Cake...The Enemy?

So, 6 weeks of cake seems pretty daunting.  As previously discussed, cake is generally not my friend.  I can't cut straight to save my life - I'm pretty sure I failed cutting in kindergarten.  I always end up having to "fix" my layers it is frustrating.  I was not looking forward to cake.  At all.  I started out with a pit in my stomach.  The first few cakes lived up to my expectations.  I still got A's on them, but only with a lot of blood, sweat and tears.  It is always so difficult to look past the flaws.
The very first cake was a group project and we made a traditional Croquembouche ("crunch in the mouth").  It is quite a production.  The base is made of nougatine which is caramelized sugar with sliced almonds that is rolled out and formed into the shapes needed.  The dents de loupe (teeth of the wolf) are also made from nougatine and were supposed to scare people away from eating the cream puffs before they were served.  We made about a million cream puffs filled with vanilla pastry cream and glued them together in a cone shape on the elaborate base with caramel.  The final product is decorated with royal icing bead and string work as well as Magyfleurs.  Magyfleurs is the name for the colored sugar decoration as well as the tools used to make them.
It was fun but I probably will never make this again unless I have to


The second cake wasn't too bad - just a simple chiffon and buttercream birthday cake.  We had to use at least 2 kinds of flowers, vines, buds, tendrils, basket weave masking and shell border with Happy Birthday (Name) written on top.  I wanted a very simple French green and white cake.  It turned out ok - at least my layers were good.  We piped a practice top onto a wrapped cake board to talk about placement, etc...with Chef Earl and it, of course, turned out better than the real thing.  Oh well.  Not loving cake at this point.

Next we made a cake that no one likes or understands.  The poured fondant cake.  It is made with a very plain white cake filled and masked with sickeningly sweet apricot jam and covered with a thin layer of marzipan.  Talk about sugar overload.  To top it all off, fondant is poured all over the cake to glaze it.  We decorated with 3 marzipan roses and leaves, torched marzipan designs to mask the sides, a tempered chocolate double pass border and Happy Anniversary. I was pleased with my roses, side designs and my double pass border but my Happy Anniversary was a little wonky.

My least favorite cake, which many of my classmates loved, was the Cocoa Painting cake.  I did enjoy making the devil's food cake but the cocoa painting was just not my forte.  The cake was devil's food cake filled and masked with chocolate ganache - pretty tasty.  It was covered in chocolate fondant with crimped edges and a fondant swag around the sides.  We had to pick a theme for the cake and paint, with cocoa powder colored cocoa butter (say that 5 times fast) on a pastillage (sugar dough) plaque that we made.  We had to used various shades of brown and scrape off some to have shades of white as well.  Really not loving cake.  The plaque and stand are made of pastillage.
Yes, that is Darth Vader and those are light sabers on the cake.  I never claimed to be an artist.  Obviously The Force was not with me.  I think he kind of looks like Lego Darth.

Stay tuned for Speed Drills and and new relationship with cake.

Until then, ciao.
QoT