Culinary Creations

This past fall I took Food Prep 1 and began my journey on the road to graduating with a double major Culinary Arts Degree and Food Service Management Degree. Where I will go with these pieces of paper once I finish (in 3 yrs?)? I do not know. But one thing I am sure of is that I LOVE to cook and bake. 

Here are a few of the creations made this past semester in class:

Braised Chicken with homemade pasta and green beans with almonds.

Salmon Croquettes with broccoli and tourneed potatoes.

Roasted Chicken, candied sweet potatoes and apple citrus cabbage.

Seared chicken, saffron risotto and green beans with almonds.

Beef Consomme with beef, celery and mushroom garnish.

Clam Chowder.

Stuffed Quail with candied sweet potatoes and broccoli.

Poached fillet of Sole with risotto, sugar snap peas and cream sauce.

Poached Fillet of Sole with Citrus Beurre Blanc sauce, Rice Pilaff and broccoli.

 

By now you are probably really hungry and wondering what I am cooking up for dessert! :-) 

My next projects in the next few weeks will be a cake for my nephew's birthday and possibly cupcakes for a wedding! Already planning and thinking up new creative ways to make these events special. 

Cupcakes and more cakes.

While we are on the topic of cakes, here are some pics of cupcakes I made for my sister's baby shower. A few of the ideas I got from online and others I just made up. 

 Red Velvet and butter cream icing.

Chocolate and butter cream icing.

Angel food cake and whipped cream topping.

Chocolate fudge and butter cream icing.

On this one I made sugar cookie squares and chocolate covered sugar cookies with cream cheese icing on pumpkin cupcakes. YUMMY!

Vanilla cupcakes with chocolate icing.

These ones had sugar cookies with icing with the little feet. I did find this idea online. Really cute! Instead of buying the cupcake holders I just used parchment paper cut into squares. Much cheaper that way! And still cute as can be!

Diaper "cakes" are fun to make! I can make these to order if anyone is interested!

Yes, of all the cupcakes I made that day, one did end up icing-side down... 

Here is the display at the shower.

So that was my adventure into cupcake making. Very time consuming because I am decorating individual servings, but they look so nice once done. It is worth all the work when everyone is happy and they all love to eat them! 

How it all began....

Last February I watched 2 seasons of Cake Boss in a 3 week period. I said, "I can do that!" I got some ingredients and made a cake and experimented with fondant. Well, There were some learning time in the beginning!! I learned from my mistakes and the cake making just took off from there!

This was my first attempt with fondant and found that if it is not cold enough, the filling will ooze out! It tasted wonderful! Just looked terrible! :-)

 My second attempt was a bit more successful. I experimented with sponge cake for this one. 

 My Valentines Day cake was chocolate cake with buttercream icing and ice cream filling. The flowers were also made from gum paste. The fondant is getting a bit easier too at this point!

 St. Patty's day cake. I found a graphic online and made a stencil for the top clover. This was 3 layers of vanilla cake with a chocolate cake layer in the middle with butter cream icing. 

 Having a bit of fun for an ice cream social we had at church. An ice cream cake with no ice cream IN it. :-) I used spice cake for the top and vanilla cake for the cone part. This was a lot of fun to make!

 I made this one for the MARK INC press release for their military PTSD resources. I was honored to make this for the occasion. 

 My Easter Cake creation. I saw something similar online and decided to make one too. Every flower was hand made and all the butterflies are edible as well. This took sooo long to make, but I am so happy with how it turned out! 

 This cake was made for one of my friend's daughter's 2nd birthday. I had alot of fun with this one too. 

This one was for a friend of mine who had foot surgery. Her hubby thought she would get a kick out of a foot on her cake! lol. :-)

This one I made for my Chiropractor. :-) Chocolate cake with cream cheese icing. Yum!

My latest creation. This one was made for my friend's parent's 50th anniversary! This was done over the Thanksgiving holiday! I had 26 people in my house the day before this was to be made and delivered! I was stressed and rushed and if not for my sister and brother and hubby there to help it would not have gotten done in time!!! It turned out great tho and got to the party in time!! :-)