Help Get Brayden to Boston

For those of you who know me or are friends with me on Facebook, you know all about my niece, Danica, who has Chiari Malformation. A little while ago, I began Cookies for a Cause. I stopped producing cookies on a regular basis after a few months when my school workload got too heavy.

Since then, my sister, Monica, told me about a family here in Jacksonville who also has a child, Brayden, with Chiari. I donated some cupcakes to a bake sale that was held for him close to Christmas. Since then, they have discovered that a second child of their four also has Chiari, and Brayden spent Christmas in the hospital with worsening symptoms. They really need to go to Boston to get better medical treatment for him. Today they held a "Help Get Brayden to Boston" Fundraiser in Orange Park. I made more of my signature sugar cookies to help with this, as well as a S'more Cake for their silent auction.

If you would like to help, you can get more information about Brayden and how to help his family at his mother's blog. Thank you!!!!

Plated Desserts

We worked on Plated Desserts in my Advanced Pastry Class- here is what I created:
chocolate mousse, champagne sabayon, chocolate mousse, almond and rum infused ganache, topped with champagne sabayon mousseline and chocolate shavings. The profiterole is also filled with the mousseline and everything is accompanied by a glass of champagne.

This is a different plating with the addition of macarons filled with Strawberry Buttercream:

Devil's Food Cake with chocolate mousse on top and filled with a strawberry buttercream. It is all encased in chocolate and chocolate curls and adorned with chocolate covered strawberries. On the right is a vanilla bavarian cream sitting on top of chocolate ganache.

From the back working clockwise, we have a martini glass filled with tiny Macarons. I created a Chocolate Disk to fit perfectly on top of the glass which is then garnished with a Chocolate Covered Strawberry. Next is a pyramid of Almond Chocolate Ganache, followed by a Chocolate Pot de Creme in the middle with a Chocolate Covered Strawberry on top, and a molded Vanilla Bavarian Creme with Strawberry Coulis to the right. In the very front I have a Profiterole filled with Champagne Mousseline, and behind that are 3 half spheres of Almond Chocolate Ganache with a Chocolate Almond Biscotti on top. Lastly we have the Parfait topped with a paper thin wedge of chocolate garnish.

Late-On-Purpose-Christmas Cake

This is a cake that was ordered by Marc's boss. It is a Late-On-Purpose-Christmas and Let's-Begin-The-New-Year-Right Party cake. Phew. That's alot to type! It was alot to write on the cake, too, but I made it work.

Santa is playing on the beach now that Christmas is over and he is happily making sand angels. This photo is blurry because I had to take it without the flash to see the sand angels.



Here is a side view.

S'more Cupcakes

My version of S'mores Cupcakes are a milk chocolate base with graham cracker crust chunks towards bottom and sprinkled on top of batter before baking. This is cored and filled with a marshmallow fluff frosting. This center is topped with a tablespoon packed mound of graham cracker crust that is surrounding a Hershey's Milk Chocolate Drop. Italian Meringue is then piped on top and toasted with my propane torch to give it that toasted marshmallow texture and look. Nom, nom, nom!!!







The chocolate drop in the center of the graham cracker mound on the top pushed down into the filling when I cut into it.