I’m writing to you from the other side of my first week of pastry school! It looks much better from over here, not nearly as nerve-wracking.

I started the Garnish Your Degree program at the North Miami campus of Johnson & Wales this week. This program is for people like me, who already have a Bachelor’s degree in something totally useless in the real world (for me, English). The program is nine months of classes, and an internship. After this, you’ll have your Associates degree in Baking & Pastry! It sounded like a pretty good deal for me, so I took the plunge.

The night before my first day, I was so freaking nervous. I read and re-read the uniform policy. I ironed all my chef jacket and pants to perfection. I even ironed my hat. The result? This:

Please notice the pleats.

The program consists of all labs, which are roughly nine days each. My first lab was Chocolates and Confections. I walk in on the first day and immediately notice that my neckerchief is the wrong color. It’s supposed to be green! All of my preparation was ruined, and I feared the chef would kick me out of class. When he did arrive, we spent a good amount of time handing out papers, going over the syllabus, and receiving our pastry kits and books. The kit includes different knives and tools that we would keep for the whole year. After that, Chef told us to line up in the hall for a uniform check. I panicked. But, it turns out that he is a really nice guy, and simply told me to get the right color by the next day. I finally relaxed a little bit.

After this, Chef spent a few hours giving a lecture on the different kinds of chocolate, how chocolate is made and class procedures. It was kind of surreal to be not only back at school, surrounded by 18-year-olds, but to be taking notes on chocolate. After this, Chef gave a demonstration on how to temper chocolate and how to make ganache. Then, we broke into groups and made ganache ourselves. It was great to be doing something on the first day! We piped them to make the inside of truffles, and left them overnight.

The second day, we molded (or at least tried to) the truffles. Most of ours weren’t quite round, but more of an oblong shape. But, it was the first time for many of us, including me. We also learned about different fillings for pralines, and started making a peanut butter filling. This is me pouring it between two metal bars to mold it.

On the third day, it was finally my turn to temper the chocolate. It’s harder than it looks!

We also made more fillings, including a mocha and a raspberry. After they’re hardened, these fillings need to be cut and dipped in chocolate.

At 6 hours, this is a long lab. And at the end of each day, we have to do a major cleaning. Dishes, floors, tables, everything has to be cleaned and is inspected by the chef when we’re done. The first couple of days, I came home exhausted and with a serious headache. But by day 3 and 4, I was no longer super tired and no headaches! I’m gradually getting used to it.

Next week, more chocolate! We’ll be making molded pralines and hopefully a chocolate showpiece. I was unsure at first, but so far, I’m really glad I’m doing this!

Thanks for reading!

Wish me luck!

I got so excited over all the treats I was seeing on food blogs and in real life that I thought I was going to die. I knew I had to try something myself. Then I had a brilliant idea: cupcakes with Cadbury Creme Eggs in the middle! I wanted to make them fast so I bought a yellow cake mix, the eggs, and some pink frosting. This was more about testing out the idea than testing out original recipes.

Here are my eggs, and the cake mix with the eggs, water, and oil.

Next, I filled six of the twelve cupcakes with a creme egg, and covered them in batter.

Meanwhile, I also started working on this butterfly shaped caked that I saw on the back of the Easter M&M’s bag. It’s quite simple; bake a 9″ cake, cut it in half, and cut out a little piece for the wings. When the cupcakes came out, they looked normal.

I piped some pink frosting on and got prepared to taste the yummy chocolaty goo inside.

But unfortunately, they were kind of gross. Maybe it was because I didn’t use high-quality chocolate. I’m not sure. But they were not yummy.

But then, on the regular cupcakes, I used some of the aforementioned M&M’s to make a pretty flower.

And my butterfly cake came out well too! I am definitely going to incorporate M&M’s into my decorating repertoire.

I’ve been looking for interesting ingredients for cakes, and while browsing on allrecipes.com, I came across this recipe for Green Tea Layer Cake. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any batteries for my camera, so I didn’t get any pictures of the baking process. But, these cupcakes were pretty tasty. I followed the recipe for both the cake and the frosting. However, like many of the reviewers, I had to add extra matcha to get a green tea taste. Both the cake and frosting turned out a pretty green though. I decorated my cupcakes with chocolate transfers, which I learned to do from Melody at mysweetandsaucy.com, which is an excellent blog!

All said, these cupcakes were hard to resist!

