Tonya & Brian's Wedding Cake

Each layer of cake is coated with white fondant(sugar dough)for asthetic purposes but underneath is a yummy White Chocolate, Cream Cheese / Whipped Cream frosting with a white almond flavored layered cake filled with raspberry white chocolate frosting and an additional thin layer of raspberry jam on top of the filling.

Tonya's Wedding Cake

Here is a side view of her beautiful cake

Haunted House Topper

Here is a close up of the Haunted house that was on top of the devils cake.

Haunted Halloween Devils food cake

This was my Halloween Project. I had Adam help me with the haunted house, he did all the roof tiles out of sunflower seeds. This was a Martha Stewart creation, but we had to make everything from scratch of course.
Chocolate devils food cake with a chocolate buttercream.

Practicing making cakes

This is practice for Tonya's Wedding cake. This particular one was a marble cake with chocolate ganache in the middle topped with a coffee buttercream frosting and covered in fondant for decor.

Lemon Chicken

This was a double fry technique where you fry the coated chicken in a wok with oil first and then fry it again in a second wok with the yummy lemon sauce!

Pork Low Mein

This low mein used a tasty roasted pork tenderloin in it as well as noodles, carrots, soy and spices.

Pearl Balls

This interesting creation was ground pork also with ginger, garlic, soy and rolled in semi-soft rice and then steamed. They were actually a lot tastier than I anticipated.

Wonton Soup

My first Pacific Rim class assignment! We made the wontons fresh and from scratch with a ground pork with spices and the soup also had fresh spinach and roasted pork tenderloin. Yummy! This was definitely a favorite for me!

Amanda & Sherie's Birthday Cake

This was a 3 layered chocolate cake (texture of a devil dog) with chocolate buttercream frosting that was really soft. The cakes were split and filled with buttercream as well.

The Ultimate Crab Cake

Jumbo lump crab with fresh cilantro, lime juice, breadcrumbs pan seared and topped with a Garlic Aioli made with celery root & seed with a hint of citrus.

Filet mignon with a Mertlot demi glace

This filet is seared with olive oil and then baked in the oven and topped with a Merlot veal demi glace. Can you say out of this world?

White pizza

This is a wheat pizza dough topped with an aglio olio (olive oil & garlic) and fresh tomatoes and a bit of parmesan topped with a fresh basil garnish.

Final Wedding Cake

Here is my second wedding cake, this cake has a buttercream frosting and then it has a top layer of a rolled fondant. The Pink ribbon trim I made of fondant as well and placed sugar pearls on the fondant for some accent / texture.

Top of the Wedding Cake

Here is the top of the wedding cake I made for my advanced pastry arts final. I used fresh misc. boquet of flowers.

Napolean

This is a quick Napolean we made in class. It has three layers of puff dough and in between the layers is raspberry jam and whipped cream. That is very Yummie to my Tummy!

Pastillage Heart Shaped Box

This is a heart shaped box I made using Pastillage (sugar dough) and it looks like ceramic when it dries. I airbrushed the red color onto it.

Sugar Bowl

Here is a bowl that is made of colored sugar. I used three different colors and added them into hot sugar and cooked until they reached approximately 330 Degrees.

Strawberry Banana Cream Tart

This is a tart shell lined with melted chocolate then filled with a banana cream pudding topped with fresh strawberries and a raspberry glaze!

Danish Dough

This is a danish dough that we filled with an apple pie type filling.

Putting my sugar showpiece together

Here is a snapshot of my un-finished sugar showpiece.

Finished Sugar Showpiece

This was made as our first sugar showpiece for my Advanced Pastry Arts Class. It is a sea theme. Everything here is made of sugar and held together with only sugar.

Schnecken Kugen - German Pastry

This German pastry was one of my favorites! Boy do they know how to bake! It is a sheet of puff dough on the bottom that gets cooked first and then you place a thin layer of almond paste (frangipan). You top that with a danish roll that was filled with raisins and cinnamon and shmear. Then bake the whole thing off and finish it off with a nice glaze!

