Graduation

Well, I did it. I made it through college. Now, I have all the time in the world.

Graduation went really well. I was so pleased with the way things turned out for my table that I decorated. I accomplished everything I wanted to do for the table and my design worked perfectly for the size of table we were given, 6' x 3'.

So, for graduation, it is required of all the students to do what they call "Portfolio Review". It is where potential employers come and look at things that we can do, want to do, and have learned while we were in school. The school has awards for the best tables. They give one in the Bachelor's program, the baking and pastries, and the culinary program as well as all the other programs in the entire school, but I only really care and know about the culinary awards. It was my goal to get this award, I worked really hard.

Anyway, Friday the 25th was the day. Spencer went and helped me set up and my mom and cousin, Rachel, came a little later. Rachel took pictures for me. She did such a wonderful job, I am so grateful to her for doing that.

Well, here are some pictures of the stuff I did. I decorated 3 dummy cakes, had my physical portfolio there, a framed resume, the laptop showing pictures with music put to the slideshow, and two samples of some desserts that I do, a ginger pumpkin torte and my lime cake.

These are my desserts, the pumpkin ginger torte and the lime cake.


These are gumpaste Mango Calla Lillis that I made. I had a vase of 5 real ones sitting next to it to compare the likeness of them. A LOT of people approached me saying that they thought they were actually real, it made me VERY happy.


My loving and wonderful mother spent all day Thursday stringing these beads for me on wires. Thanks mom!!! Unfortunately you can't really see the beads in the pictures because of the dark background so, I will post another picture of it where you can see the beads later, we haven't gotten around to it yet. And, yes, it is supposed to be lopsided, it is called a Topsy Turvy Cake.

These are two of my good friends that I met during my last year in school. Karen is in the middle and Jennifer is on the end. They are both amazing and talented ladies, and it was an honor to have met them and to call them my friends.

Before we walked for graduation, we were told who won the awards for the three categories in the culinary area. The first time ever there was a tie in the baking and pastries. Two other friends of mine received the awards for the bachelors and the culinary.

I graduated with honors, Magna Cum Laude, and received the "Award of Achievement in Excellence in Baking and Pastries". I was one of the ones that tied! I am very happy and lucky with all the talent that surrounded me.

I am so glad that it is all done and over! I can't wait to spend the holidays with my family instead of doing homework and stressing about the next quarter of school, I am FREE!

Avary's Birthday Party

What a great birthday Avary had. Thanks to Kathleen, the owner of Mulberries Cake Shop where I did my externship, we were able to have a birthday party for Avary free of charge.

A couple days before her birthday, Avary took cupcakes to preschool for all her class mates and teachers. This year it was a butterfly theme.


They really enjoyed them and when I dropped them off at the preschool, a lot of the parents commented on them and how cute they were. They really did turn out quite cute, Avary was really excited about them.

Then Saturday morning I started making her birthday cake. Like I said it was a butterfly theme so her cake was a butterfly. The deal at Mulberries is she has a room that she rents out for birthday parties. She charges per child and the price includes a 6 inch cake for each child to decorate themselves, a balloon, and a cookie. Kathleen insisted on me having Avary's party there free of charge as a way to thank me for everything I did for her. She is really a nice lady and when we got there, the room was decorated to the hilt, which she normally doesn't do.


We had Sabrina, Avary's cousin, CJ, Alicia, a friend, and Gabriela from next door at the party. They seemed to have a lot of fun.



Here are pictures of the final cakes:

This is Gabriela, our next door neighbor. Avary and CJ adore her. The first thing Avary said that morning to me was she was afraid Gabby wasn't coming to her party. We are so glad that she was able to come. She is just the sweetest girl. They are the BEST neighbors.

This is Alicia, the daughter of some friends we met through Rachel and Anthony, Spencer's cousins.

The birthday girl. She went a little crazy with the icing, but not as bad as CJ.


See what I mean??!! It looks like a jungle, but I don't know exactly WHAT she was going for.
And Sabrina. She kept eating the candy and by the end of the night she was pretty hyper!

After decorating cakes, we had dinner. I made Mac and Cheese from scratch since it is Avary's favorite food in the whole world. She would eat that stuff for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if we would let her. It turned out really yummy. Here is a yummy tip. Instead of bread crumbs on the top of the mac and cheese, try crushed goldfish crackers. We didn't have any bread crumbs so we improvised with goldfish crackers and it was YUMMY! After dinner she opened presents.

She was so funny opening the gifts. She would say, "Oh my oh my!" She gets so excited when she opens presents. She got a bunch of stuff. She was really excited about the pony shirt Alicia gave her, the DR. Barbie we gave her, and the ladybug bean bag that her Grandma and Grandpa Schumann gave her. She was excited about everything. She got some new clothes. Funny story, when she woke up that morning my mom wished her a Happy Birthday and Avary looked at her and said, "My clothes are too small." So, she got some new clothes from her Geewah. She was especially excited about the skirts my mom gave her. Avary does love skirts. After gifts we had cake.

