Marc's Birthday- Blondies and Caramel Sauce

Marc loved the blondies from week two so much that he requested them for his birthday. I have had some requests for recipes so I decided to post the recipe for this, as well as the caramel sauce. I quartered the recipe we used in class and it fit perfectly in a square pan.

Blondies

butter- 4 oz
granulated sugar- 4 oz
brown sugar- 4 oz
vanilla extract- about 3/4 tsp
eggs- 2
All Purpose flour- 8 oz
cream of tarter- 1/2 tsp
baking soda- about 1/3 tsp
salt- 1/2 tsp
chocolate chips (white or dark)- 1 1/4 cups

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Cream butter and sugars.

Add vanilla and eggs slowly.

Add all the other dry ingredients.

Add chips in last and mix just till combined.

Spread in a pan sprayed with nonstick spray and bake at 350 degrees until toothpick comes out clean. Mine baked around 25 minutes.

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Caramel Sauce

butter- 1 stick
sugar- 1 cup
cream- 1 cup *less if you want a thicker sauce*

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Place sugar and cubed butter in a heavy bottomed pot. DO NOT MIX!!!



Let the butter melt and turn a medium brown in color. DO NOT MIX throughout process!!




Turn off the heat and slowly whisk in cream. Place in smaller containers to cool. It will thicken as it stands and cools.





Serve blondie with vanilla ice cream and drizzle with caramel sauce. I will take a photo of this later. Enjoy!

Week 7- tortes and souffles

This week in pastry we worked on tortes. We started with a mango torte and also made a caraibe torte. The mango torte used a patterned jaconde cake as the base so when it is inverted, it has a pretty patterned top. This was placed in a mold and the rest of the layers were spread or cut to fit on top of that so it was all nice and even. The next layer was a mascarpone mousse that we sprinkled with diced mangos. Next was a layer of spongecake topped with a layer of mango gelee. Another layer of spongecake was placed on top of that, followed by a final layer of the mascarpone mousse. It all got topped off with another layer of the jaconde cake. This got placed in the freezer to set up and then was unmolded. I do not have photos of this or the caraibe torte yet because we are going to finish them off another week. It is going to be used in a buffet that we are going to be doing with another class.

The caraibe torte was a layer of devils food cake that we brushed a simple syrup combined with rum on top of. We then spread a layer of chocolate buttercream on top and placed another layer of devils food cake on the top. We glazed that with the syrup again and it is being frozen. We will finish it off with a chocolate ganache and decorate it with chocolate meringue sticks.

The chocolate buttercream we made was absolutely amazing!! In case you are interested, here is the recipe. It is the smoothest icing I have ever had and I wanted to just eat a cup of it all by itself.
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First you make a pastry cream:

milk- 1 qt
vanilla bean, split- 1
granulated sugar- 7.5 oz
egg yolks- 6 oz (10 yolks)
cornstarch- 2.5 oz
unsalted butter- 2 oz

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Bring the milk, vanilla bean, and 3 oz of the sugar to a boil in a non reactive saucepan.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and gradually add the remaining sugar to them. Whisk in the cornstarch to combine.

Temper the yolk mixture with 1/4 of the boiling milk. *This means to slowly add the milk while whisking continuously into the eggs. It SLOWLY cooks the eggs without curdling them.* Return the yolk mixture to the saucepan and cook, whisking vigorously, until cream thickens. Boil about 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and pour into a clean mixing bowl.

Fold in butter until melted. Do not overmix!!

Cover with plastic wrap on the surface of custard. Chill over ice bath. Remove vanilla bean just before using.

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When pastry cream is cold, make the buttercream:

butter- 1 lb
powdered sugar- 10 oz
vanilla extract- 1 fl oz
semisweet chocolate- 14 oz

In a mixing bowl fitted with whip attachment, whip all ingredients until light. Add 1 lb 8 oz of the COLD pastry cream and mix until combined. Turn off the machine and add 14 oz of melted and then cooled to 88 degrees semisweet chocolate. Whip until well blended.

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We also made souffles. We made a basic chocolate souffle and we also made a chocolate souffle cake with peanut butter honey centers. Here are the photo's of that. You serve them piping hot, straight from the oven before they deflate. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and split with a fork at the table and pour in cream so they don't burn their mouths. My group topped the peanut butter chocolate souffle with a berry coulis, as well, and it tasted like peanut butter and jelly!





