Monday, February 22, 2010

a pain in the butt, two-day tests & a new bakery

A Pain in the Butt
I've been lagging behind on my blogging lately since I've been busy recovering from that never-ending cold and now a broken tailbone. Don't worry, I'm okay! I injured it a year ago, but prolonged sitting at my desk triggered the back pain and has made the past few weeks quite challenging. I'm on the slow road to recovery though and every day I'm walking less and less like Quasimodo. Please be kind to your behind, because life is no fun with a broken bum.

Two Days of Testing...Ugh
Much of the past week has been spent prepping for our two-day exam. We had both a written and a practical exam covering several weeks of material. The practical required us to make five different items. I had to make pastry cream, jaconde (almond flour cake), fruit tarts, devil's food cake and italian meringue. After that, we had to ice and assemble our cake and make a french pastry out of the jaconde. I think I did okay overall, however, my pastry cream was overheated and I got crumbs embedded while icing my devil's food cake with mocha buttercream (photo). I think I will pass the exam though and I'm pretty happy with what I accomplished considering my back had been hurting most of the time. I'm SO ready for a normal week though.

Blue Note Bakery
Even though I have now completed all 120 hours of my externship (hooray!), I have still offered to help out and get more experience at Blue Note Bakery (www.bluenotebakery.com). Angela Jiles, the owner, was kind enough to take me in and allow me to learn even more about cakes with her friendly staff. Her bakery creates some amazing, beautiful and quirky cake designs. She is even going to be featured in an upcoming issue of Rachael Ray's magazine! Her style of cake design is exactly what I want to do, so I'm hoping that I will gain a lot of knowledge at Blue Note and maybe even join their team in the future. I'm so excited to go back again on Friday!

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