My Sweet and Saucy

Cooking classes are definitely a huge passion of mine.  As some of you might know, before I went into the pastry field I was actually studying to be an elementary school teacher.  All of my life this is the job I thought I was going to go into and was blessed to be able to work as an aide for many years.  I absolutely loved teaching, but felt that God was leading me into a new passion and I jumped head first into it and have never turned back since.  However, God knew He didn’t give me the love for teaching and sharing my passions with others for nothing and has helped me find ways in this new field to share and bless others.  I feel so honored to be able to help and guide others that share my same passion for desserts and food and inspire those that never knew they had it within them.  I have loved being able to teach classes at Prep Kitchen Essentials in Seal Beach and at my church Rockharbor in Costa Mesa and now I am excited to announce a new opportunity that I have been given.  This month I am starting to teach cake decorating classes at MiraCosta College in Oceanside, CA.  I am teaching three separate courses that consist of three classes each.  Here are the three classes…

Module 1 - Basic Cake Decorating (9/08-10/08) $120

This relaxed and friendly course takes you through the basics of using a
variety of icings to decorate typical cakes required for birthdays,
graduations, etc.  You will be shown techniques related to piping, use
of modeling paste for flowers and ornaments, and the covering of cakes
using a variety of icings tools and equipment. This will be taught as a
beginners level course.  Perfect for either the recreational cake
designer or the individual who wishes to gain professional skills.

Module 2 - Wedding Cakes (10/08-11/08) $120
This course is suitable for creative cake-makers who may have completed
a beginners cake-decorating course. The course will primarily focus on
the techniques and styles needed to decorate beautiful wedding cakes.
Please do not sign up for this class if you are not familiar with the
basic principles of cake decorating.

Module 3 - Specialty Cakes (11/08-12/08) $120
This course caters for participants who wish to advance their basic
skills.  Learn a variety of new, contemporary techniques using icing and
fondant, allowing you to create beautiful and unique cakes.  On
completion of the course, students will have a greater understanding of
cake design and the satisfaction and confidence to further their
abilities.

The classes still have spots left in them and are priced quite low for how much information you will be learning in them.  If you are interested in signing up just check out their website and they can give you all the information.  Hope to see some of you there!

Well before leaving I wanted to share some photos with you from my cooking class at Rockharbor.  This class was on appetizers and we had a great time!  The menu was…

Sun-Dried Tomato Dip with Pita Chips

Caribbean Shrimp Salad with Lime Vinaigrette

Crostini with Fresh Mozzarella, Arugula, Prosciutto, & Olive Tapenade

Bruschetta

I wanted to pass on this recipe of Ina Garten’s from Barefoot Contessa.  Her recipe for Sun-Dried Tomato Dip is fantastic and extremely easy…a double winner in my book!  I highly recommend that you try it!

Hope all of you had a Happy Labor Day!  This past week was a crazy one for me again, but I have some photos for you…some from this last week and some from weeks past.  Basically you are getting a random post with lots of photos, so hopefully you like it!  First off is a wedding cake I did this past weekend.  The bride gave me a basic look and colors she wanted to incorporate and then left the rest up to me.  The cake had two different flavors: Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Filling and Banana Buttermilk Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate Ganache Filling….definitely two of my favorite choices!  The cake was covered in Swiss Meringue Buttercream and then I piped a shell border and added silver dragees and dahlias to the cake.  Overall I liked the cake…simple, yet elegant.

These second set of photos are of two separate cookie orders I recently did.  One was for a wedding reception…two tuxedos in a Mexican Fiesta kind of theme.  The other order was for a bridal shower in which the theme was the couples travels.  Both were fun and different, which is always nice to do.

This last order was for a baby boy’s shower in which the theme was nautical.  The cake was a buttermilk cake with raspberry jam and cream cheese frosting.  I covered the cake in vanilla buttercream and then decorated it with fondant embellishments.  I made little fondant sailboats and then let them dry overnight.  I then put different color waves around the base of each tier and added brown sugar around the base to make it look like sand.  The title of the cake was “Logan’s Launch”, which was pretty darn cute!

