Finishing out Week 5

As I finish my fifth week at the SugarPlum Cake Shop we managed to complete all of the orders for the week by the end of Friday and got to spend Saturday taking pictures and working on next week. We had 9 cakes to complete and 3 cupcake orders and one cookie order.

 I'll start with all the cakes, lots of simple wedding cakes.

 I like this one, a Starwars themed grooms cake. I made all the letters for it and we pulled out the air brush I didn't know we had to do stencils.

It's an elegant thing to add flowers to the cake and it seems to be very popular this season to have a buttercream cake with flowers, this is the fifth one we've done in the past three weeks.

 Now here are the comic book cupcakes I helped with all finished and ready to go.

And then finally some cookies and simple cupcakes. I get to help out with all the projects now that I'm the only intern and some of them I get to do the whole thing.

 Like with these super hero themed cupcake toppers for next week. I made all of them with very little instructions and just a picture off Pintrest to go off of. I really enjoy the cupcake toppers and the creativity it allows me, I could spend all day designing and creating cupcake toppers for everything (but don't tell Chef John I love cupcakes).

Starting Week 5

Tuesday began my fifth week at the SugarPlum Cake Shop and in the bakery we're affectionately calling this 'the crazy week'. I spent the first half of Tuesday leveling 91 cakes...yes I counted, and then I spent the second half of the day layering and crumb coating them but I only managed to get to about half of the cakes. I then started the whole process again on Wednesday layering up and crumb coating the rest of the 33 tiers. Then James came to my rescue and we spent the second half of the day finishing up the second coats and making them look smooth and perfect. Tomorrow we'll finally get to cover the cakes and I know it will be another long one so I'll get lots of rest tonight and start tomorrow bright and early.

Not so Lazy Weekend

I spent 3 hours out on the town today. I walked up to the Gare de L'Est train station to get tickets for a trip to Berlin. I waited in an hour and a half line just to find out I could fly to Berlin for half the price (and a quarter of the time) of train tickets and preceded to head back. I dropped by the Epicerie Anglaise (British Market) in hopes of buying some Dr. Pepper and possibly some chocolate covered crickets but they are closed on Mondays it turns out. My trip was not a total loss though as I went by the Monoprix (which was closed yesterday) so I could actually eat. All in all I had a very long and rather useless walk through the city but at least it was a nice day out.

Week 4 Done

As I finish out my fourth week I am asked to evaluate how I feel I'm doing at SugarPlum and whether I feel I'm getting better. Well I do feel I've gotten a lot better and have learn a lot of neat tricks of the trade and I'd just like to thank Jame's for allowing me opportunities to test my skills as with the princess cupcake toppers (which we finished today, see, I did all of that!)

Jame's also thinks I'm doing well, in fact she says of all her interns I'm the one who has improved the most and the fastest. I like to think that everyday I take the things she's teaching me and ingrain them into myself on my never ending quest to be the very best. Here are some of the other cakes we worked on this week.

And this is my personal favorite (since I did all the decoration)
the 'Under the Sea' themed cake. I learned how to do ruffles on the bottom tier and a good scale effect on the top tier as well as getting a lot of practice at molding gumpaste. It also comes with 30 mini cupcakes which I made the toppers for.









We also had to remake the fake cake apparently they needed an extra inch of space between tiers which means we had to remake all but the bottom tier but we had to redo that one too because they stuck their fingers all in it and ruined it...clearly some people have no idea the work that goes into a cake and think they can just do whatever they please because they're a paying customer. Well that's all for this week, which made 6 orders seem like a lot of work, and guess how many we have next week...11. That's right 11 cakes with at least half of them 3 tiers or taller. It's gonna be a crazy week, and I'm very excited to get to do more and help out.