It was a strawberry cake with fondant. The filling icing was strawberry buttercream. It was so moist and yummy. I gave a piece to Kathleen, the owner of Mulberries, and she loved it. That made me feel good. Anyway, it was a great day. Avary had a lot of fun. Earlier in the day while my mom and I were shopping, Daddy took them to the park. The weather was perfect and it was a great day.

Now, off the subject a little. I had a wedding cake to do for the son of a man that Spencer works with this week. The wedding was on Friday. Here are the pictures of the wedding cake and the grooms cake:


The wedding cake from top to bottom was, chocolate cherry with chocolate buttercream filling, lemon cake with lemon curd filling, and almond cake with cherry filling. The groom's cake was chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling.

Happy Birthday Little Belle!

We love you Avary and hope you have a great 4th Birthday!!!

Exit Practical

So, everybody in either the Associate program or the Bachelor's program has to take an Exit Practical. There is a practical for the savory kitchen and now they have one for Baking and Pastries. An exit practical is where you have a certain amount of time to accomplish a menu of sorts that you are given. Yesterday and today were the days of my Exit Practical. I am SO glad it is over.

Things went well, sort of. Tuesday didn't go great. I got to the practical and found out that the instructor didn't get my ingredients list, that I handed in 3 weeks ago in his in-box, until yesterday. Who's fault is that??? HIS!! He ended up getting all the stuff I needed anyway, but it threw me off and I had an off time. We had to make a torte, 9 truffles with 3 different finishes, a custard dessert and plate it twice, and 2 dozen rolls with 3 different flavors. I scorched my lemon curd for the torte the first time I made it so I wasted a half hour of time I could have used to do more stuff. Then, the top for my torte turned to rubber because I had never made it before and it wasn't setting so I kept putting gelatin in it. I had already put it on my torte when I realized it was rubber. However, when he tasted my torte today, he said the top or gelee was good. Go figure!! Anyway, today was MUCH better. I got everything done, I was very happy. I was actually jumping up and down in the halls laughing and screaming because I was so happy. Here are the pictures of my stuff that I thought up and prepared:

White Chocolate Lemon Almond Torte: Almond cake with lemon curd, white chocolate Bavarian cream, lemon gelee, and tempered white chocolate band with toasted sliced almonds around the bottom.

Open Faced Creme Brulee Sandwich with berry relish, chocolate sauce and raspberry sauce (we had to have 2 different sauces AND a fruit component. The sandwich part was an almond cake that I had used for my torte).

Chocolate Truffles with crushed toasted almonds, white chocolate drizzle, and cocoa powder.

Last, but not least, hard dinner rolls: Kalamta feta rolls, sundried tomato Parmesan rolls, and lemon artichoke basil rolls (they turned out REALLY yummy).

Well, that's it for that. I don't know how I did. I will find out on Friday so, until then!

Happy 70th Birthday Mom!

This is a tribute to my beautiful mommy. She is 7o years old, acts like 20, and looks only 50. We love you so much Mommy! Happy Birthday.

CJ's First Talk

Last Sunday, CJ gave her very first talk in Primary. She did so good. She read about half of it by herself and hardly needed any help. We are so proud of her. Here it is:

"My talk is about how I strengthen my family by listening to the prophet. President Hinckley said that when we pray together as a family it will help our homes be happier places, and we will love our parents, brothers, and sisters more. When my family prays together it helps us not to fight. I am nicer to my Mom and Dad, my Grandma, and my sister. Praying together makes us happier.

President Hinckley also said that we should always work to take care of the Spirit of love and respect for each other. If we look for the good in each other and not the bad then there will be more happiness in our homes. When my sister and I fight we always say we're sorry and then we forgive each other, then we are happy again. We should always forgive others. When we do, it makes us happy because we are doing what Jesus and Heavenly Father want us to do.

Choosing the Right and listening to the prophet make us and our families happier and stronger."

After she said "Amen", she leaned in closer to the microphone and said:

"Thank You!!"

It was really cute.

Snowboarding Cake

Happy 9/9 of 09 everybody! So, I've been doing my externship at a cake shop here in Denver called Mulberries Cake Shop. It's been alright. I would like it better if I were actually decorating cakes, but right now I can't be picky. Anyway, we don't do carved cakes, but I do. A guy called me wanting a mountain cake with a fondant snowboarder. Sure! Why not!? Right? Well, here is a picture of the finished product. Turned out great if you don't mind me saying:

It was a strawberry cake that turned out really yummy, I put fresh strawberry puree in the batter, yummy! Then he wanted it iced in cream cheese icing. It turned out really yummy. Spencer did the "little man" and I did the snowboard.

Spencer was so funny. I got home from Mulberries and saw that he had put facial features on it. I was just going to draw dots for the eyes and mouth. I am so glad I married an artistic man!

Well, as of tonight I have 15 days left to graduation!!! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!!! Have lots more stuff to do though, but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, so that is good.