Wilton Cake Course 1

I am planning on taking all the Wilton cake courses in order to learn more about cake decorating.  I am currently taking the first course.  I just wanted to share the cake that I made.  Not my best work, but definitely a fun cake! The side got a little messed up on my way home, but they are not too bad.

 

Hope you all are had a great September and are ready for some tasty fall recipes in October!

Traditional Chicken Caesar Salad

Gary and I love chicken caesar salad!  For the last couple years we would get the caesar salad from the dining hall.  This year Gary didn’t get a meal plan, and he misses out on chicken caesar salad day at the dining hall.  So to make-up for him missing out, I made our own version!

Ingredients:

1 Package of Romain Lettuce

1 Pound Boneless Skin-less Chicken Breast

A Bottle of Caesar Vinaigrette

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Lemon Pepper Seasoning

Shredded Parmesan Cheese

Directions:

1. Chop chicken into bite-sized cubes. In a skillet pour about 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 2 teaspoons lemon pepper seasoning, and add the chicken cubes.  Cook on medium heat until chicken is no longer pink on the inside.

2. In a large bowl combine the lettuce, cooked chicken, and 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese.

3. Serve salad with some of the caesar vinaigrette and enjoy!

 

 

Mini Cakes

I bought Wilton‘s mini cake pan set and finally got around to making some cakes with them. I also recently bought some stencils at Michael’s for $1 a piece.   So I wanted to share with you all the final result of my purchases.

On to the cakes!  I ended up making three cakes total. I would have ended up with four if I had remembered to grease the pans on the second batch.  😀  I originally thought I was only going to get two cakes, but the pans are smaller than I thought.  I did chocolate cakes with chocolate mousse as the filling.  For the frosting I used Wilton’s basic butter cream frosting, used raspberry extract instead of vanilla.

Chocolate Mousse:

1 Package Chocolate Pudding Mix

1 Package Cool Whip

Directions:

1. Make pudding according to package directions.

2. Add in cool whip until you reach the mousse consistency that you want.

• I only used 1/2 of the cool whip for the mousse that filled the cake.

 

For this cake I wanted to try the rose cake method that I originally saw on I am Baker‘s blog.

 

For this cake I make a gauche for the top.  Then I used a heart stencil.  It did not turn out quite like I was anticipating. This could be due to the powdered sugar not being sifted before I tried to use it on the stencil.  To make the gauche that I used on these cakes, I melted chocolate and added some milk.  While it turned out tasty, I would not use that recipe again because it is not the best gauche I have ever used.

 

This cake’s stencil turned out worse than the other one, again due to not sifting the powered sugar first and the gauche still being warm enough to start dissolving the powdered sugar.

I still really enjoyed making these cakes and using the stencils!  I cannot wait to make more cakes with these pans and stencils!

 

 

Pizza Roll Bites

Sorry for not posting in a while. I have been busy getting ready for school.  I just finished my first week as senior in college.  It is hard to believe that in three semesters I will have completed my bachelors degree in physical education.  To help with the anxiety of the first week I made these whimsical pizza roll bites.  I found the recipe on Our Best Bites blog.

Ingredients:

1 Package Pepperoni

8 Ounces Mozzarella Cheese

1 Jar of Marinara Sauce

1 Package Refrigerated Pizza Dough

•  I used a garlic and herb dough.

Italian Seasoning

Olive Oil

9 Inch Cake Pan

Directions:

1. Pre-heat your oven to the temperature listed on the pizza dough package.

2. Roll and stretch out the pizza dough.  You want to be able to cut out about 24 squares of dough.

3. Once you have cut your squares, I suggest using a pizza cutter to cut the dough, stretch it out a little more.  Add your toppings, mozzarella and pepperoni.

4. Fold corners to the center and pinch so that none of the tasty goodness inside can seep out during cooking. Put the pinched side down in the cake pan.  Line all pizza roll bites in the pan like your would cinnamon rolls.

5. Once all the bites are in the pan, drizzle some olive oil over all the bites.  You don’t want to soak them, so only pour enough olive oil to lightly coat each bite. Then put a little Italian seasoning on top of each bite along with a few sprinkles of mozzarella cheese.

6. Cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until bites start turning golden brown on top.

7. After you take the pizza roll bites out of the oven and are waiting for them to cool, heat up your marinara sauce.

8. Dip pizza roll bites into the marinara sauce and Enjoy!

I am taking a class this semester about reading and literacy in the classroom.  We have been talking about how students and people in general read a variety of texts, but usually have one that they are most comfortable reading.  I know that I really enjoy reading sci-fi, fantasy, and/or romance books.  I have currently been reading Sherrilyn Kenyon‘s Dark-Hunter series.

There are so many different types of texts to read such as: cookbooks, musical lyrics, play wrights, user manuals, blogs, menus, poetry, and others.  Which text(s) are you most comfortable reading?