options, but only three groups).

So that more than doubled our work for the evening. I re-warmed the chocolate sauce for our original plate and then went coat the frozen gianduja parfaits with a power sprayer (not kidding). When I came back into the kitchen, our table was again a disaster as she explained she had accidentally turned on the induction for the chocolate sauce up to high, which obviously burned the sauce. The pace was thus a bit frantic the rest of the evening.

But plating the actual desserts was quite fun. It was a creative process, but also quite methodical in terms of how the customer would actually consume what was put in front of them.

Gianduja Parfait

Chocolate Sauce, Hazlenuts, Cocoa Nibs, Vanilla Ice Cream, Carmelized Banana

Chocolate Caramel Tart

Caramel Popcorn, Chocolate Pudding, Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Chocolate Peanut Tart

Chocolate Sauce, Praline Citrus Sorbet, Peanut Butter Powder

We have two more evenings of plating desserts and then our exam and practical will follow on Wednesday evening. That means we move into the final module next Thursday evening, which will consist of chocolate work and wedding cakes.

During the week, it still never seems like this schedule will ever end. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I love the weekends so much - they give me a chance to relax and reflect - and sleep.

Week Eighteen: More Cakes

I missed my first pastry class on Monday evening. I had to go have the stitches removed from my finger and, while I was told I would be able to make an appointment, a receptionist with a major attitude problem informed me I would most certainly not be able to schedule an appointment.

I skipped my lunch break on Monday so I would be able to leave at 4 PM. That gave me almost two hours before class started and since the clinic was just down the street from school, I hoped this would be plenty of time to have my stitches removed.

Three hours later I was finally called back to see the doctor and after another hour, the doctor actually made an appearance in the exam room. He complained about his day as he removed each of my stitches, a procedure so simple I could have done it myself in about five minutes.

I had not regained the full ability to bend my finger, but it has gotten progressively better over the past week.

Needless to say, I missed class that evening, as it is policy to not allow students to enter the kitchen after the first thirty minutes of class. It was annoying, but I did know from reading the lesson that I was not missing a critically important lesson: the evening was a production class where students were to prepare cakes for the remainder of the week.

I was happy to be back in the kitchen Tuesday evening, where my classmates and chef-instructor assured me I had missed nothing important. So we set about creating our desserts of the evening, two Italian treats: zuccatto alla ricotta and tiramisu.

I worked in a team of three this week, which made everything go much faster. We broke down the recipe so each person was in charge of a different portion. Before I knew it, our zuccatto alla ricotta was chilling in the blast freezer and we started working on the tiramisu.

The tiramisu was to be frozen overnight and unmolded in the following evening's class. But the zuccatto alla ricotta was ready to be unmolded, decorated and enjoyed that evening.

After we removed each dome from their flexi-mold, my partner sprinkled the tops with toasted, chopped pistashios.

They were placed back into the blast freezer for another five minutes, just enough time to set the topping.

I thought the individual portions were visually very appealing, but I was a bit underwhelmed with the taste. The cake portion of the dessert had been soaked too heavily in the rum syrup, which made the taste quite harsh. The rum overpowered the filling, made of smoothed ricotta, chocolate chunks and chopped pistachios, which I am not certain I would have enjoyed anyway.

On Wednesday evening, we first composed a grenoblois, which is a rustic French cake. A walnut buttercream separated two layers of walnut flavored cake. After the cake was coated in the crumb layer and chilled, chopped walnuts were folded into the ordinary ganache which was then poured over the entire cake.

The second cake of the evening was a symphonie: hazelnut cake layers, praline butercream, rich ganache and an ordinary ganache on top. A few flecks of edible gold leaf were strewn across the top.

Lastly, it was time to unmold the tiramisu from the previous evening. Our chef-instructor was more than happy to demonstrate using the blowtorch to free the metal frame.

I think I only have tiramisu one time before this evening and I remember not being a particularly big fan. But I loved the cream, sweet consistency of this recipe.

Thursday evening was a complete disaster. Chocolate ribbon cake was the only cake of the evening and the preparations and cake assembling was finished by 7:30 PM. After that, the chocolate plastic, which is pretty much a gourmet Tootsie Roll, had to be rolled thin and molded.

Ten thin, long strips had to be molded into ribbon forms. But I could not get my ribbons to look like the instructor had demonstrated. I asked for help, but our chef-instructor said I was doing fine.

Two hours later, all of the chocolate had been molded. But just as I had suspected, my ribbons were not formed correctly. It was the ugliest looking cake I have ever seen.

I do not enjoy doing things incorrectly and I certainly do not enjoy ugly pastries (that take four hours to make). But I met up with Mike after class and the cold beer helped remedy my temperament.