Here is my tablemate's plate:

Finished Fondant

Marc took the girls out for a bit today so I could play with my fondant. I had looked at a ton of photo's online and went into it with some ideas in my head but ended up going a whole different direction once I actually started playing with it. I love how it turned out, especially for my first time. *I don't count Harmony's first birthday cake because I pretty much only used fondant to embellish the flip flops.*








Also, I got my grade back in Concepts and Theories and I set the curve! I earned a 101.5% in the end. That means that I got all A's on my midterms and two out of three of them were over 100%. I feel like my hard work has definitely paid off. Now to keep those grades there!

Week 6 in Pastry

Over the weekend, I had a brilliant idea. If you know me in real life, you know that I have a love of painting pottery. I have worked at paint your own pottery studios on and off since I was 20 years old, and have become quite good at it.
In the paint your own pottery business, we use little bottles filled with paint that have a metal tip on the end with a tiny hole that allows us to write, make small dots and lines, and pretty much any small detail with ease. I was thinking about the business of plating, and I had the wonderful idea of getting bottles like those and filling them with melted chocolate so that I could make intricate chocolate/sauce designs on my plates and food. I went to Michael's and found a set of two different sized bottles with four different tips. They worked wonderfully! I just placed chocolate chips and a small amount of cream into a bottle and swirled in it a cup of very hot water until the chocolate was melted. Then I shook the bottle until the chocolate and cream were mixed and voila! I had a way to make teeny, tiny designs!


Monday in Pastry we made our cheesecake, creme brulee, anglaise sauce, and lady fingers. A few of us finished up early, so we got to decorate another cake. At one point, earlier in the year, Chef had said that she would do a demonstration with fondant. I asked if she had that planned for a specific week, and she asked if we wanted her to go ahead and do the demonstration. After a mostly enthusiastic response, she broke out a tub of fondant, and showed us how to color it, roll it out, cover a cake, and add a border at the bottom of the cake. Then she showed us how to make gum paste roses. They were absolutely gorgeous!! They really looked like real roses. I iced my cake and then put it back in the refrigerator to finish with fondant on Tuesday since we were out of time for the day.

On Tuesday, it was only the male chef and me in our group. We cut and decorated our cheesecake and passed out samples. Before we cut the cheesecake, we put an apricot glaze on the top. This, apparently, is what they always do in real bakeries to make the top shiny and pretty. Then we placed a cut strawberry on the top of each slice of cheesecake and I used my writer bottles to make drizzle chocolate on the strawberry and then to make a small flower on each slice. We got many compliments on how pretty they looked and everyone who saw my bottles were jealous.


Next, we caramelized our creme brulee. I finally got to use my torch! I had never had creme brulee before, but after a little help from one of the other students who makes creme brulee at work all the time, I got enough sugar on the top, and a high enough flame to caramelize it properly. The creme brulee was surprisingly easy to make, and delightful to eat.


Next, we lined a mold with the lady fingers and trimmed them so they didn't stick up above the top. We prepared a bavarian cream and placed it in the mold. Next we layered diced strawberries on top of the cream, and topped off the mold with more cream. This is a modified Charlotte, as we used a different mold than the traditional Charlotte uses. We wrapped this with plastic wrap and placed it in the freezer for a buffet we are participating in a few weeks from now. I have no photos of this since they have not been unmolded yet.

After that, we prepared a lime chiffon and placed it in some tartlet pans lined with a baked, graham cracker crust. I did not photograph or eat these. I tasted the lime chiffon once prepared, but I am not a person who enjoys lime, so I chose to pass on this little adventure.

Once we finished all of those items, it was 10:45 am. We usually begin cleaning up at 11. I knew I wouldn't have time to finish decorating the cake I started the day before, so I asked if there was any way for me to take some fondant home to play with there. She gave me a recipe she had printed out, and let my group mate and I make some of our own fondant to take home with us.

That evening, I broke the fondant out and set up my daughters at their own little table covered in plastic wrap in the kitchen. I gave them each a little piece, their little plastic rolling pin from their kitchen set, and some cookie cutters and let them go to town. Harmony, my little artist at only 4 1/2 years old, created a layered item with her fondant. She alternated blue and white, and used a cookie cutter on one level to make a star.


Layla, my almost 2 year old, mostly squished hers around and took nibbles out of it.


I covered my cake with white fondant, and created some larger blue flowers with smaller white flowers to go in the center with a small, round, blue center in the middle of the white flowers. I placed these in different sized bowls to dry so the edges would be curled up. I changed my mind about them, however, and the cake is still in the fridge waiting for me to make up my mind on how to finish it off. I'll show pictures of the eventually.

