2nd quarter almost done

Well the 2nd quarter of my college career is drawing closer to an end. I have exactly 10 days of class left- not that im counting- and then I will be heading to montana to work for Lance this summer doing whatever.

Since May I believe I have done quite a bit. The last post that talked about school I was just getting ready to switch to Cake station from Pies/ Tarts and just this week I switched off of Cake station and am now on Mousses/Creams, laminated doughs, and pate a choux (the stuff eclairs and cream puffs are made out of).

Cake station was ok, I did learn a few different flavors and kinds of cakes but I was really hoping to learn some more decorating skills to broaden what I already know but sadly they didnt really teach me anything I havent done already as far as that goes. I got rather bored and frustrated on that station because I felt like it was a bit of a waste of time and the teacher wasnt much help when I asked if I could try some more advanced cakes and such. Alas my wondrous skills were not to be overly tested this quarter :p

Plain white cake with buttercream

 Chocolate Cream cake

 White cake with lemon swirl

 White cake with coconut pudding in the middle with buttercream

 Drizzle cake- choc cake with butter cream

This last week I started on the Mousses and Cream station and got to make a Charlotte Bavarian- see pic below- yes I made it all. It was a lot of fun to do. This charlotte is a raspberry roulade (jelly roll) with an orange bavarian cream in the middle, coated with a glace and the border is whipped cream

This next picture is a white chocolate mousse pyramid with raspberry filling, poured with chocolate and the lines are white chocolate. Ganache rosette on top with some chocolate filigree

Showing the inside- this one has a bit much of the raspberry filling according to the teacher but it tasted amazing let me tell you!

So thats the up to date on that. I will try to add photos as I remember to take them and as we make cool stuff :)

Moving in to the new house

Hmm, there seems to be a trend with my not posting very often. Quite a bit has happened in the last month. Rick and Julia got the house and we spent most of the month of May fixing it up to make it liveable.
We tore out all the carpets and found beautiful hardwood floors underneath that look like they've never been walked on so one of the tasks was to refinish those so they were nice and shiney again.

The house is a older model and a little funky in its construction due to an add on or two. My room is upstairs and to the left- a step above the rest of the house. (literally) I have the largest room in the house kinda be default because the stairs going up are rather steep and they didnt want to have to traverse them with pregnant belly and later on with baby. I took up the carpet in my room- it wasnt actually tacked down it was just a really old scrap that you could see through. I sadly do not have nice hardwood floors underneath. I just have the ever so lovely underlayment, so I did what any self respecting person would do... I left it with the underlayment showing its glory to the world. Well I did go and get a couple pieces of carpet to go around my bed so my feets dont get cold in the morning but the rest is in its natural state.
  The walls of my room were a rather lovely cream painted wallpaper, on 2 walls that is. The other 2 walls were the most gorgeous wood paneling the likes you may never see again- so I promptly slapped some mud on it and primed the heck out of it so I could paint it blue. (as if any other color would do).
There isnt a ton of wall space since there is a built in desk between two built in closets on one wall, one wall has the window in the middle, one wall has some built in book shelves (insert happy dance) and the last wall has the main door and my secret passageway door (dont tell anyone about it, its a secret). So in order to have enough space for my sudden plethora of photograpic wonders that I seem to have aquired I decided to do the logical thing. I suppose since its the most logical thing I dont need to waste any space telling where I put them.

The main part of the house is looking really nice. Rick went in and scraped the bubble ceiling off (the stuff with asbestos in it) then textured the living room, kitchen, hallway, and master bedroom. A coat of primer and paint later and it looks like a whole new place. The kitchen now has two walls that are a nice cheerful yellow and the cupboards were painted a bright white. Its amazing how much a new coat of paint brightens up the place.

We fully moved in a week ago today and are getting things unpacked at a fairly good pace. My room is fully put away- yes you may be shocked- and I leave for montana in just 2 weeks time for the whole summer. Im pretty excited about that.

I am going to end this post here. I will post another one on the goings on at school and such to avoid making this one even more lengthy than it already is