Eclairs, Cream Puffs, Paris Brest and Profiteroles

Oh my..just look at this pic, it just make want to eat more, and more. I think I have gain a few pounds since I started my classes.

This is a profiterole, I am still learning to pronouns this word, but I can tell you ladies that is really good. We use vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, yummy.

Paris Brest
Here the teacher is piping Creme Mousseline, which is made with butter, praline paste, pastry cream and dark rum ( don't get too excited is just a little bit)

Cream Puffs and Eclairs

Now if you excuse me, I have to start running!

Chocolate Cake With An Unknown Yellow Flower

Hi girls, I hope you had a nice weekend. Well here is my easy cake of the week. A very rich chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting. This time I didn't use any fondant to cover the cake, I got the opportunity to do what ever I wanted, I really wanted to keep it simple since I had to decorate the cake on saturday after I was getting back from my class in the city. I decided to be a little adventurous and tried a couple of new things. I baked the cakes on Friday night. I filled the cake with the frosting and then I trimmed the layers to make them even. I crumb coat the cake and put it on the refrigerator for 1/2 hour to chill.

I frosted all the cake with frosting, and then I press a large offset spatula vertically against the side of the cake at 1" intervals to make swooping ridges. I had seen this technique before in a Martha Stewart show and I wanted to tried really bad, this was the perfect chance to do it. I have to tell you, it was really easy and fast. I just love it because I didn't have to worry if something wasn't quite even. I am not really good at frosting cakes with buttercream, that's why I love fondant, so easy and always look so professional, well most of the time..maybe not with my cakes..but ..oh well you get the picture. Do you like to frost your cakes with buttercream instead of fondant?

I decided to make some easy flowers with light yellow and hot pink gumpaste. I rolled the gumpaste very thin on a greased surface. Then using a small apple blossom cutter I cut out a few flowers.I layed one flower at the time on a thin foam square and covered the others to avoid drying. I thinned the flowers using this little "ball tool".

Here I am getting ready for more flowers.

Using the Daffodil petal cutter, I decided to invent a new flower, jajaja I was just playing around and the flower came out cute.

Here I am using a leaf veiner( a cheap and simple one from a Wilton set of gumpaste cutters) to give some interesting look to the flower.I just press the petal hard on the veiner and voila!

I use my ball tool again to press around each petal to make it thin, do not go to the center, just around the petal!

Then I just put the first petal on the cake, and attached the other one with a little water on top of the first petal.

I also attached the pink little blossoms and using the same chocolate frosting I piped little dots on the center of the big flower and one medium dot on the pink flowers. I was too lazy and I didn't want to make royal icing, the frosting worked just fine.

I cute little border using a small leaf tip.

I just press the spatula against the top of the cake and rotated the turn table to get this simple effect.

And here is my baby

I hope you guys like it.( yes ,I know I have to iron my background)jajaja

Hugs to all of you and thank you for stoping by my blog.

Kathia

2nd Pastry Class

Hi girls, here are some pic from my second class, i have been a little busy but I am planning in posting some of the recipes. Well enjoy, I hope you are not to hungry.
I ate this 3, I swear I am not lying. Individual fruit tarts, made with "Flaky Pastry Dough and Pastry Cream' I can eat spoons of pastry cream, it is so good. My first Apple Pie, I still have a loooong way to go with the pie dough, but I will get there...one day, maybe in a few years, who knows?

Ready to go home to be eating by my husband.

This is very interesting.. is call "Tarte Tatin".

I hope you enjoy, I will post more pics soon.

Thank You Girls

This vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting and fondant rose is for you girls. Thank you so much for taking the time and looking for my email and letting me know about the issue with my comment post. I don't even know what happen? Is this normal every now and then?

21st Birthday Cake

I have been wanting to make a cake using pink and brown fondant for a long time and yesterday I got the perfect opportunity. Last minute, as always with me, I got an order for a cute little birthday cake, I could do whatever I wanted and this is what I came out with. I baked and decorated the cake last night, between baking, frosting and all the decorations toit ok me like 4 hours to finish it. I was pretty happy because it kept my mind very busy , I was expecting some news today and I didn't know if they were going to be good or bad and I have been kind of stress out about it.

Here are a few pics of the process. I cover all my boards with fondant a few days in advance, but in this case not only I didn't have time , I also didn't have enough pink fondant so I went for the easy fix.

My idea for using the stitch tool ( is that the name Patricia?) was to make the board a little fun, it really didn't make a lot of difference.

The brown butterfly wasn't on my sketch, but I thought it will look cute. I didn't do anything fun with it, it was a lonely and kind of sad butterfly. But I am sure you can do a body with royal icing, piped some borders with nice colors and make it look really alive.

Butterfly drying.

Using one of my great tools, a "clay gun". I use it for the cake border and the numbers.

Ok, here is another learning experience. I made this free hand=equal shaking hand. Ladies make sure you have a template before you do anything like this, it will look much prettier and clean.

My cute little pink cake!!

My First Pastry Class

On Saturday morning I left the house very early, I wanted to make sure I was going to get the train on time and not be late for my first class. I was really excited and already hungry for some sweets. I got to New York pretty early, after taking the wrong sub away, then the right subway and calling my husband to check the address I made it! My class was very small, 15 students including myself, which I think it was great so we get better attention. We got all the recipes, instructions from our wonderful teacher and we all went straight to business.
Here is my banana tart, well ,bananas are in the button of the pan you really can't see them at this point. Here I am putting the dough on individuals lemon cheese tarts.

Here I am shacking all over...

Blueberry pie almost ready for the oven

Fresh out of the oven: Hazelnut and chocolate tart, a big walnut tart and the lemon cheese tarts with delicious and fresh strawberries on top.

When we started to bake, the teacher divided us in groups of 2. This is Adria, we had a great time working as a team, just look how proud we look showing our desserts.

And then......went I got home this is what I found in my leaving room. But I won't tell you the details know, that will be in another post.