Thanks so much for taking the time to check them out!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  Last Friday night I taught a class at Prep Kitchen Essentials and we had a great time.  The class was on Fresh & Easy Dinners and it turned out to be a fabulous night!  But before I share all the delicious details from the class with you I wanted that thank you all for you for your great inspirational ideas. I loved reading each and every one and couldn’t pick a favorite, so instead I let the random number generator choose the winner (I know…I’m pathetic)!  Anyways, the winner is BRANDI!!! Congratulations Brandi and I hope you enjoy this book as much as I do!  

Well, onto the menu…

Caribbean Shrimp Salad with Lime Vinaigrette

Panzanella 

Rigatoni with Grilled Summer Vegetables & Feta Cheese

Bake Pork Chops with Radicchio Slaw

Creme Fraiche & Lemon Sorbet

Here are some photos from the class…First off is the Rigatoni with Grilled Summer Vegetables & Feta Cheese!

Next is the Bake Pork Chops with Radicchio Slaw & Panzanella..

And the last dinner item was my favorite…the Caribbean Shrimp Salad with Lime Vinaigrette!

And sadly I didn’t get any good photos of the delicious Creme Fraiche & Lemon Sorbet, but here is at least one photo of the bowl!

Well, I couldn’t leave without sharing one recipe with you so here is my favorite from the night…enjoy!

Caribbean Shrimp Salad with Lime Vinaigrette 

adapted from Cooking Light

4 servings 

4 cups chopped cooked shrimp (about 1 1/2 pounds)

5 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar, divided

2 tablespoons chili garlic sauce (such as Lee Kum Kee)

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon grated lime rind

1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 3 large limes)

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

2 garlic cloves, minced

Dash of salt

8 cups fresh baby spinach

1 cup chopped peeled mango (about 1 large)

1 cup julienne-cut radishes

1/4 cup diced peeled avocado

1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions

2 tablespoons unsalted pumpkinseed kernels 

Combine shrimp, 2 tablespoons vinegar, and chili garlic sauce in a large bowl; toss well. Cover and chill 1 hour. 

Combine remaining 3 tablespoons vinegar, oil, and next 6 ingredients (through salt) in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. 

Mix together the spinach, shrimp mixture, mango, radishes, avocado, green onions and pumpkin seed kernels.  Drizzle with vinaigrette and serve.  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello everyone!  Hope everyone’s week is going great!  I have finished two more cake designs and I thought I’d share them with you.  These cakes are a hexagon shape as you can see in the photos…I think this is a fun shape to play around with and it produces a “different” looking cake that might just be the look a bride wants. The first cake is a fun and funky design that is easy to execute.  Simply cut out fondant dots with a circle cookie cutter and glue them onto your fondant cake with a little water.  As you can see in the photos I used a stamp impression to create a flower design on the yellow dots to give them a different kind of look. You can see this process in a previous post.  I feel like this would be a good cake for a beginner to try out since the look can be easily duplicated and come out crisp and clean looking.  

I then tried out a second look that is more simplistic.  I made this fondant flower a while ago and thought that putting it on the cake as the main focus would be sort of fun.  You can check out the process for how to make this flower on a previous post.

Before I talk about the giveaway I need to thank two bloggers for giving me some awards.  First I wanted to thank Fields of Cake… for the “Kick” Ass Blog” award!  I never considered myself “kick ass”, but maybe now I will!

I also wanted to thank Comida Espanola for the Premio “Arte y Pico” Award.  It is so fun that blogs can reach everyone around the world and I love that even though my blog isn’t in Spanish that people can still enjoy it through photos, so thank you for checking it out!

Now for your favorite part…giveaways!!!  I absolutely love the book Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Conner, so I thought I would share my love and give it to a blogger that inspires me!  

So all you have to do to enter into the drawing is post a comment with an idea for a wedding cake design for me.  I am trying out new designs and always love hearing what everyone’s dream cake would be or what they wish they would’ve done.  I am so excited to hear your thoughts and opinions and will be picking a winner on Saturday night at midnight.  So get your wheels a turning and give me some good inspiration for another cake design.  Thanks!!!  

