In Defense of the Grocery Store Decorator... Sort of.

pumpkin@pumpkinandspice.net — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

When I have some time to kill, I love to visit the blog Cake Wrecks. Have you been? It's side-splitting. If you haven't been, go right now and poke around a bit. Don't worry, it'll open in a new window. I'll wait here... Back? Funny, right? Anyway, the premise of the blog is essentially that people send in photos of professional cakes gone horribly and hilariously wrong.

It's obvious from most (like, 98%) of the pictures that the cakes came fr [...]

Orange You Glad?

pumpkin@pumpkinandspice.net — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 +0100

I hope that you all had a great Mother's Day weekend- I hope you all treated your moms well, showered them with love and gifts and let them know how fab they are. I gave my mom a call, but since she's coming to visit this coming weekend (Yay! Mother's Day Orange Cake I'm a big fan of the blog Cake Wrecks. The blog focuses on hilariously hideous professional cakes gone wrong. Ugly decorations, weird airbrushing, strange spelling mistakes... it's all there, and it's all so, so funny. It is everything I (as a professional baker) aspire not to be!

Every Sunday, though, Jen (the bloggeress), runs a feature called "Sweet

The New Lodge

pumpkin@pumpkinandspice.net — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

I'm at the new lodge, now- it's much smaller than the old one. The old lodge was the "base" lodge- where skiers park for the day, where you pick up your ski rentals for the day, and where you buy lift tickets, so it's quite a large lodge. The new one is the highest one up the mountain, and can oAs promised, I made sure I had fresh batteries in my camera at work! I was going to try to backtrack and get pictures of the stuff I did yesterday, but a lot of it had been wrapped/frozen. So, no pictures of the apple brown sugar coffee cake, or the meringue mushrooms. However, a fThere comes a time in every foodie's life when they summon their courage and go to their local patissier and ask the age old question... "Where do cakes come from?"

Well, make yourself comfy, 'cause Pumpkin's gonna explain the ol' birds and the bees of carrot cake to you. First, when a baker loves a carrot very much, she can't bear to see it boiled for a side dish, or cut into sticks or chopped for a salad. She wants to help it be more...

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Trusted with the Cakes

pumpkin@pumpkinandspice.net — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Yesterday was a busy day at work- not so much because the slopes were packed (there hasn't been much snow yet, and all the resorts in town are faux-snowin' it) but because there was lots to do in the bakery. We have several banquets/private parties coming up, so there were desserts and treats to be made.

I made a giant batch of hot fudge sauce (about a gallon), rolled out tart crusts and helped Chef deliver desserts to a local hotel, but my two mo [...]

A Day Late and a... Nevermind.

pumpkin@pumpkinandspice.net — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Hoo-ray! I got Flickr to upload my photos. It was slooooooow, but it worked!
This is yesterday's (Friday) post- I didn't change any of the wording to reflect that. I'll combine today (Saturday) and tomorrow (Sunday) together, since I'm going to be doing the same thing at work.

This weekend is opening weekend at the resort, so it's been a busy past few days at work. Since most of the staff just arrived within the last week, [...]

A Weekend of Banquets

pumpkin@pumpkinandspice.net — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0100

This weekend, there were two banquets at work. That meant it was a busy, busy, busy weekend for me!

Yesterday, I was in early, which meant I was in charge of all of the breads for Saturday's banquet. The bread baskets were going to feature the resort's signature sourdough bread and one other kind. Since the second bread hadn't been specified in the banquet order, I got to choose the type of bread I got to make for the second one! I know it sou [...]

Fabulous Pumpkin Coffee Cake

pumpkin@pumpkinandspice.net — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Right now, I'm in my very last class in pastry school. I've been in classroom classes for the past few blocks, and they really do require a differnt level of work. Not that they're hard, but there's homework, tests, and quizzes to finish and study for. Currently, I'm in a cost control (read: math) class and a wines class. I love the wine class- I'm very interested in wines, and Kyle and I are members of a wine club, so this class is extremely engaging and info [...]

Stay-cation, Part 1- Hooray for Hollywood!

pumpkin@pumpkinandspice.net — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Friday morning, Kyle went into work for a couple hours to get a few last things done before our weekend, which was okay, because I had a salon appointment. I barely beat Kyle home, and then ran around the house like a crazy woman trying to pack. (Yeah, I should probably have packed earlier. I'm a busy Pumpkin... it's hard to find enough time in the day!)

Finally, I was ready to go, so we got in the car, and Kyle asked if I had my Disney annual pass. [...]

Iron Cupcake: Chili

pumpkin@pumpkinandspice.net — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Well, it's time for me to unveil my submission for Iron Cupcake: Earth. This month is the inaugural challenge, and the "secret" ingredient really put my creative cogs into motion. Chili peppers were the ingredient, and with so many types of chillies, and so many [...]

Showing Off a Little

pumpkin@pumpkinandspice.net — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

I just finished my very last kitchen class of pastry school! I'm obviously excited, as it means I'm almost done with school, but it's a little bittersweet because the kitchen classes are the best part of school. All I have left are some classroom classes- cost control, computers, a wine class amongst others. I do have a three week break from classes in September, as some of my credits from my BFA transferred and I don't have to take English.
I thoug [...]

A Wedding Cake for the Bride of Dracula

pumpkin@pumpkinandspice.net — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

For the past three weeks, I've been in an advanced cakes class at culinary school. It's been quite an enjoyable class, except for this week, when I was freaking out about [...]

Pumpkin and Spice tagged 'cake'