A Bittersweet Christmas

Merry Christmas! Hope everyone had a wonderful time. My family and I went to candlelight Christmas Eve service last night. There were scripture readings, a message from the pastor, and lots of singing. I had invited my friend A to the worship; I'm glad she was able to join us. We lit candles as we sang "Silent Night". It was indeed a holy, quiet night.

Today we went to the 9AM worship. The pastor had told the congregation that today's worship will be casual one, so wearing pajamas are perfectly acceptable. Some people did indeed show up in their jammies--most noteworthy was the gentleman wearing Hello Kitty flannel pants.

Back home, I texted a bunch of people on my contacts list wishing them a Merry Christmas. I came across my ex, T's number--whom I haven't talked to in 6 years--and on a weird whim, sent him a holiday text as well. Few minutes later, I got a text back from him, asking who I am. I texted him back, telling him who I am. Few minutes later, he calls me.
I answer, a bit surprised that he would actually call.

T: Hello. Who is this??
Me: It's me, Yoko! Remember me??
T: ...Yoko....???
Me: (confused)...um...We used to date ten years ago.
T: wha...? Oh. This is his dad.
Me: His dad?? Oh my gosh! How did I get your number?
T: I...don't know. But yes, I remember you. How have you been?
Me: I've been doing well. How's T?
T: ...Do you know he died 4 years ago?
Me: ...! Oh...my...gosh...no...I... did not. How...?
T: He took his own life.

I was shocked beyond belief. T was my first boyfriend, and although we had a messy breakup, we had some sweet memories and good times while we were together.

His father told me that T had barely gotten married earlier that year, and how they were planning on buying a house. Then while his dad was out of town, he shot himself. His brother and his sister found him, along with a death note and a poem.

While going through his belongings after his death, he told me he found some poems that T wrote. Love poems. About me. "He had strong feelings for you," his dad said. "I'm sure he would've loved to talk to you."

My heart ached...for his family, for his wife, and for the way we broke up. I was hoping that someday, we'll run into each other, and I can then apologize for my immaturity, cold-heartedness, insensitivity...
But it's not going to happen. Never will.

But his dad was glad we got the chance to talk. I was a part of his son's memory that he didn't know existed. We wished each other Merry Christmas and to keep in touch.

I found some of his artworks he gave me ten years ago on my computer. I asked his dad if I should send them to him; he replied that he would love to have them. So I sent them to him, along with a very short audio record of T saying, "Hi Yoko."

It was sad and heartbreaking to learn what had happened. But I'm glad I was able to help them reconnect with another piece of T's memory. I hope this brought some comfort to souls, as fond memories of their son.

Rest in Peace, T. I'm sorry; I wish I could've been a better girlfriend.

Winter Break Part II

Part II of my winter break: Two birthdays in one week

The first one was for a dear family friend. We asked her for her flavor preference: fruity or chocolatey? She answered "fruity", so I set about making a "fruity" cake for her.

The oranges and mangoes were on sale, so we had a stockpile of those. I asked Mom if she wanted anything in particular--and she said, "orange mousse".

Hm. A cake with orange mousse? An idea was forming in my head...how about Orange Mousse cake with Mango compote and Orange cremeux? It's just a variation on the Fruit charlotte recipe we made in the European Cakes class.

I made a chunky puree with the mangoes, heated it (otherwise the enzymes in it will break down the gelatin), and set it with gelatin in 5" diameter glass container. The orange cremeux was frozen in the same manner. I used vanilla chiffon as my base.

Once the orange mousse is made, I poured some into a glass bowl lined with plastic, and layered with the frozen orange cremeux and the mango compote. After I put the chiffon on top, I put it in the fridge to let it set.
The next day, I inverted the whole thing, and everything looked fine...until ten minutes into decorating, the sides begin to bulge out. It was melting! The mousse recipe didn't call for gelatin...but it was meant to be poured into a torte with sides reforced with joconde. But I solved the problem by wrapping the bottom part with a strip of decorative cardboard and taping it. Hey, a lot of Parisian-style pastries come with a strip of pretty acetate wrapped around it, so it won't be a problem, right?
I finished decorating with the white chocolate snowflakes I made the day before. The result...

A billowy mound of snowball! The mousse did turn out a little too soft, but it was incredibly fruity and delicious. I think next time, I'll add gelatin to make it more stable.