Cake Decorating night

This is a cake from my commercial baking class that I made. It is a white cake cut into 3 layers with raspberry jam in the middle and sealed with a Whip Cream frosting. The roses, lettering and top of the cake is all whipped cream and the ribbon border on the bottom is buttercream.

Scones and Muffins

These are chocolate chip scones and some traditional muffins.

Chocolate Accent Pieces

These differnt shapes and patterns can be used as an accent piece to a nice dessert.

Cool Chocolate Covered Strawberry

This was one of my favorite covered strawberries. I like the slanted look with the different types of chocolate and it has a bit of gold dust on it for some contrast.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

We decorated strawberries in class and here are my white and dark chocolate covered strawberries.

Chocolate Box

This is a box that is made of chocolate. You can take the lid off and put a nice edible surprise inside.

Chocolate Truffles

Here we made truffles coating them with either nutts or a spiced cocoa powder that contained chili in it!

Blueberry Tart

Just a quick little tart I made in class.

Rolling out the Struddle dough

The Struddle dough is delicate and needs to be worked very gently with a tablecloth underneath it. When it is rolled out to the proper texture you can actually see through the dough!

Putting together the Apple Struddle

Filling the struddle.

Finished Apple Struddle

This apple strudel is filled with an apple pie filling with raisins.

Wedding Cake

My first try at a "Wedding Cake". The roses and the getting the buttercream frosting on as seemless as possible was the hardest part.

Wedding Cake # 1

This is my first tiered "wedding cake" that we made in class. The frosting and the piping is buttercream. The roses I handmade out of Marzipan.

Bun Dough

This is similar to a hot cross bun recipe minus the citrus and it has craisins in it.

French Epi

This is a traditional French bread dough which is rolled out and shaped like a baguette and then cut and shaped before proofing.

Foccaccia - Sun Dried Tomatoe & Basil

This flatbread can incorporate your favorite flavors. This particular one my group chose to use Sun Dried Tomatoes, minced garlic, fresh chopped basil and topped with Parmesan Cheese.

Fresh Rolls

These rolls are made from a traditional white bread lean dough. The variations are scored, knots & braided rolls.

Apple Pear Crumble

This tasty version of apple crumble incorporates Bosc Pears and whatever type of apple you would like to use as well as dried cranberries that plump up really nice. There is a nice hint of citrus from fresh orange and lemon juice and zest! The topping is oh so crisp and brown! Thanks for sharing this recipe Ina (Barefoot Contessa).

Calamari

This is about 1lb of calamari that I cut up into tubes and dusted with a flour, salt and pepper mix. I used Olive Oil and fried them up and served them with lemon wedges and cocktail sauce.
The Rhode Island version would be served with a pepperoncini garlic sauce which coats the calamari after the frying process.

Pork Loin before it's roasted

The pork has been stuffed with its spices and browned all over before it is placed in the oven to be roasted to finish the cooking process.

Finished Pork Loin

I got this recipe from an Italian magazine I randomly picked up at the bookstore.
It uses Dijon Mustard and fennel seeds as a rub. You butterfly the pork and place pancetta, garlic, rosemary and sage in the middle. Then you tie it back up and puncture the pork to add the garlic and spices and top it off with pancetta and drizzle olive oil. You roast the apples along side of the pork with the fresh rosemary and sage and then add a bit of Apple cider.

Did someone say Pizza?

This is pizza is made with a nice homemade red sauce flavored with pepperoni and then topped with Quattro Formaggio cheeses, sautéed mushrooms, more pepperoni and spots of ricotta cheese. And I used one of my favorite kitchen tools, my pizza stone from Pampered Chef.

Tina G's Macaroni Salad

This is my good friend Tina's mom's recipe (Alice Griffin) from Back East. She was kind enough to share the recipe with me as long as I called it Macaroni Salad! It is very hearty; It contains a lil' tuna, green olives, boiled egg, mayo and very lil onion and diced celery.