Lots of exciting things have been happening for me these last couple months and so I do apologize for the lack of posts, but I am happy to share my news with all of you!  I am so ecstatic to announce that my new business website is finally finished!  There are still some things that need to be added, but overall I am really happy with it and couldn’t wait any longer to share it with you.  My new site is Sweet & Saucy Shop and I would love for you to check it out and give me any feedback you have. My sweet husband, Tim, and one of my best friends, Karrie, created my site for me and I am so blessed to have their love and support for my business.  If you are looking for a great blog or website definitely check out their sites…24 Medium & Karrie Pyke Designs. Some other exciting news happened this week…I was featured in Karrie’s wedding photos that were published on one of the top wedding blogs Style Me Pretty!!!  I absolutely love Style Me Pretty and have always dreamed of having my products featured on their site.

I have also been working on some new cake designs this past week and will continue to do so this coming week.  I feel like I go through periods where I am really into cookies, then cupcakes, and finally now cakes. I definitely get bored doing the same thing over and over again, which is why I love having the flexibility to try new things.  So here are some photos of some recent cakes I made.  I would love to hear which one you like the most and why, so please drop me a comment and share your thoughts.  I tried some new techniques while decorating these cakes and will be sharing more of the details with you in future posts, but just to clarify some questions I know I will be asked I will share some of the details now.  Well, here come the photos!

No, I did not hand pipe this…this cake was done with cake stencils, which I absolutely love!  I will do a more detailed post on how this process is done in the near future and give all my tips and techniques!

I really do like simplistic cakes that have one focal point, so I chose a gorgeous dahlia to be the star this time.  

For this cake I had Karrie design some graphic flower images for me and I printed them on frosting sheets and then applied them to the cake.  Very modern, graphic, and simplistic I think.  Again, I will be doing a more detailed post on this technique in the future.  

And for this last cake I got inspired when I went to my local flower shop and saw this lovely, rustic branch and these button mums. I think this four tier type of cake works well with it too.  

Before I end my post I wanted to share 6 random facts about myself with you since I was tagged by The Cupcakery… 

1) I was actually going to be a school teacher and had almost finished my whole degree when I decided to switch careers and go into pastry school.

2) I have been dying to travel more and can’t wait until I get to go to Europe again…I would love to live in Florence for a couple months!

3) I am a Farmer’s Market fan and love checking out any and every one!

4) I grew up with foster brothers and sisters and now my sister has three gorgeous foster daughters that she is about to adopt…I definitely was blessed with inspiring parents.

5) My husband is the one that convinced me to start a blog and I will be forever thankful to him for that.

6) I actually knew my husband in jr. high, but we didn’t start dating until right after high school and then lasted through college and the rest is history…

Well, hope you enjoyed the random facts and don’t forget to check out all the links at the top!

As you know I do love sharing part of my life and travels with my blogging friends so I couldn’t pass up the chance to share some yummy photos from my trip to Jin Patisserie!  A couple weeks ago I celebrated my three year anniversary and my husband took me out for a fun filled trip to Venice again where we ate yummy food and shopped till we dropped…I think I have an addiction to Anthropologie!  So here are some photos from the day…enjoy!

As you will see from the mass amount of dessert photos I couldn’t pass up the chance to sample many of their desserts…this first photo is of their Passion Cake….think mascarpone, passion fruit, and fresh mango. It was so refreshing, creamy, and light, not to mention gorgeous…I loved it!

This next dessert was their Abbot Cake, named after the street the patisserie is located on.  They describe it as “Caramel banana over a honey walnut sponge cake, filled with dark chocolate cream made with semi-sweet chocolate cocoa”…can you DELICIOUS!!!  This was my husband’s favorite!

We also couldn’t pass up sampling their macaroons.  We tried the Caramel Fleur de Sel and the Pistachio. Both were scrumptious!  

Lastly, we tried some of their chocolates.  My memory might be failing me here, but I think we ordered the Cinnamon, Green Tea, and Sea Salt Caramel.  

Overall, we had a wonderful anniversary and our trip to Jin Patisserie lived up to all the dreams I had in my head.  Definitely check it out if you are in the area!