The second birthday was for my friend A. I knew her favorite is the red velvet cake...but I didn't want to make her a plain, old-fashioned one. Instead of cream cheese frosting, I decided to make a cream cheese mousseline instead. And how about chocolate ganache with toasted pecans in the layers?? And chocolate decorations???

The cake itself was easy to make. I just baked the cake in 9"x13" pan, and cut out an 8" round from it. I would've used my springform, except it's prone to leaking if the batter is too thin. Haven't decided what to do with the leftover cake pieces...
I brushed coffee syrup on the cakes and layered it with ganche, pecans, and mousseline.

I barely had enough mousseline to cover the cake! Next time, I'll make more...
Now it was time for decorating. The day before, I was battling the temperamental chocolate. I figured I'll just melt it, pipe it, then let it set, right? Nah. It refused to set. I used regular baking chips, but I had to temper it for it to set properly. That took a lot of time and patience, but the decorations finally set.

Tempering involves melting the chocolate, allowing it to cool to a certain temp while constantly agitating it. Once it reaches 85F, it needs to be warmed back up to a workable consistency. At least I got practice with tempering.
I decorated the top with cake crumbs (traditional decorating method for red velvet), the chocolate decor, a single piece of caramel pecan, and a rose candle.

The sides looked a bit naked, so I pressed chocolate lattice onto the sides. Very pretty!

My friend loved it! She said it "had a tragic ending"...which I understand it to mean, "it was devoured hungrily by a bunch of ravenous ladies".

Winter Break Part I

A few months ago, my friend A. gave me 15-lbs of chocolate; one 5-lbs dark, a 5-lbs of milk, and a 5-lbs of green mint chocolate. I was overjoyed--until I tasted it. I could immediately tell they were stored poorly, and had absorbed some funny odors from whatever was in her basement. They tasted gross.

Well, there goes my plan for making chocolate cakes, brownies, cookies, candies, etc....

Then I had a brilliant idea. If these can't be eaten anyway, I'll just turn them into a chocolate showpiece/centerpiece! So I made modeling chocolate with the dark and the green mint chocolate.

Conveniently, they are dark brown and green. Perfect for a Christmas tree! I got right to making the tree trunk.

I made 5 main roots, and pushed a dowel into the center for extra support.

For the branches, I threaded wires through the trunk, and packed them with more chocolate. I repeated the whole process several times.

After a few hours....finished with the branches. Now onto the leaves...

The leaves were the hardest. I wasn't sure how to shape the evergreen "leaves" (since they were technically a bunch of thin needles) without toiling for ten hours. But I figured it out, by cutting the leaves in a jagged, arrow-like shape and wrapping them around each branch.

Finished with the leaves! Now on to decorating...

I used frosting to stick candies onto the tree. For the star on top, I made a cast sugar star with a metal cookie cutter, and perched it atop the tree with wire.

Finished! Turned out pretty good. The room smelled sweet from the candies. I still have a lot of leftover modeling chocolate--what should I make next??

Display Cakes Final

Last week, we made all our gum paste decorations for our 3-tiered wedding cake final. This week, we assembled everything....

The three tiers consisted of two each of 6", 8" and 10" rounds. We used two, since they need to be filled and stacked to make one tier. Each tier has to be crumb-coated, final coated, then covered with fondant, dowelled (i.e. putting dowels into the lower tier for support), and finally stacked. Towards the end, we were running out of fondant, so those of us who finished sooner than others churned out several batches.

I managed to final coat all my tiers and covered one in fondant before the end of the first part (Day 1) of the final. The second part (Day 2), I covered the other two tiers with fondant, which I tinted pale, icy blue. I learned my lesson on rolling out the fondant thinly and using enough to cover the cakes with, so the cakes turned out without cracks and (almost) wrinkle-free. Whatever imperfections I had, I covered with gum paste ribbons.

Then it was time to decorate! I used royal icing to paste the snowflakes onto the cake. Others I embedded into the cake itself. The 3D snowflakes looked really cool sticking out of the cake. I also embedded some pearl dragees. I checked on the cast sugar snowflake I'd made last week...and it hadn't recrystallized! It still looked very pretty. I stuck that on top of the cake. Luster dust gave the cake a pearly sheen. Behold....

