Christmas Parcels

Sorry about the lapse in posting but I picked up and moved from the lovely Vancouver. Graduated from culinary school and took a trip across the country to make it to my new home in Halifax. So to say the least I've been a busy girl.

I've been dreaming about getting together a batch of solid recipes and preparing some cute packaging ideas along with a couple of business cards to sell some confectioneries at the local farmers market. Though I'm a far cry from materializing it there is always time to day dream.

But in the meantime I had time to squeeze in a huge batch of candies to give to those people I adore during the holidays.

Some adjustments have to be made to some of the recipes. Like the lemon and chocolate caramel didn't quite set the way I would have liked, a little too soft when I enjoy the extra chew. Fudge has never been my forte so it's hard to judge but the sponge toffee blew my mind.

The minty ones were extremely easy to make. The taste was ok if not a little too minty tasty and a little sloppy to look at. Hopefully the second time around with some adjustments made they'll taste even better.

I've always been a fan of chocolate and nuts so the peanut butter cups I thoroughly enjoyed but next time around I might try them with a crunchy butter for more texture.

I think my next challenge is to conquer my fear of marshmallows. I fell upon a pumpkin marshmallow recipe that I've been meaning to get my hands dirty with.

If anyone wants some recipes, just let me know. With all my love have a terrific New Year celebration with dubious amounts of alcohol and friends.

Wedding a Cake

The last week has been a little of a fooling around week. I shouldn't say that, it was a relaxed week before the chaos of final exams and practicals. Our Chef was nice enough to let us all design and create our own wedding cakes.

After all was said and done and we all looked at one of another works and it was nice to see how differently we all took the project. And funny enough each cake reflected each others personality to tee; the color scheme of one girl from Mexico, the daintiness of our mini Martha Stewart, the petite perfection of another, the arty-ness of Miss Marianne and the strong personality of the voice of our class.

It was the first time I really appreciated to the relationship between art and baking. Sometimes it's blind sighted by the fact that you have to churn out a product but the labour and creativity we all exhibited in putting together these cakes really inspired me. Even made me consider how limitless the art of baking can be.

This guy is mine. I choose to do a cherry blossom tree. The more I look at it the more difficult I think about how it would be to portion this baby.

On a topic totally unrelated to cake making I seen the new movie by Todd Haynes called I'm Not There, a somewhat fictitious account of Bob Dylan played by six different actors. Anyone who knows me knows my complete devotion to Bobby D so it was entirely expected that I would love this film but I just want to say from a biased opinion it was one of the most imaginative and well rounded movie I've seen in long time. Cate Blanchet is guaranteed an Oscar for her role as Dylan during his transition from folk singer to the poet with an electric guitar. I would also recommend picking up the soundtrack too, a lot o different interpretations of Zimmerman classics.