Next week we are creating tortes with extensive layers.

Relief

The last two weeks have been pretty stressful for me. I didn't even realize how stressful until the moment I got my grade for my Safety and Sanitation midterm. That singular moment literally made me feel a million times lighter and slightly giddy. I have been working so incredibly hard to do my absolute best, and I was weighed down by the worry that it wouldn't have paid off and that I was going to get a sub standard *at least, to MY standards* grade for all that hard work. On Sunday, I finally resigned myself to the fact that even if I got a C on the midterm, I tried my hardest and that I would do better by the ServSafe exam at the end of the year. Marc also reassured me that even if I failed the midterm, he still wouldn't be disappointed in me. That helped. I am mostly working so hard to prove something to myself, but another part of me is also not wanting to let down any of the people who have supported me so much this time around. Marc has been my biggest supporter, and I especially care about his opinion of me.

The Safety and Sanitation class has ended up being my hardest class. Most of the information is easy to retain, but there are over twenty causative agents that we are required to know the names, type of agent, onset and recovery times for the illness caused, symptoms of the illness, foods that cause the illness, and prevention methods. I will give you an example. Feel free to skim or skip this part, I am simply trying to help you see the extensive amount of information that I am trying to retain.

Scombrotoxin- fish toxin originating from histamine producing bacteria.
Onset time- a few minutes to a 1/2 hour
Recovery time- 8-12 hours
Symptoms- dizziness, headache, teary eyes, runny nose, peppery taste in the mouth, burning in the mouth, facial rash/hives, difficulty breathing
Foods that can cause illness- Tuna, Mahi Mahi, Bluefish, Sardines, Mackerel, Anchovies, Amberjack, Abalone
Prevention methods- purchase fish from a reputable supplier, store fish between 32 and 39 degrees F to prevent growth of histamine producing bacteria. Toxin is NOT inactivated by cooking.

I've never been very good at this type of information. I did wonderful in Chemistry *the second time around when I took it in college. When I took it in high school, I got a C and that was truly not for a lack of trying. Understanding of the mole concept eluded me until right at the end of the year and when so many things in Chemistry are based on that concept, you are kind of screwed.* My point is, that Chemistry is a hand on class and, aside from the mole concept, you can SEE the things right in front of you and why you do what you do. Kind of like cooking and baking, you add A to B and C happens. Biology is much more abstract to me because you can't SEE the pathogens at work. That is why this is so difficult for me. All of these technical terms and the things that go along with them are difficult for me to separate. Also, the sheer volume of difficult information that is so similar, yet so different, was extremely overwhelming to me and I wasn't quite sure how to approach learning it. I have finally come up with a plan of attack for learning the information, however. Every night, I am writing one causative agent and all of it's information over and over again until I am able to write it all from memory. The next night, I write the previous causative agents that I have memorized, refresh my memory if needed, and then take on the new one for that night. So far, it is helping and it is making me less stressed than I was before.

I figured out this approach the day before the exam, however. Because of this, I was extremely nervous about the exam. After taking the exam on Monday, I still wasn't sure how I did, but I thought I probably at least got a C. When I went to my Pastry class on Tuesday, taught by the same teacher, she informed me that she had graded my midterm. She knew I was stressed about it and wanted to give me my grade so I could relax a little bit. I received, no, I EARNED a 94%! I was extremely relieved and texted Marc immediately. A weight lifted off my shoulders and I was grinning the rest of the class.

I was also happy on Monday when I found out my grade on the Pastry midterm. I, again, EARNED a 110% by getting all the questions right and then thoroughly completing the bonus essay question and receiving all possible points available. That alone made me extraordinarily happy during class. That evening, I pulled the test out to look it over, and saw a note on the back of the paper that I hadn't seen in class. I got the gold star for the week! She knew that the genoise was making me mad the week before, and I kept my cool. That earned me the gold star! I went from happy to giddy and called Marc immediately.



All that is left is to get back my Concepts midterm and I am fairly certain I did well on that test, as well. We will see on Friday.

I also, finally, managed to nag one of the partners in my Concepts group into finishing his part of the research paper due Friday. I put it all together last night and even finished the source citations. I also finished my vocabulary terms that are due Friday. I can actually breathe a little this week and not have culinary information constantly rolling over and over in the back of my mind no matter what I am doing. That is a huge relief.