My winter-themed wedding cake!

A close-up of the snowflake decorations. I'm in love with this fondant cutter now. Of course, the cake is not finished just yet--there's that final touch I'm about to do...

Yes, the cake topper is a light-up! I put the submersible LED lighting behind it. The luster dust coating shimmered in the light.

Although I didn't score as well as I'd hoped (Chef said that the cake was off-centered and not enough scrollwork--but mine didn't need any...), I'm happy with the way it turned out. Regardless of the score, every passerby complimented and loved my cake, as did my classmates.

Well then...what should I do with my three weeks of vacation?? ...Bake, of course :)

Display Cakes Week 9

The final week is here...well, the preparation for it anyway. This week, we did mostly production to replenish our supply and to make sure we have enough cakes for everyone to make a 3-tiered wedding cake. Then we made our gum paste decorations to put on our cakes. They will be left out to dry and harden over the week.
It's winter, so I wanted to make a winter-themed wedding cake. I've been thinking about my cake entire week. I was formulating an image in my head what my cake will look like--yes, icy pale blue cake, with snowflakes dancing and swirling all around it. So I went and (after going through three different stores) found these:

Snowflake fondant cutters. They also leave a cool imprint too. I stamped out dozens of them, and pressed in pearl dragees on some.

I cut a few of them in half, and pasted the halves onto a whole one. This results in a 3D snowflake...

I also wanted a cake topper...yes, a giant snowflake that's different from all the other snowflakes. For the topper, I made one big snowflake by casting sugar in a metal snowflake cookie cutter. It turned out beautiful! I just prayed it won't recrystallize over the week. Aw well, if it does, I'll just make it again next week. After I cleaned up, some of us headed to Amano Chocolate Factory for a mini-field trip. Our Chef had arranged for us to meet there for a free tour.

The only photo I got for this place. Camera wasn't allowed inside the factory. There were tons of heavy machinery--huge sifters, roasters, grinders, and refiners. The inside smelled intensely of Pocky--a very strong smell of chocolate.
After the tour, they gave us a sample, a caramel-ganache truffle. It was so good! Turned into this liquid caramel-y chocolate lava flowing down my throat...mmmm it was awesome.

All right...next week, we assemble our cakes and finish it!

Display Cakes Week 8

Display Cakes Week 8: Topsy Turvy Cake

We made Topsy-Turvy Cake this week. Topsy Turvy cake is....kinda hard to describe. Unlike a regular cake, the sides are sloped, giving the cake a "lop-sided" look. To make this cake, after filling and stacking two 6" cakes, we put the cake board that's been cut smaller than the cake on top of it...

The cake board is used as a guide to cut the sloped sides. Once cut, the entire thing is flipped upside down. The exact same thing is done to the larger 8" cake. Both cakes are crumb-coated and covered with fondant, then stacked to make the tiers.

I wanted the Apocalypse to the theme of my cake, so I made the Four Horsemen, the dragon, the bloody moon, black sun, and God (represented by the Greek letters alpha and omega).
I guess I overworked the fondant for the dragon, because the dragon was sagging pretty badly when I put him on the base.

It's hidden pretty well (thank goodness...) but the dragon is pinned up against the cake with wires and supported by skewers in his forelimbs.

The Four Horsemen (technically just the horses, I didn't have time to make the riders...). The white, red, black, and pale horses.

I painted the sun black and the moon bloody red, but the red got so dark it almost looked black.

I painted the Greek letters representing God with gold dust. Nice metallic sheen. Unfortunately, the fondant crumbled and the cake ended up with cracks in multiple places. But it turned out OK, not as good as I had hoped though.

Display Cakes Week 7

Display Cakes Week 7: Two-tiered mini-wedding cakes

We learned about dowelling this week. The dowels are inserted in the bottom tier of the cake, to provide support for the upper tier, so the bottom one won't take the full weight of the upper ones (i.e. won't get crushed under their weight. I've seen it happen. It's sad).
Dowelling involves cutting the dowels into several pieces to a certain length. The dowels should be just below the fondant, so the top tier will sit snugly on the bottom. Otherwise the top tier will look like it's "hovering".