I couldn’t get away with doing only one Valentine’s Day recipe! I decided to make cupcakes. And, as Red Velvet is the favorite for V-Day, I went with a Martha recipe, Red Velvet Chocolate Cake.

I lined my cupcake pan with some cute heart paper liners.

I then made the colorful cake batter in my KitchenAid.

Then I filled the cupcake tin. Unfortunately, I filled them rather high and didn’t have enough batter for all 12.

They looked beautiful when I took them out!

Next, it was time to make the Sturdy Whipped Cream frosting that I had been wanting to try for quite some time.

It was so incredibly tasty. The almond extract really gives it a nice flavor. I used a closed star tip to decorate my cupcakes. The looked so beautiful, and tasted amazing!

I went to Target this weekend, and they had so many cute Valentine’s themed baking items that my head almost exploded. I bought lots of stuff, including some heart-shaped cookie cutters. Sugar cookies it is!

Now, like all things I make, I want my baked goods to look professional. This, being my first attempt at professional looking sugar cookies, didn’t work out too well. They sure taste good. At least I have that.

Here are the ingredients I used. I took a shortcut and used premade sugar cookie dough.

I cut out various heart shapes and added sprinkles!

Little did I know that it helps the cookies to keep their shape if you chill them again after cutting, so I didn’t do this. They were pretty much misshapen blobs!

So, I thought maybe if I baked the cookie IN the cutter.

It kind of worked. Obviously, this is not how sugar cookies are supposed to look.

Oh well. I started making the Royal Icing, and dyed it pink.

These were what I came up with…not that impressive but still tasty!

I also wanted to show the incredible MESS I made in my kitchen.

Final products:

I absolutely love making sweet breakfast foods. For this Saturday morning, I decided on Baked French Toast from Martha Stewart, because I had some nice Challah bread that I needed to use up. I also skipped the raspberry sauce that is included in the recipe.

I prepared it the night before. It’s very simple; all you need is milk, sugar, eggs, salt and vanilla. Mix all of these ingredients in a baking dish.

Then, put the bread slices in and let them soak for 15 minutes.

Flip them over, and let them soak overnight.

In the morning, I placed them on a baking sheet and baked away! They smelled amazing as they were cooking.

I topped them with strawberries and maple syrup. So delicious! And very filling too.

I was lucky enough to be around a couple weeks ago to see the Martha Stewart cupcake show! She featured some of her own recipes, and also had the owners of Butter Lane in NYC come on the show and demonstrate how to make some of their delicious cupcakes. Being in Miami, I of course can’t go there and taste one myself, so I decided to make them! I actually used a different chocolate cupcake recipe from Martha’s website, because the Butter Lane one called for cake flour, which I didn’t have on hand today. So, I chose Martha’s Chocolate Cupcakes, which has pretty much the same ingredients, but with all-purpose flour. Here are the ingredients you need:

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream

Sift the cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside.

Next, it’s time to cream the butter and sugar.

Now, add the eggs one at a time.

And lastly, add half the flour/cocoa mixture, followed by the sour cream, and then the rest of the flour mixture.

Divide the mixture into a single cupcake pan.

And bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees.

The easy part is over! Now it’s time for the frosting. This one I did steal from Butter Lane, their Vanilla French Buttercream. I cut this recipe in half since I only had 12 cupcakes. The first step was to melt the sugar into the egg whites over a saucepan of simmering water, while constantly whisking so that the eggs wouldn’t cook.

Next, you have to beat the egg white mixture into oblivion…or until stiff peaks form.

Add the cream of tartar and keep beating. Then, you have to add the wet ingredients. This is where it seemed that all my hard work was for naught. Once I started added the butter, the mixture became much more gooey and no longer was stiff.

Finally, add the vanilla. This recipe calls for vanilla beans, but I obviously wasn’t going to spend the money on that, so I just used extra vanilla extract. You then have to chill the frosting.I went above and beyond the 15 minute chill time– I let it sit in the fridge for an hour. I was ready to frost my cupcakes!

I wanted to practice my decorating skills, so I broke out my pastry bag and tips. However, this frosting was not meant for piping. It slid right off the cupcake.

I gave up on that and wielded a knife. Much better! Not only did these cupcakes look delicious, but they taste amazing. I was so excited, I had a cupcake photo-shoot. Please click on these for a larger image!