Midterm and Week 2 of Cakes

We had our midterm yesterday. I didn't realize how stressed I was about it until it was over. Monday night I sat down to study and realized that Monday nights are really not very good nights to study. I have pastry from 7-12 and sanitation and safety from 1-4 on Mondays. By the time evening rolls around, I am exhausted and my brain feels like mush. I studied anyways, but was feeling frustrated. I got my second quiz back on Monday in class and earned an 84% (8 out of 10 questions plus bonus questions). That is usually an acceptable grade, but I was still disappointed in it. The wording of the questions was what got me and I was very worried about the midterm because of it. I felt so much better after taking the midterm. There were only one or two questions that even after going back to them, I wasn't 100% confident in. I do know that I nailed the 10 point bonus question. The directions said to explain in detail how we prepared the Apple Tarts for the Founder's Day get together. I went into GREAT detail and even redrew the diagrams she had put on the board that day. Hopefully I will end up with over 100% on the test.

Last week our groups were switched around. Chef B was out sick so she never was placed in a new group. When we came in on Monday, she was at our table and Chef CJ left her there. The guy in our group who decided to create his own plating of the pound cake moved himself to another table. We didn't really mind. I was happy that Chef B was allowed to stay at our table because we work well together, she has more experience so I feel comfortable asking her questions and confident that the answers I receive are correct, and she has the same sort of presentation style that the other guy and I seem to have. There was no bickering in our group this week.

On Monday we made an orange chiffon cake, carrot cake, German chocolate cake, a flourless chocolate cake, and attempted a genoise cake. We then prepared a cream cheese icing, a "fudge" icing *it is NOT chocolate, hence the quotation marks*, and a coconut pecan icing. We decorated and plated the cakes on Tuesday after the midterm.

The orange chiffon cake is similar to the angel food cake in preparation. We used orange juice concentrate instead of prepared orange juice and were extremely satisfied with the results. We liked the more prominent orange flavor of the cake. It turned out perfectly light and fluffy. The recipe said to make an orange glaze from orange juice and powdered sugar but we decided to go our own route and make a strawberry glaze instead. It looked beautiful and tasted phenomenal.


The German chocolate cake turned out with a brownie sort of texture. Everyone kept coming and stealing our scrap pieces because it tasted so great. It stuck in the pan a little, so we ended up slicing the cake up and making small platings of it instead of icing the full cake. We took the strawberry glaze from the orange chiffon cake and made a strawberry cream cheese icing to use in our other items. I took a martini glass and placed some cubed cake in the bottom. I then took my black tie mousse cake experience and made a chocolate cream cheese mousse to pipe in a swirl up the side of the glass. I then whipped up some heavy cream and piped it in between the mousse swirls. In the center, I spooned a little of the strawberry cream cheese icing and then placed a circle of additional cake on top. I then continued the mousse and cream swirls on the top of the cake. I zig zagged the pure strawberry glaze on the top and cut two tiny hearts of the cake to place on top as a garnish. I was pleased with the final presentation.



The flourless chocolate cake was bakes in a sheet pan and was a more dense cake. I cut out hears and made them into petals of a flower and placed a flower on the top as a center. I took the fudge icing and added a little almond extract and milk to it to thin it out as it is a very thick icing. I piped some of the strawberry puree on the petals. I was happy with my end presentation. I am also including a photo of Chef B's presentation because I thought it was beautiful and very Valentine's Day appropriate.




Our carrot cake was one of my favorites. It contained shredded carrots *obviously*, coconut, walnuts, and crushed pineapple. It was absolutely delicious. I was chosen to frost the cake with the cream cheese frosting, and then we toasted some coconut and shredded carrots to garnish the cake. I loved the final outcome.



The final cake that we worked on was the genoise cake. There were multiple issues with this cake. On the first day, only one team had a successful genoise cake. When we talked about it as a class, they told us that they measured out their eggs to 8 oz of whites and 8 oz of yolks. The next day, people were doing that method. The problem arose when I pointed out that the book did not say to do that. It says to warm WHOLE eggs. We then thought maybe it was a quantity issue. The book said to use 16 oz (10 eggs). The problem here, we thought, was that if you weigh out the eggs, 10 eggs does not equal 16 oz most of the time. We were all also having issues with having chunks of flour in our batter, but to incorporate the flour completely, we would have to fold so long that the batter would deflate. We were also baking the cakes in two 9" pans. In the end, we did comparison cakes with Chef CJ supervising. We determined that 10 eggs was the correct amount, the flour should be folded by hand *literally, using your hand and arm to fold in the flour while a second person gradually shakes sifted flour into the batter*, and it should be baked in one 8" pan. Here is a photo of two cakes side by side. The one on the left was in a 9" pan using 9 eggs and was tapped on the table before putting it in the oven *Chef CJ did not endorse that action and was not aware of it until after the cake came out of the oven.* All in all, we had a successful week in pastry.