Chef Instructor cutting the dowels with a serrated edge knife. He warned us to be really careful when cutting them; years ago, he cut himself while cutting the dowels at a pastry shop he worked at. The blade went halfway through his index finger and his thumb. After he got it sewed up at the ER, he went back to work and finished his shift. What a trooper.
After stacking and crumb-coating both the 6" and the 8" rounds, I dowelled the 8". It poked through ever so slightly above the buttercream. Meh. It should still be OK. I put the cake in the fridge to let it set overnight. Until the end of class, all of us made gum paste decorations. I wanted mine to be sakura (i.e. Japanese cherry blossoms) themed, so I cut out a bunch of cherry blossoms, and left them out to dry.

The next day, I carefully eased the 6" cake onto the 8"...and it seemed to "hover" a little. But I used the gum paste flowers I made yesterday to hide the gap.
Chef required us to put fondant drapes on the cakes. I used fondants in three different shades of pink and rolled them out to create the tie-dye look. The drape itself turned out very pretty. But when I tried to drape it on, the edges started cracking :( To top it off, the drape nearly slid off the cake completely. I held it down until the fondant got hard enough to hold its shape. The buttercream frosting got messed up a bit, but it looked OK otherwise.
I finished decorating with the rest of the flowers.

The top view

In all its glory. I'm happy with the way the drape turned out. I'll be using this tie-dye technique every now and then.

Epilogue
...But of course, we had to get rid of our cakes from the previous week, the fondant groom's cake.

(Cue the Final Fantasy Battle music) It's my chef's knife against his. Who will win the battle???

Well, this was certainly a rare opportunity to slaughter this hard-to-defeat enemy character. And he was indeed, formidable, even in cake form. The fondant covering had hardened into a surprisingly tough armor--my first swing with the chef's knife left a only a shallow cut, so I had to stab it repeatedly.

Display Cakes Week 6

Display Cakes Week 6: Fondant Groom's Cake!

We made our groom's cake today, except instead of buttercream, we used fondant to decorate our cakes with. Chef instructor also showed us how to airbrush colors onto our cakes.

For my groom's cake, I decided to make a Tonberry. A Tonberry is considered to be one of the most annoying, if not extremely dangerous, enemy character in the Final Fantasy series. He looks like little green lizard with a fish tail, carrying a lantern and a chef's knife. In the game, he slowly walks towards the player's party, and when close enough, he uses his signature Chef's Knife attack, which causes massive damage or instant death. He wears a brown monk's robe with a hood.
I used two 6"round cakes to build this guy.

During the building process. It's slowly coming together. Once assembled, I made his chef's knife out of fondant, and his lantern out of brown fondant and a tiny battery-operated lighting.

There he is, all assembled. I turned his lantern on, and hooked it to his hand with a piece of wire. I had to use a skewer to stabilize his knife.

I'm glad he turned out awesome! Incidentally, his lantern stayed lit for 4~5 days, at least according to my friend who saw it later in the week.

And there's another thing I noticed about Tonberry while constructing him. He is basically a fish with four limbs. That's right...he's a Darwin fish!

My sister's visit!!

My sister's family came to visit us for a week at the end of October. Her baby's (my niece) first birthday isn't til the end of November, but we decided to celebrate it anyway, so I could make her a special birthday cake (me being a culinary student and all...). I kind of got into an argument with my sister over this... I offered to make a simple cake with soft pancakes and baby yogurt frosting, that even the baby can eat...but she insisted that her baby not eat the cake. I felt bad for my niece...I mean, it's her first birthday and she can't eat her cake? Why make a cake at all? But I relented and decided to make a cake for my niece.

So what cake to make? There was a stash of frozen strawberries and a 6" round genoise in the freezer. How about a strawberry mousse cake? With white chocolate glaze?? That'll be a nice, pink and white cake! I wanted to try making a dome-shaped cake, using a mixing bowl. I tempered white chocolate into disks--the process which, again, had trouble with. I seem to have the worst luck with white chocolate. So it took me a good while before they (finally) set into nice disks. I prepared the strawberry mousse, poured it into the bowl lined with plastic, inserted the white chocolate disks, and set the genoise in...except the genoise was a little too thick and I had to press it down a little more than I wanted (pressing down too much can squeeze/deflate the mousse). In the freezer it went...

