Game Night

It has become somewhat of a ritual for a talented group of young vet students (and their mates) to congregate at the apartment of Mr. Scott and I to play Catan on the weekends.  If you have never heard of Catan, check it out here.  A game of strategy and a little luck, there are so many expansion packs and variations on the game, it never gets boring.  Of course, imbibing is always involved, and I think our drunken ramblings make the game take twice as long.

  Another tradition of Catan-ing is the ceremonial gorging on delicious treats provided by participants.  The word "diet" does not exist for the night.  Here are samples from one such night recently.

Fresh Fields Garlic Asiago bread

My beloved brother sent this tin of assorted butter cookies from Korea, where he is currently stationed with the Air Force.  Hello Kitty happens to be my number 2 obsession (behind cakes, of course).  More on that later.

Flourless Chocolate Decadence Cake from Fresh Fields, served with homemade mascarpone cream, fresh raspberries, and a chocolate butter cookie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our "Robber" piece went missing (I suspect a cat named Murph...), so Hello Kitty became the stand-in.  Don't let those doe eyes fool you!

 

Black and White Photo Shoot Cake

We dropped this cake off last Tuesday morning at the headquarters of Minnesota Brides Magazine.  I was so nervous!  Good thing we left early, because Nick and I got super lost (there is a big difference between 3rd STREET and 3rd AVENUE) but we still made it there in time.

I'm second guessing my choice to put the black dots on – it was a last minute addition that I feel is somewhat distracting from the flowers, which should be the focal point. Maybe they could have been a little smaller? Or maybe I'm obsessing?

As a reference, it took me about four hours to decorate this cake, starting with the plain round foams that are underneath. This is called a "Dummy Cake" since there is no actual cake involved.   There is a very small amount of buttercream applied to the foams for the base layer of fondant to adhere to.  Most of my time was spend forming the flowers.

You can revisit my inspiration for the cake here.  I wanted the flowers to look like fabric. The stamens sticking out of a few of the flowers are from a gum paste flower making kit (inedible) and remind me of pins in a pin cushion. The textured edge of the bands at the base of each tier are reminiscent of  ric-rac. The black dots are button-esque. Someone has crafts on the brain....

Oh, and the dots are my milk glass. My goal was to create a cake using black and white that was sophisticated and chic, but still girly and approachable. I could see this design translated into many other color combinations, from neutrals and tone-on-tone, to pastels, to bright turquoise, which also makes it a great one for the magazine.

Thank you to Minnesota Brides Magazine and Tiger Oaks Productions for the opportunity to participate and try new things!  The fall/winter issue of Minnesota Brides hits stands in JULY and will be on display through December!

Love,

Rachel

Two Spring Wedding Cakes

I found it interesting that my first two brides of the season were both mature in age (I say that with all due respect).  Meeting with the couples, I was completely charmed by their love for one another and how excited they were!  It wasn't too surprising they picked designs on the traditional side, but both had great taste and an eye for elegance.  For me, the flowers on each cake keep the designs from turning dowdy.

Remember the flowers from last week?  I couldn't be more happy with the end result.  The cake looks fresh, light, and sophisticated all at once.  Don't you love the opulence of the silver stand with it?  It doesn't hurt that the reception was held in the garden room at the Lowell Inn (Stillwater), which has incredible natural light.  The sun came out just in time!  Congratulations to Dana and Gordon!

The piping design on this cake was inspired by a photo in one of our books, but with a few creative liberties of my own.  I NEVER make buttercream roses, and was cursing with every petal.  The all-butter Italian Buttercream recipe we use really isn't the greatest for it (the heat from your hand softens the icing faster than it would with a shortening recipe).  Like I said, the gorgeous flowers here make all the difference, and mixing the buttercream roses with fresh was something I had never done before.  The end result is clean and modern.  Linda and Ren already stopped into the bakery today to say they loved the cake!  Thanks you two!!!

*Sigh* I love my job.

Rachel

The Royal Wedding Cake

Second to the dress, I was super pumped to see what the royal wedding cake was going to look like last Friday.  It's taken a little bit for the photos to pop up online, but here she is in all her glory:

Absolutely amazing.  I can't imagine the stress.  I always talk about texture and the tone-on-tone work here is incredible.  I can really appreciate how albeit ornate and detail, it doesn't look busy or unbalanced.  Something to aspire to for sure!