Week 4

I'm now officially half way threw my externship and I've been getting to do more and more stuff. On Tuesday we leveled 48 cakes and stacked them into 16 different tiers for our 6 cake orders. I've probably mentioned this but SugarPlum is an American style cake shop in France so most of our customers are Americans or French looking for something exotic, such as carrot cake which is unheard of in France. This leads to some very unique combinations which we try to talk customers out of the worst ones, like one Jame's said they had with carrot cake and chocolate icing. This week we I iced up a gingerbread cake with cherry icing, which seems a little odd, and just today I made a lemon cake with cherry icing which actually seems pretty tasty. On Wednesday we covered the 9 tiers that made up our 3 cakes with fondant and I got to cover all 6 cake boards (which teaches the techniques for covering cakes).

Then I worked on some decorations for our "Under the Sea" themed cake (which must be for a 'Back to the Future' themed prom lol) I made about 50 shells, fish, seahorses, and starfish (these are actually what's left over from what I made that didn't make it on the cake because there were too many).







I also finished up the last two Disney princess cup cake toppers. This makes up the full 32 toppers and I had such fun making them, I feel like I could spend all day making cup cake toppers.




On Thursday I spent most of the day working on the "Under the Sea" cake which I will post pictures of tomorrow when we take nice pictures on the black background.

Then today I finished up the "Under the Sea" cake and made little decorations for mini cupcakes for the same order.









Then we covered an all fake cake for a French cosmetic companies photo shoot. They are paying 700 euro for this entirely fake cake that we put together in a couple hours and they say they may want to change the colors (which they've been informed that if we have to do the cake again they will be charged again) and they will let us know on Saturday, which is the day it's to be picked up.

Third Week Complete

Saturday completed my third week at SugarPlum and a very busy week it was. We had 9 cake orders and 2 cupcake orders though most of the decorations were done already or simple, like ribbons or fresh flowers.

I'm particularly proud of this cake as I applied all the flowers being careful to make it look random like the flowers just fell there, which is harder then it sounds.










Then I spent the day working on these Disney princess cup cake toppers. The designs of Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, and Ariel came from Pintrest but the rest are Jame's designs

Another Lazy Weekend

Over the weekend I did more laundry and grocery shopping. Things you should know about shopping in Paris (and possibly all of Europe from what I hear) half the shops are closed on Sundays, so don't count on anything being open. While certain butcheries and boulangeries, run by non-christian foreigners, will be open other large grocery stores, like the monoprix, are closed all day. I find it better to just take Sunday to relax but it means making sure you have food before hand. Another thing to to note is that all the prices listed are including tax so you can figure out exactly how much your total will be before going up to pay. This will be nothing new to those of you living in Boulder, but they will charge for bags, it's only 3cents but the cashiers will glare at you like you're killing the environment so it's just better to bring your own. Last thing I'll say, though this isn't really about shopping, machines that accept coins (like the metro stations or laundry machines) don't accept 1 and 2 cent coins which is rather annoying as I'm slowly accumulating a pocket full of change that no where will accept and isn't big enough to do any good.

Third Friday

Yesterday covered most of the cakes (as well as saying our goodbyes) so today we worked on decoration.

I spent the first two hours of attaching about 100 flowers to one cake. The flowers first had to be taken out of the boxes of pastry sugar in which they had been drying and be individually brushed off. This took the first half hour of the day and covered my hands in sugar. Then I individually attached them to the 4 tier, champagne colored, cake. (Better Pictures to come tomorrow when we box the cakes)

 

The World Cup is all anyone here in France can talk about so I spent time today making Brazilian flags, French flags, and soccer balls to decorate our cupcakes in the cafe.

 

These are the vespa and luggage tag I did on Wednesday.

Fond Farewells

Today was Lena's (the other cake intern) last day. She's been here in France for 9 months studying and after 2 weeks of well deserved vacation she is headed back to Singapore with aspirations of starting her own cake shop. The day was filled with a field trip to the Asian market where she picked up things to cook us all a classic Singapore dish which involved a lot of noodles.

At the end of the day she took pictures with everyone (even me) and I took this one of her (right) with our cake decorator, James (center) and the owner of Sugar Plum, Allison (left) with the cake shop in the background. James and Allison were practically in tears seeing Lena go but I'm excited to get back to cakes tomorrow.