The next day, I took out the cake and unmolded it. The cake came out nice and domed. I prepared the white chocolate ganache glaze, and poured it over the cake. It seemed to glaze the cake pretty well...until I noticed that the glaze was not setting. It kept dribbling down until there was a barely-there translucent coating on the mousse. Eventually, the glaze just slid off. I was confused... The glaze was at the right temperature (not too warm, not too cold) so it shouldn't be doing that. I re-glazed the cake several times before I finally decided to add more white chocolate to the glaze to see if that'll help make it set. It kind of worked, but alas, the glaze slid off again. I hid the ugly bald patches with buttercream frosting, and it turned out fairly decent, although definitely not my best.

I printed out her picture from the months leading up to her first birthday and taped it onto a wire for cake decoration. The cake tasted good...but again, not my best.

Then we visited a raw food restaurant here in Salt Lake. My sister and her hubby are health food nut, and wanted to try this place.

Raw food is a type of cuisine that requires all foods to be "cooked" or processed below 118F. This method prevents nutrients from leaching out, which occurs during cooking. The food is literally alive and full of nutrients.
We got two combos and a dessert.

Sweet Basil Salad and Lebanese Wrap. The filling in the wrap was very flavorful, with creamy tahini dressing adding body to the otherwise bland veggies.

Seaweed Salad and Falafel bowl. The seaweed was a mound of nori with tamari dressing. The whole meal was very flavorful and vibrant...and surprisingly filling. We were getting pretty full by the end of the meal...and yet not heavy at all.

For dessert, we had the Cereal Bowl with Hemp Chai. It had goji berries, shredded coconut, granola and seeds. The freshly grated cinnamon added a nice kick.

Would I come back here? Probably. I would love to come here once a week...the only drawback is that it's pretty pricey. But it's worth every penny considering the quality of the ingredients and the herbs/spices in the dishes.

Display Cakes Week 5

This week, we worked with fondant. We make ours from scratch--it costs much less to make it than buy it. Incidentally, a pound of fondant is about $20-ish.

We filled the cakes with buttercream and applied the crumb coat (the usual procedure) and put the cakes in the fridge to let it set.

Chef did a demo on how to roll out the fondant, covering the cake, then stretching the cornersto make nice edges.

The excess is trimmed off with a pizza cutter.

We mixed tylose into the fondant to make a gum paste, which can be shaped into flowers and figurines for decoration. I shaped mine into a flower and an origami crane. Now it was time to cover my cake...

....phew. It took me three tries. The first time, I didn't have enough fondant to cover the cake, so I had to pull it off. Second time, I didn't roll it out thin enough. The third time, it turned out I had just barely enough to cover the cake. By this time, the buttercream was starting to soften/melt, so the cake ended up with rounded edges instead of nice, clean corners. But I still managed to cover the thing. That was frustrating...

Then we practiced stencilling on the fondant. Any stencil can be used here. We put the stencil up against the cake, applied a thin layer of colored royal icing, and peeled the stencil off. I did a pink polka-dot put fondant ribbons to make a gift box.

Afterward, I donated this to the Food Bank. There was no way my family could've eaten this 20-lb. cake.

Display Cakes Week 4

For Week 4, we made our Groom's cake using buttercream frosting. Groom's cake is a 3D carved cake that can be shaped into anything. Some people made a dinosaur, others made a puppy, another person made an X-Box controller. I decided to make a mini-version of Osaka Castle.

I used two quarter sheet cakes. Osaka Castle is five-stories high, but I had to down-size it to three. The cake, unable to support itself, would've fallen over otherwise. I began by stacking the cakes, then carving down the roof.

Work in progress. The scraps were used to create the winged parts of the roof. Once carved, the cake was frosted with the crumb coat.

Once coated, we put the cakes in the fridge to set the frosting. The next day, we took it out to finish decorating with Swiss buttercream. Mine was pretty labor intensive, since this castle has a lot of intricate designs and decorative work done on it. It was mentally tiring to pay full attention and stay focused on the cake for three hours. But I did it!

Osaka Castle cake! I think it would've looked better if I piped each of the roof tiles instead of drawing it with a skewer, but still not bad for my first attempt.

Close-up of the "fish". These "fish" adorning the rooftops of castles in Japan are actually killer whales. Mine looks like...a catfish.
Anyway, that was Week 4. We start working with fondant starting Week 5.