I have learned a great deal in the past few weeks and below is my first sculpted display cake. It is a baby bag with fondant shoes, keys, pacifier and a bottle. 

We have also worked on a cake for Miley Cyrus:

There are many skills needed to be a cake decorator and I am blessed to be working in such a place where I can learn so much.

Specialty Cakes

Mini Cakes:
Chocolate cake filled with buttercream and covered in fondant.
Handmade marzipan bears on top.













Wedding Cake:
Vanilla Cake filled with French buttercream and raspberry jam.
Iced and decorated in Swiss buttercream.

Fish Sculpture

For my final exam in my Sugars class we had to create a fish sculpture.It was about 3 feet tall with only sugar supporting it.  The biggest requirement was that you had to use about 10 different techniques of sugar work. So for example we had to pour sugar into molds or pipe it in a bag, we also poured it into granulated sugar and over ice cubes. These different techniques created different looks and really helped make this piece look like the ocean. This is one of the coolest and scariest thing I've had to do in labs but it was definitely worth it.

Sugar Sculptures

   Along with working with sugar, we have also been working with pastillage. This is a product that has a consistency like play dough or fondant. You can roll it out and cut out shapes, then let them dry and put them together to create a sculpture. We did this and then added pulled sugar elements. We could either do a sugar rose or a sugar bow; I did the roses. To make the roses, you start with the same sequence for pulled sugar. Once it is ready to work with, you pull each petal individually and shape the way you want. Then you put them all together to create your rose. We also made some leaves and flares to add to the piece. I really liked this sculpture and we had a lot of creative freedom. This was my final sculpture:

And here is a closeup to one of my roses:

Sugar Artistry

    Working with sugar can be dangerous and complicated but so far it has been one of my favorite classes. One of the very first things we learned how to do was pulled sugar. To do this you cook sugar, water, glucose, an acid together until it reached between 305-320 degrees. When it gets up to that temperature, you pour it on to a silicon mat and you can add color. Now you can start bringing in the edges and eventually folding and pulling the sugar. Be careful because it is hot!! Once the color is incorporated you can now start pulling and making different shapes. The first thing we made was candy canes. To do this you just take a rope of red and a rope of white and twist them together, then shape into a cane shape. We also added mint extract to the sugar while it was cooking to give it flavor. These came out really cool!