Graduation

Hey, so I totally forgot to post graduation photos in the last post. And really, what would be the point of spending all that money, nine months of our lives, and the last month in a kitchen without working air conditioning for 15 hours a week if we can't at least celebrate at the end?


Apparently we were the first class to ever hand out class superlatives. Rebekah and I were excited to share them with everyone after everyone received their diplomas. Although we look mischievous above, they really were quite tame and graduation-worthy.

After the ceremony, we relaxed with some well-deserved champagne.

(Yay, we're graduated!!)

A couple of things

We graduated - yay! There are many, many things that I wanted to post here during the last weeks of school, but life got in the way.

So, as a quick catch-up, I just wanted to share some wedding cake and graduation photos. Enjoy! I'll be back with a great Linzer dough recipe that got me rave reviews when used in summertime pies.

This wedding cake, like Rebekah's earlier, was a class project done in a Marie Antoinette theme. These pictures were taken about a week after the cake had been sitting in my fridge (again, I'm going to play the 'busy life' card) so the curved bottom and top tiers look a little ... well, dumpy, here.

But you can see that the use of the gold edible paint in the beading, royal icing piping, and the furls at the top really give this cake a fun and flamboyant twist. The theme was also expounded in the chocolate cameos on each of side of the middle tier.

PattyCake makes its way into the mainstream!

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Meyer-Lemon-Egg-Salad

It's graduation time!

June is known for many things: the official start of summer (yea!), Father's Day and a flurry of graduation celebrations. My cousin Zach was one of the many celebrating his big leap from high school to college and, while I refuse to believe that my little cousin known for his suffocating bear hugs is no longer so little, PattyCake jumped at the chance to help him celebrate his big day.

Two early morning plane rides to Wisconsin, 17 hours and 150 assorted cupcakes and cookies later, Zach had his {cup}cake and I was ready for a much deserved nap (didn't you read Jade's former post? Birthdays, weddings and graduations...oh my!).

The assortment:
Cupcakes: vanilla, chocolate and red velvet.
Frostings: vanilla, chocolate, praline and cream cheese.
Cookies: vanilla-sugar, homemade oreos and bourbon pecan.

Busy Little Bees!

So it's been a while since Rebekah or I have posted anything, and we promise it's not because we have forgotten to! We have been extremely busy over the past month and now that we have a little time to rest, it's the perfect time to catch you up.

We have been delivering cupcakes across this great city, and also even all the way out to Wisconsin! (More on that later.) We also had our first cake order, which was probably one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs yet.

We had to recreate a wedding cake.

No small feat, let me tell you. The original cake, served five years ago at the wedding of J.'s boss M., was completely custom-made, from the bright-red fondant with elegant flowered piping, to the filling layered with dark chocolate ganache, vanilla cake, and raspberry mousse. To top it off a handmade, pure white, sugar-paste rose bouquet flourished atop the five tiers. It was a masterpiece of a cake and our task was to recreate it (in miniature!) to serve at their anniversary lunch.

We could have done a lot of this with store-bought parts. However, being the ambitious girls we are, everything was made from scratch. Once the easy parts were out of the way - the cake, raspberry mousse, and ganache – we tackled the hardest part: draping the fondant on the tiers and applying the piping. Finally, the sugar-paste flowers were molded by hand, shaping little white buds and wrapping them with thin petals with our freshly made sugar-paste.

We've heard horror stories of fondant cracking, peeling, and falling apart, but one thing we think more bakers should talk about is sweating. Not the sweating that you do when you realize you have to make fondant from scratch at 11:30 PM because the white store-bought fondant doesn't want to absorb enough red food coloring to get it even close to the color your client wants, but rather the sweating the cake does as it defrosts beneath your, previously perfect, layer of fondant, creating a problematic layer of moisture. This discovering found Jade doing her own form of sweating (and I’m sure grumbling) into the wee-hours of the morning while holding a hand dryer to the otherwise lovely cake.

Despite the unfortunate discovery of “sweating,” the cake was delivered in perfect form to the restaurant and promptly enjoyed (and admired) by the clients. Whew! Next, remind us to tell you about the red velvet mishap!

Bon Bons

How to begin a post on chocolate? Chocolate means something different to everyone - whether it's an addiction that begins with a bar of Toblerone and ends with an empty wrapper, or a begrudgingly strict avoidance of anything to do with cocoa beans and sugar.

Personally, I try to employ Michael Pollan's sensible directive to, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." but it seems to get thrown out of the window when chocolate is around. And lately it seems to be around more often than not because of the recent focus on chocolate in our course at FCI.

We have spent the last couple of classes making chocolate candies, more specifically bon bons. These are products of our collective effort making an assortment of flavors, including espresso, toasted coconut, bourbon pecan, spice, and champagne fillings. Believe me when I say that they're worth putting a temporary hiatus on even the strictest of diets.


While I'm not surprised that these chocolates have turned out to be delicious, I am surprised by how much I've enjoyed creating these little bon bons. I now find myself daydreaming about all of the upcoming special occasions we can make chocolates for, and which ones of our friends would appreciate them the most. Who knows, maybe if you're lucky I'll make some for you!

Cheddar Dill Scones

It's been raining, in case you haven't noticed. It's the kind of drawn-out, drizzly rain that lasts for days and makes me want to curl up in a Snuggie on the couch (not that I have one ... hint hint). In weather like this, the waft of cheesy scones baking in the oven gives me with a warm comfort and tides me over until the sun comes out of hiding.

Yesterday was the perfect day to go into a baking frenzy, seeing as I was confined to being indoors anyway. I took the opportunity of being home-bound to bake up a care package for my brother A. in California. My afternoon of baking began with these scones, a slight variation of Ina Garten's recipe - but with some whole wheat flour for a healthy kick. And since I like my scones fluffy, I double the cream for a biscuit-like crumb (if you prefer a drier, more dense texture this recipe is not for you).

Cheddar Dill Scones (adapted from the Barefoot Contessa)
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
2 T baking powder
3 tsp salt
3/4 lb cold butter, diced
2 cups cold heavy cream
4 eggs
1/2 lb grated cheddar cheese
1 cup fresh dill, minced
heavy cream, for brushing

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients, less 1 T (reserve for coating cheese and dill), and add butter. Mix until the butter is in pea-sized pieces.

Beat eggs and heavy cream together, add to dry ingredients. Mix just to combine.

Toss 1 T flour with cheese and dill, then knead into batter. Form four large rounds from the batter, and cut each round into 6 wedges. Place on parchment-lined sheet pans, bake for 25 minutes.

Cool on racks and enjoy!