Consumer class & flowers

So today I helped Chef Hammer with her consumer class for Pies, Tarts, and Quiches.  It was fun because Sally, who is my family up in Vancouver, came down to take the class.  It was a lot of fun, they got to make an apple pie, a lemon curd tart, a ganache tart, a pastry cream and fresh fruit tart, and a quiche.  So much yummy food!  Mainly I got to go around and help as needed and then help with the clean up as well.  There were about 14 people there and they mainly worked in teams of 2, and it looked like everyone had a good time!  Two guys were there who are thinking of taking the baking course soon too.  I had talk to one of them when he came for a tour of the school last week, and they're coming to eat the restaurant for tomorrow night, so it looks like they're pretty interested and seemed to enjoy themselves in the class.  Sally said she had a good time, which is great, since I was kind of wandering all over the place helping out and tried to stop by to see how she was doing when I could.  Overall it was a great class and I had a lot of fun helping with it.  I'll help in Hammer's next class on Artisan Breads in two weeks too, so that will be fun!

I worked on my cake a little more today after the class got out.  I forgot to take pictures though, so I will tomorrow take lots of them when I stack the cake up.  I mainly just fixed a few pieces of drop lace that broke when I had set it down to dry yesterday - they're suuuuper duper delicate!  I fixed those and then glued the flowers on with more royal icing so they would dry enough by tomorrow.  I decided not to do vines/leaves/or branches for my flowers, because the lily-of-the-valley stems were difficult to place on the cake in an eye appealing fashion, so I just placed the flowers on in pairs at the edge.  I also put on the smushed flowers I made the other day too.  I mainly just made a few more flowers just like my other ones, but then smushed parts of them with a measuring cup, so it looks like the cake fell on top of them.  Because, really, if a cake was falling off of a table, the flowers would not all sit perfectly on the top even as it sat on the floor!  :)  So tomorrow, when I flip and layer my cake, the top tier (purple) will have smushed flowers sticking out of the bottom showing at the edge.  

I had also made yesterday a lace "plate" that will hopefully have dried hard by tomorrow (I didn't check it today) and will hopefully peel off the parchment perfectly as well without breaking.  I had planned on more lace work holding it in place on it's own, but the royal icing is so hard to pipe, I just couldn't do such a big plate (about an 11" diameter) with enough to hold it's shape well, so I flooded it with more royal icing instead to make it solid.  I used the same light pink for the lace work for the lace design and my fake couple's initials on the place.  A little brighter pink color to flood some small hearts, and an even brighter hot pink color to flood the entire design.  Cross your fingers for me that it comes out tomorrow!!!