And the groom's cake!  Ohh, just to taste either of these...

 

*All photos are from The British Monarchy Flickr page, http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishmonarchy/

FAQ Friday!

Heehee, this is fun.

Q:  "Rachel, how do you work in a bakery and stay so small?  If I was around cakes all day, I'd weigh 1,000 pounds!"

A:  First of all, I don't think you can weigh 1,000 pounds and still be alive.  Second, contrary to popular belief, working in a bakery does not entail standing around eating cookies and cake all the live long day.  I would probably be fired.  Yes, I do taste items that I'm working on, and I always encourage interns to do the same.  How do you know if it's right/tasty/not rotten if you don't?  But a taste is a taste, not an entire serving.

Also, when you are around the same foods day after day, you tend to get a little tired of it (gasp!).  I like to use the example of working at Taco Bell:  I love Taco Bell, but I would imagine the people that work there, making Mexican Pizzas all day, every day, they would get sick of cheesy, beefy goodness too.

I did gain weight when I was in pastry school.  Talk about baked-goods overload.  We would make loads of pastries and whatnot, but unlike a bakery, it doesn't get sold and go out the door.  So it's there, and available, and free.  And your eating habits are so wacked out because you can't cook in your little dorm room and the cafeteria is getting old.  And you're excited and invincible because you're at college without Mom and Dad.  And you're still kinda hungover from drinking pineapple Captain Morgan until 2 am last night.  So...you eat it.  You eat it all...

My pastry labs lasted two years.  After that, I was working at a fast paced bakery and in Food Service Management classes full time.  I started running to de-stress, and got back to a comfortable size.  I truly believe in the European way of eating:  Smaller quantities of higher quality foods are the most satisfying.  Good things in moderation.  A croissant a day keeps the doctor away... 

The author, in Chocolate and Sugar Showpieces Class, Johnson and Wales University, circa 2005-ish.  Hello Kitty obsession will be addressed at a later date.  Pasty skin and under-eye circles due to lack of sleep, but she smiles wide!

Happy weekend!

Rachel

New weekly feature: FAQ's!

Hey kids!  I had been mulling over the idea of weekly answering some of the questions I get asked most often.  Then, last week, I had some great questions asked in the comments, sealing the deal.  Leave your questions in the comments, and I may feature the answer in a future post!

Kicking things off, here is the question I got from an anonymous reader last week:

Q:  "Hey Chef; when you begin your designs... You start with the texture of the cake first Or do you start with the overall design, the big picture and the set up of what the cake will look like?  Over the years, what have you learned that is different from what you were taught in school?  The cakes I see you do on the Fresh Fields Bakery and Café Facebook website are amazing! You do a great job And are inspiring!"

A:  Wow! Great questions! Thank you thank you.

It's kind of weird how designs come to me. Sometimes I know right away what the entire cake will look like, other times they evolve from a concept or element that I want to incorporate, such as a texture, colors, pattern, or theme. In my spare time, I cut out pictures from magazines that grab me, anything from clothes to landscapes, and I try to sketch a design based off that. So I would say, most of the time, there are one or two elements that a client wants, and the rest of the cake flows around that.

The work I do day to day is sooo different from what I learned in school! However, school was a great foundation to build off of and I wouldn't trade the experiences I had there for the world. It was one of the first times that I was able to work with a group of people that had the same goals and passions as I did. In school we learned very little about artistic design concepts, but that is something that has always come naturally for me. Also, the pace of school is much slower than reality working in a bakery. Time is money! Sometimes I wish I could spend the whole day perfecting a cake, but you have to finish up and get to the next one.


I look forward to answering more awesome questions like this one!

xoxo,
Rach

A Golden Birthday Cake

A big THANKS to Laura for her referrals and this cake order she placed for a friend over the weekend!  I was excited to use the luster dust painting technique I tried a while back with silver, but this time with gold.  I covered the cake with a think layer of ivory fondant, then used a wide, dry brush to apply gold luster that had been mixed with a little alcohol (the drinking kind).  I love black as an accent color, because it makes everything else really pop.  The swirls are hand-rolled fondant.

And did you notice the swirly "26" hidden in there?  Clever girl...

xoxo,
Rach