Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Blogging from Work

I drew this gingerbread house using AutoCad. I didn't have time to actually make it this Christmas but I'm hoping to be able to do it next year.


Sunday, January 11, 2009

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Valentine's Day Greeting Card

I made this card for my parents' 28th anniversary. My mom had the idea to turn the photos of my cookies into greeting cards and this picture was perfect for this occasion. It's also just in time for Valentine's Day. They are for sale in my Etsy shop!






Thursday, January 8, 2009

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

It's a Cake, Dummy!

These two cakes are actually fondant-covered foam blocks. These are my favorite cakes to make because you can work on them for as long as you want to.



Those two circle designs on the sides of this cake are edible images. I uploaded one of my drawings to a web site that prints custom edible images and I was able to adhere them to the cake with royal icing.

I also put it on a cookie

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Around Town

Last weekend my mom and I walked around Historic Uptown Kingston to take some pictures. As I was looking through my photos today, I realized that I had a theme going with these lamps so I decided to post them together.








Thursday, January 1, 2009

Glam Rock

I made this glam rock cake about 2 years ago for my final project in my favorite class at The Culinary Institute of America, Confectionery Arts and Special Occasion Cakes with Chef Cavotti.

The cake is a Genoise, which is a sponge cake that is leavened by tiny air bubbles trapped in the batter instead of by a chemical leavener such as baking powder. The cake itself is dry so it must be moistened with simple syrup before it is iced.

For the icing I used Italian butter cream, which was a requirement for this particular project. The roses are made of modeling chocolate. Modeling chocolate is pliable and is made of melted chocolate (white chocolate and food coloring in this case) mixed with corn syrup. The rope, buttons, and black checks are made of rolled fondant and the hearts and crossbones are made of royal icing. I made the hearts and crossbones using the same procedure as I did for the Mohonk logos.I brushed the buttons and black checks with water to give them a sheen.

It took 2 class days (about 10 hours total) to complete this cake, which doesn't include the actual baking of the layers.

It is still my favorite cake that I have made so far.

New Year's Day Photo

This is a statue in the back yard. It sits on a wooden bench and is covered in snow that fell yesterday.