Third Wednesday

So since we didn't finish icing the cakes yesterday we spent the morning finishing up the finish coats. We needed yet another batch of swiss buttercream which means we've now gone threw about 36lbs of icing covering our 8 cakes for this week. Though I will admit that a lot of that got made into the different buttercream flavorings and we didn't use all of any of them. After covering all the cakes I mixed the colors of fondant we'd use for the cakes including probably 10kilos  of "champagne" which is quite a lot of sugarpaste and has to be mixed in stages. I have found it easiest to mix a small about of strong color and then add white to it till you have the color and the amount you need. I also mixed about 7kilos of sky blue for an 'UP' cake we're doing this week. We always mix more then we need because it's next to impossible get exactly the same shade again (extra is always better) but this often leaves lot of color left over and we have buckets with color labels to put extra in (tho they are often full already) we use this extra when we need a non-exact color adding white or more color to adjust it. While I was mixing color Lena covered the wooden boards we put the cakes on and wrapped a ribbon around them. Then we started to cover the cakes but we quickly realized that they hadn't spent enough time in the cooler (they usually have over night) and the buttercream was very melt-y. We decided to cover the cakes tomorrow and spent what was left of the day making decorations for the cakes. I made a red scooter and a luggage tag (pictures to come tomorrow).

Begining of my Third Week

This week we have 8 (maybe 9) cake orders ranging from two tiers to four tiers with one of the cakes being a square cake. I personally leveled 35 cakes today and then filled them with 4 different flavors of buttercream fillings, assembling them into 12 cakes. I only managed to finish 5 of the cakes after spending the day crumb coating them but I'll finish them off tomorrow. I find it rather odd to work for a place that sends you home at your scheduled time even when the work isn't done yet but I suppose when you've got have half your staff working for free (there are at least 4 interns working in various sections of the shop for various lengths of time) it's the kind thing to do not to work them to death. It was quite good practice and good experience for the days to come since it's heading into wedding season. It's also an odd thing to work for a place that values perfection and consistency over speed as it's not something I've experienced working for big corporations and I'm hoping my next job has similar values.
On a side note I'd like to point out that most buildings here (and all apartments) lack air conditioning and it has been hot as hell until today when it rained all day which is great for keeping the apartment cool but not so good for covering cakes with sugarpaste (fondant). Unfortunately once it stops raining it'll become hot and humid, not much better (I prefer the rain and hope it stays).

One Quarter Done

I have officially completed two weeks of my eight week externship and I feel I've learned so much about making high quality boutique cakes. This week I spent a lot of my time in the kitchen helping make the cakes for next week but I still got to practice my decorating skills on cup cake toppers and the Game of Thrones cake which I'm particularly proud of.

I made about half the little gears for the top tier and it was much easier then it seems. I just took two different sized round (or other shaped) cutters to get the basic shape. Then you use a round pastry tip (cause they are very small) and cut out or just mark around the outside. To make the more gear shaped ones you do the same but you go around the outside with a square cutter to cut out the gear teeth.

Then I used a diamond cutter to cut out all the scales for this scale mail tier. Last I used an extruder to make long strips of modeling chocolate and then gently braided them. Everything was sprayed with an edible metallic spray paint which was both cool and made things much easier then the alternative of painting them all individually and having it look hand done no matter how hard you try.

These are the other cakes I worked on this week. Mostly I just covered them and James did all the decoration.

Next week we have about 10 cakes ranging from two tiers to five tiers so there will be a lot of work to do and a lot of cakes to build, cover, and decorate. I hope for more time with James, more individual projects, and more pictures!

The fourth, fith, and sixth of June

Sorry for not updating for a couple days. Nothing truly exciting has happened, I spent Wednesday and Thursday making more cup cake toppers.

 These ones are for the comic book themed set and complete the 80 toppers we need to make.

These ones are for a horse themed party and I did them all by myself (for the most part). Also on Thursday I was freaking out cause My card wouldn't would in the metro stations but it worked at the store and the next day it was working just fine but it had me going crazy thinking I would only have 20euro for the rest of my trip.