We received a handout in safety and sanitation that I think will be extremely helpful in studying for the Servsafe test. Our midterm is next week in that class.

I have a midterm in concepts this week. He literally read us the questions on Friday. I am fairly confident that I will ace that test. I need to brush up for the millionth time on stocks and sauces as the two essay questions will be to describe in great detail a specific one of each of those. We don't know which one until the test, though. That is the only part I am mildly concerned about, but I know that with adequate studying, I will do fine.

I can't believe the quarter is halfway over already! I am enjoying this experience more than I even realized I would. Thank you, once again, to everyone who participated in my Christmas surprise. All the tools I received have truly been helping me make the most of this experience. It is so much easier to accomplish tasks in the kitchen with your own items and it gives you an advantage when it comes to putting everything together. It is also a benefit to not have to wait in line to use the items supplied by the school kitchen. I sincerely thank you all again. Every time I pull out an item that one of you gave me, I am thankful and touched all over again.

Grades

I have received a few grades so far in my various classes. I'm satisfied with most of them. Extremely satisfied with some.

In pastry, I received a 95% on my first quiz.

In sanitation and safety, I earned a 100% on a paper I had to write. I earned only a 70% *7 out of 10* on a quiz, however. The class average was a 62%. She did give us some extra questions at the end of class, though, to help boost our grades. We have not received those back yet.

In concepts, we got our first quiz back yesterday. I got 100%- 45 out of 45! That made me extremely happy. It lets me know that what I'm doing is paying off! I feel I did ok on the quiz we took yesterday, as well. Next week is the midterm and he gave us all the questions. I should do fine on that, as well. I also asked him if he could please clarify the answers when he asks questions to the students. He listened and did so in class yesterday. I am so thankful!

I just wanted to give that quick update. I am stepping it up in sanitation and safety. I didn't realize how specific the quizzes were going to be so now I know how I need to study. I am also buckling down to study for the midterm in pastry. My weekend is going to be extremely full.

Angel Food Cake

Being the person that I am, I just couldn't let the angel food cake problem go. So we headed to the store and got the couple of things we needed to make an angel food cake here at the house.

I don't have a whip attachment for my mixer, so Marc helped me whip the egg whites by hand. Our arms were killing us, but we did it! It looked wonderful once everything was all mixed and I poured it in the pan. I had to use a bundt pan instead of the classic tube pan since I didn't have one of those, either. I cooked it on a slightly lower temperature than the recipe called for since the pan I was using was a heavy, dark pan.

Once it was finished baking, I pulled it out and inverted it onto the neck of a bottle like the book said. Once it was cooled, I released it from the pan. I held my breath as I sliced into the cake. And then I breathed a sigh of relief. It was moist and light and fluffy and the crumb was correct. SUCCESS!! I know it doesn't look gorgeous, but that is in part because of the pan I used. I also was going to get strawberries to make a glaze to put on the top, but they were $4.99 for a small container. I'm glad I didn't, because they are $2.99 this week. Not that it helps with the angel food cake, but it's the principle of the thing.



My confidence has been restored. I would attempt- correction- I would BAKE a high ratio cake here at home, as well, but there are several ingredients in it that I would have to go out and purchase and the probably never use again. So I am going to let that one go. I may have time in class next week to complete another batch with my group.

Cakes! Day 2

Today we made an Italian buttercream icing and then we plated our pound cake and decorated the high ratio cakes.

To make the Italian buttercream icing, we whipped egg whites until foamy and added a little granulated sugar to them and continued to whip until they reached stiff peaks. We made a simple syrup by boiling water and sugar to 240 degrees and then SLOWLY added them to the egg whites. I am not kidding when I say slowly. We poured it down the side of the bowl so it wouldn't splatter everywhere very, very slowly. Another team added theirs too quickly and the whites fell flat and they had to start all over. Once that is done, the mixture is whipped until it is room temperature. Then you throw in room temperature butter a little at a time until it is all well incorporated. It spreads very easily and tastes ok, but I wasn't crazy about the texture. To me, it felt like room temperature butter in my mouth and that was kind of gross. To each his own, though.

