I have recently realized how much I miss writing – weird, huh? Something about writing my thoughts out, it gives me the same sense of peace that baking banana chocolate chip muffins do. *chef’s kiss* So here I am once again attempting to combine two of my favorite things – writing and baking if you…

Today was our very last day in Food Styling! Everything is coming to an end here, and it really is a little sad! But this isn’t a sappy, feelings post, so I’ll get to the good stuff. We reviewed the photos that Chris Jenkins (MUW’s uber talented photographer) took of our food styling displays. He…

My Down the Rabbit Hole cake is FINALLY completed! I think it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself! I am quite proud of my cake – having designed and created it by myself from start to finish. I’ll explain the steps that I took since the last class period to achieve…

In class this day, I continued working on my Alice in Wonderland inspired three tier wedding cake for my Advanced Baking final! Holly and I made a large batch of buttercream using my buttercream recipe! Vanilla Buttercream: Ingredients: 2 cups butter, room temperature 2 cups vegetable shortening 2 tsp vanilla, or more TT 4 lbs sifted…

PHOTO SHOOT DAY! Today, was photo shoot day for half of my food styling class – we unlucky few who have names at the beginning of the alphabet. So, I arrived as early as I could – at 7:30 am – to stage my photo because I was the very first student up for being…

Off to Wonderland once again! We started on our wedding cakes this past Friday, and of course, mine is Alice in Wonderland themed to match my six cupcakes! Here’s a reminder of what my cupcakes look like: And here is the sketch of what my wedding cake will look like: I worked only on baking…

Chris Jenkins, our amazing campus photographer/videographer here at MUW, came to class for a visit. He will be doing our food photo shoots (worth 50% of our final grade YIKES) beginning next week! Chris talked with us about possible photo angles (overhead, eyelevel, 45 degree, etc), lighting options (natural, diffused, staged lighting, flash, etc), lens…

This past Friday was gumpaste flower day! I have very limited experience with gum paste (only having used it a time or two for decorations that needed to be very thin and stiff for cakes)! When we arrived in class we were given a few supplies: cheesecloth square twine cornstarch gumpaste We were instructed to…

  Martha Foose came to class Monday! I arrived a little after 7:30 to help gather up some of her ingredients for her demo. She began preparing two Pineapple Upside Down Cakes as our fellow students began arriving (one with fresh pineapple and one with canned pineapple). For the pineapple upside down cake, she melted some butter,…

Homecoming, Homecoming, Homecoming… In case you didn’t know, this past weekend was Homecoming at MUW (my last homecoming as a student, ah!) and all I have done all weekend is help out with homecoming events. I LOVE meeting and alums and hearing about all of their stories and memories from when they were here at…

Down the rabbit hole we go… Monday in Food Styling we were given time to work on our Homecoming Display. We had to come up with our own personal displays as a large part of our final grade. Chef MH had suggested that I repurpose and improve upon those Alice in Wonderland cupcakes that I made a…

Friday in Advanced Baking, Chef Jared Danks came to class! He is the Program Director of Culinard – The Culinary Institute of Virginia College and an amazing sugar artist! The class was instructed to arrive at 8:00 am so we could get our stations ready before Chef Jared arrived and began our lesson for the…