Then I spent today with just me and the cake decorator, James, making a Game of Thrones inspired cake. I enjoyed getting to work directly with James, she explained the things we were doing and I got to seem knowledgeable because I'm a big Game of Thrones fan (the books not the TV show but still). She would ask questions about things on the picture of the cake we were imitating and I could answer cause I knew about the house crests, name days, and scale mail. YAY! Being a geek paid off.

Also, it's officially summer in Paris, it was like 90 degrees all day long and my apartment is sweltering. There's still no hot water and I thought that might actually be good today...not so much. I don't know where they keep the water tank but the water is still freezing and even on a hot day it was too cold for me to be willing to get in. Oh, and I found a place I can buy Dr.Pepper (don't know if I mentioned it but there's no Dr.Pepper here) I found a little British market within walking distance of my apartment and they sell all sorts of things, mostly British, including 2L Dr.Pepper for 5.39euro. I think I'll drop by this weekend and pick some up and perhaps some hobnobs and nerds.

Second Tuesday

To reiterate, on Tuesdays we level, layer, and ice the cakes for the week. We had no icing to ice the cakes so I started on a big 12lb batch of swiss meringue buttercream and ended up having to make two batches for all the cakes. I only ended up icing one cake, a carrot cake for the cafe's case, but I got to work with a lot of sugar. I spent most of my time making comic book themed cup cake toppers.

On a side note, we Americans are so spoiled with our dryers and dish washers and hot water...the hot water in our apartment is broken and I really needed a shower so I took the coldest shower of my life. Like most people I've had the hot water cut out half way through my shower (and that sucks), but it's an entirely different thing to step into a shower and have the water hitting you be completely freezing from the start and to know that no matter how long you stand there it'll never get any warmer (in fact I think it got colder). Well here's hoping it's fixed by the next time I need a shower.

Lazy Weekend

My first weekend and I spent the whole two days in my pajamas and I loved it. The first day I didn't even leave the apartment and spent the whole day watching episodes of Pokemon and taking cat naps on a sunny Sunday. On the second day I had to get things done like shopping and laundry, not very interesting but it had to be done, so I took pictures around town to show you the more boring aspects of life in Paris.

I started out going shopping at the local Monoprix where I shop for most of my groceries. I would say it's closer to a Target then a King Soopers because it sells clothing, appliances, and more. I got some chips, hotdogs, bread, and apples for lunches and so I could break my 50euro into change for the laundry mat. I had an almost conversation with the lady ringing me out in broken French since she didn't speak much English.

Then I went to the laundry mat because the washer at the apartment is broken (apparently it has been for awhile). All the instructions were in French and it took a little while to figure out how to make them work. There is a box on the wall which was the only thing in the whole place that accepted money and you had to press the number of whatever you wanted to do and all the numbers were in little yellow circles all over the place. I first needed soap from the dispenser right next to the money box and I must have spent 10mins trying to find a change slot on it (there wasn't one it's number 30). After that I figures things out and got my laundry going and went for a walk while I waited.

I went up to my local McDonald's where I got some lunch (you can laugh at my choice if you like but it's one of the few places here where I know what to order). I got a royal bacon (which is just a plain burger with bacon) with fries and a medium coke which is .4L (or 13.5oz) and if I haven't said it before there is no such thing as refills in France. With the fries they give you two packets of sauce, your traditional ketchup and
pommes-frites sauce which tastes a bit like ranch and mayonnaise. It lists the ingredients on the back in like 7 languages, none of them English, so using the extent of my French skills I worked out that it contains: water, something vegetable, vinegar, sugar, and some milk based products. I don't really like it and will stick with ketchup on my frites. I headed back to the laundry mat to switch my laundry over to the drier. Now here in Europe it's very uncommon for homes to have driers and most laundry is dried on fold out racks or on lines. Being American I wanted my laundry dried right now so I used the dryers at the laundry mat, 1euro for 8mins it required 16mins and I personally think 2euro was worth it considering the wash cycle cost 3.80.

I headed back to my apartment 13 Rue Jacques Louvel-Tessier with my now clean, dry laundry.