Today is Avery's first birthday, and I'm honored to have been tapped to make her first cake. What you're looking at is a 6" on top of an 8", enough to feed 25-30.
The interior is a new chocolate cake recipe that I'm loving called Black Onyx. It's a very very dark brown, and was layered with pale pink vanilla-bean buttercream. The name comes from the type of cocoa used in the batter, and it has a reputation for being less moist than other cocoas. It's true -- it's drying -- so to counter that I incorporated extra butter and whizzed a generous amount of Guittard milk chocolate chips then folded them in after all the batter was mixed.
The vanilla bean buttercream is an Italian buttercream, based in cooked sugar added to whipped egg whites. It makes for a very shiny, thick, smooth buttercream -- not like those grittier, tooth-achingly sweet powdered sugar-based buttercreams.
To the Prince's, it was great working with you and a big hug to the birthday girl!
Hi, My name is Tracy and I too am a student at the Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena. I am 4 months into the program. I was wondering if before you got into the schools program were you already employed as a pastry chef/baker/ Cake decorator?
ReplyDeleteBeen having trouble getting employed into the Baking industry since I am considered a new comer. You can e-mail me back at traxee@gmail.com
Thanks a bunch!