While all that was going on, we also were plating our pound cake. I had cookie cutters and biscuit cutters and we were able to make a cute little mini-cake out of pound cake. If we had more time, it definitely would have been prettier, but everyone seemed to think it was gorgeous. I guess I am just OCD and like everything to be perfect. The chocolate ended up being a little messy for my taste, but teamwork is what it's all about. We cut out pretty layers, spread with a thin layer of Italian buttercream and topped that with tiny chopped strawberries, drizzled the whole thing with chocolate and sprinkled with powdered sugar. We also had to make miniature samples to take around and ours were gone in seconds.



Then we got to decorate a high ratio cake. Chef gave a demonstration on how to cut the top off of the cake to level it, and then cut it into layers. She then showed the proper way to add the other items to the interior of the cake and then how to properly frost the outside of the cake. I love watching the demonstrations! I am probably standing there grinning like an idiot, but I don't care.

I did well on this part of the day. It helped me regain my confidence. I was REALLY down after yesterday since some of our cakes kind of flopped. It also helped that Chef CJ told us today that we are learning in 10 weeks of this class what someone would learn working full time in a bake shop for a YEAR. And two of those weeks were only one day weeks. That definitely made me feel better.

It was so much easier to decorate this cake having the proper tools. Using an offset spatula made spreading the icing so incredibly easy!! I had used a butterknife at home before because that was all I had. Wow. Having the right tools is an amazing advantage. The pastry scraper also made things much easier because I was able to clean the round underneath while making sure the sides were nice and straight. I also had all my own tips for doing designs. I have to really keep an eye on my stuff, though. My sifter almost disappeared a couple of times. Now I make sure that if I am not using something, it's IN MY TOOLBOX!

Here is my cake frosted with plain icing and then the finished cake.





All in all, it was a successful day in pastry! I can't wait to keep working on cakes next week.

Cakes!

Today we got put in new groups. I am with two guys and we worked pretty well together...even if 2 of the 4 cakes didn't turn out. We felt pretty bad about it until some other teams messed their cakes up as well.

We first attempted to make chocolate angel food cake. We weren't 100% sure how stiff the egg whites were supposed to be and, as was determined when the cake failed to rise properly, we didn't whip them quite long enough. Apparently we let them hit the soft peak stage but not the stiff peak stage. It still tasted good though. That's one thing about messing things up in pastry class. You HAVE to eat them if you mess them up to find out what went wrong.

Another team did a regular angel food cake correctly, though. It was light, airy, and YUMMY!


Then we made a pound cake. It turned out well. I think. We haven't tasted them yet because we are decorating them tomorrow, but they puffed up like they were supposed to and they look like everyone elses.

Then we attempted to make a high ratio cake. *Seriously. Every time I go to type that, I type ration and have to delete the n. Just thought I would share* We eventually determined that we must have added too much sugar and it weighed down the eggs. It, again, tasted ok, but it was very dense and egg-y. The other people who made theirs correctly had a very nice crumb to their cake. A high ratio cake has a very high sugar content and has a high liquid to flour ratio. Hence, "high ratio cake." You also have to use something called emulsified shortening. It is absolutely disgusting. It is a semi liquid shortening that looks like it was MADE to clog your arteries.

We then successfully managed to make a sponge cake. We finished off the day making a simple buttercream frosting. That turned out well, too.

Chef CJ made it clear that we were not going to fail the day because some of our cakes didn't turn out. It was important to learn from the mistakes, and that was what we are graded on. We also got our quizzes back from last week. I got a 95%. I missed one question out of 10 but received 5 points for working so hard at cleaning and being a good team player. One person a week receives 10 additional points for this and two people receive 5 additional points. I'm going to continue working super hard and try to get those extra points every week.

In safety and sanitation we had a quiz. Which I totally forgot about. I know. I was so mad at myself. I was so focused on the paper due, that I forgot about the quiz. The class average on the quiz was a 62%. I got a 70%. 7 out of 10 questions. At the end of class we had a chance to earn 6 extra points. Not sure what I got on that yet. I got a 100% on my paper, though!! That made me feel a little better. We did a group project in class today and I am certain I aced that as well.

Hopefully my items will turn out better in pastry. I'm off to eat dinner and study!