Caramels and Such

 Caramels

Creamy Soft Awesomeness

Passion-Apricot Pate de Fruit

Gummy Tastiness  

Giant Marshmallow Pillows 

(1" square) 

Friends and High School

     Took some old friends around the city on Saturday.  When I say old I mean friends from high school.  We don't really see each other anymore but when we do it doesn't feel any different then when we were in high school.  I think we've changed, we must of just changed at the same rate.  I'm talking mostly about my friend Steve.  He's a DJ on the weekends now, which high school Rose would find very entertaining.

Steve and I went to prom together

Homecoming 2003

Steve, Katy, Nicole, Kyle, Me and Kim

     The reason Steve was in the city was for Nicole's birthday.  Katy went on my tour of the city also.  Nicole and Kyle have been married for some time now.  I'm going to guess about five years.  

    
     It was kind of fun being the one who knows where we're going.  They'd never seen "The Bean" or Buckingham Fountain.  The fountain was empty but they got the idea.  I love the city... so far.  I wonder how hard it will be to find somewhere to live in a few months.  

Steve and Tracy met his first year of college and got hitched last summer.  Tracy is one of the nicest people ever.  Nicole was the photographer at their wedding and Katy was the Maid of Honor.  

     Kim (from the homecoming picture) and I had english together and we had to do a report for The Great Gatsby.  We decided to make a video.  We used Steve to play all of the male roles.  So he would have conversations with himself... one character would be wearing a jacket and then the camera would switch to the other character.  Just a jacket-less Steve.  It was the funniest video ever.  At least we thought it was; our class seemed to have no sense of humor.

Me, Kim, Steve and Mary a couple of years ago

     High School feels like so long ago, coming up on 7 years.  At the same time I think our group of friends has done a pretty good job on keeping tabs on each other.  (Hopefully Steve doesn't mind I stole some pictures from facebook and lots of them)
     Another funny fact, Brett's brother Drew was in the same circle of friends that I was in high school.  We weren't friends really but I do see him in my old pictures.  So we were both at the bar for Nicole's birthday.  Weird.  
    
     Started making sugar candies in class today.  Tomorrow I'll be bringing home caramels, pate de fruit (gummy candies) and marshmallows.  Yum.

Cake Exams

     Exams were a little crazy.  Of course I want to get a good grade but I know in the big scheme of things the grade doesn't really matter; I am learning a ton.  Day 2 was a little discouraging but I made up for it today and flew through things.  That being said I had a lot to do so I worked down to the wire and I wasn't alone.
     Day 1 I got pretty much everything I wanted to do done.  Day 2 I somehow screwed up my meringue... twice.  And it was the easy recipe, I have no idea what I was doing.  So I stopped trying and left it for day 3.  This just caused things to get a wee bit backed up.  I knew Day 3 was going to be a doozie and I was not disappointed.
     I'm not going to lie, I enjoy the feeling of working against the clock.  It makes me feel powerful... as long as I end up beating it.  My awesome kicks in and I suddenly have the ability to crank out that wedding cake in 5 minutes no problem.  I'm not joking either; in the last 15 minutes of class I finished making gumpaste flowers (rolling and cutting out rose pedals and leaves, slapping them together and taping it all up), did a final coat of buttercream on my "wedding cake" and then pipped on the same cake.  I pipped a pearl border and did swiss dots around the side.  My boarder looked a bit irregular, you know because I wanted them to look like natural pearls.
     In total we made one Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Cake, one Buttercream Wedding Cake, one Lemon Curd Tart and a Posy.  The posy was made up of 2 roses, 2 carnations and 3 leaves.

The wedding cake for the exam was like the top tier 

with just one row of swiss dots.