"I got the impression that you've made a lot of buttercream...."

So I just finished the two weeks wedding cakes module! Ah! So much fun! I love cake decorating, even though I could still use a lot of work and practice.

The first four days we spent making nothing but gum paste flowers. However, the end result was worth it. I remember back in November when I was apartment hunting I ran into a current student of the FPS program, and she said you wouldn't believe what you would make out of gum paste. I acknowledge that it would probably be cool (thinking "I've already done some cool stuff with gum paste" </jaded>). Can I just apologize now? I had no idea.

Chef Mark is amazing at gum paste flowers and if I could spend the next 20 weeks learning from him, I would. Because, thanks to his tutelage I made these:

!!!!! 

We also made a lily and two orchids. The lily was just for practice since it has a lot of components: a center, separate petals, and stamen. It gave us a chance to get used to building gum paste flowers.

As part of the module we built a three tier dummy cake and covered it in fondant. Then we bake genoise and make Italian buttercream and assemble a buttercream cake. The last component is a croquembouche. They say croquembouche is French for "crunch in mouth" referring to the caramel that crunches as you bite into the choux pastry puffs. However, I actually think it translates to "French torture for pastry chefs" due to its complicated and time-sensitive components.

Chef Kelly, this is a shot out to you and thanks for the previous instruction on applying fondant to a cake form. I'm very satisfied with how my cake turned out and I think a little bit of experience definitely helped! As you can see in the photos below, the fondant looks nice and smooth and nearly perfect (well, for a beginner):

Full cake with the gum paste lily.

Posey on the top tier.

Close-up of the lily.

And another close-up of the top tier with 

drop string royal icing decorations and the gum paste posey.

The buttercream cake had me facing my old nemesis Italian Buttercream. For those who don't know, it took me four attempts before I was able to successfully make Italian Buttercream. That's because the method I was using was potentially not the best. FPS has got buttercream down! I want to share the secret, but I paid a lot of money for this school, so I won't. Not on this blog. But I don't think I'll be making anything but Italian Buttercream from now on. When Chef Mark first demo'ed the FPS recipe I was just.... The mind was boggled. I even said something to him about how this recipe made so much more sense. The next day he commented to me "I got the impression that you've made a lot of buttercream before" and I explained my adventures with buttercream.

Anyways, yeah, I'll probably still have a little buttercream PTSD, but I'm slowly working through it.

The final part of the module was croquembouche. Oh. My. God. The French, I love them, I love their pastry (especially chocolate croissants), but their traditional wedding cake is mad. Nougatine base (kind of like almond brittle), royal icing decorations, gum paste flowers, and caramel dipped cream puffs built into a pyramid shape. Our croquembouches had isomalt (a sugar derivative) decorations on top.

I have pictures from my phone, but only my phone. The croquembouche did not make it home. It broke when I lifted the box. I was not overly upset, I was not exactly looking forward to taking this on the 'L or the bus (or potentially walking it a half mile down the street if the bus would take longer to get to the station than it would to walk it). I was a little sad to dump it in the dumpster since I had spent two days working on it, but I had documented my experience in photographs so all is good.

That's all for now, but this week is exams. Hopefully I will have the energy/time to make a post about that experience. The exams at FPS include one written exam (that consists of multiple choice and short answer) and three days of practical exams. Meep!

Wish me luck.