"This is Your Toughest Day"

Those were Chef Judy's words, as she directed us to "go forth and decorate." Maybe to soften the blow, we had a chocolate lecture + tasting first. Chocolate is a semester's subject, all by itself. We just skimmed the surface, talking briefly about such subjects as nibs, conching, couverture, and tempering, and nibbling on unsweetened, semisweet, milk, white, coating, and gianduja, and chocolate chips.

The enemy of chocolate is water. Never store it in the refrigerator or freezer. A loved one (with a pantry) might really appreciate a present of a 10 pound block of quality chocolate (like Callebaut or Guittard), readily available at specialty baking stores (or even sometimes at Trader Joe's) for less than $3 per pound.

And health alert: chocolate contains antioxidants, more benefit being obtained from darker chocolate. Dark chocolate and red wine are apparently components of the perfect diet.

We were set free to adorn our cakes and rarely has the tension level been higher. A lot of it is in the tools, true, but Chef Judy made it look incredibly easy. Stepwise: beat your buttercream (stored overnight at room temperature) to fluff it up. Split it into two parts so that you have one unadulterated (crumb-free) bowl of icing to use for final spreading and decorations. Pick up the cake (with a palette knife), and hold it on one hand, using the other hand to spread buttercream around the sides of the cake. Put it on the turntable (you use the knife as a lever when moving the cake around, to avoid smooshing it with the side of your hands). Center the cake and even out the sides. Put a blob of buttercream on top, and spread it to the edges. Keep it flat, not domed. Avoid picking up crumbs (or remove any that you inadvertently pick up). ("I don't want that in there, because I'm a professional," Chef said.) Concentrate on the middle and the edges will follow. Keep the spatula clean between swipes.

Chef compared the move you make to flatten the top of the cake to "landing an airplane on an aircraft carrier," and if you have no idea what that means, we were equally baffled. But you use the edge of the blade, pulling it towards you from the back of the cake towards the middle. Spin and repeat. Voila!

Ha.

As I was mixing my buttercream, Chef handed me a little can. "I usually wait until week three to offer this, but why don't you try some in your icing?" It was green tea powder, which I added to the (already orange-flavored) icing. It turned a beautiful pistachio color (or "guacamole," Rudy said) and adds just a hint of subtle flavor. I had my cake pretty well frosted, I thought, and asked the Chef for her opinion. "Good, but not perfect." Duh. Corrective actions followed.

We are required to pipe decorations on the cake, so we began by practicing on parchment paper (you can scrape the used icing up and return it to your pastry bag and use it again.) We couldn't use plain stars ("Everyone can do that"), so we practiced rosettes and shell borders and other fancy things. I marked the top of cake with shallow lines indicated the cut marks (for 12 portions), then piped a white shell border around the edge. I used a cake comb on the sides, and "artfully arranged" (i.e. dumped) a pile of white chocolate shavings into the center. I sprinkled a few pieces of julienned candied orange peel on each slice, then pressed slivered toasted almonds around the base of the cake.

In lieu of almonds, you could use minced chocolate, or chocolate cake crumbs, or vanilla cake crumbs. An edging of some sort around the bottom of the cake serves a useful purpose, we learned. It covers the cardboard base that the cake rests on. And it's a sort of durable surface that the cake serving person can use, putting a tool against it to scoot the slice off the server and onto the plate.

Not only was my cake the best-looking cake I've ever made, but everyone's looked better than anything I've ever made. Even Aaron's. Poor Aaron kept saying, "This just isn't my cup of tea. I just need to walk away for a while." But he ended up with a mocha-frosted cake with white rosettes topped by chocolate coffee beans, and it looked, well, professional!

Tomorrow, we have a pre-final quiz in the form of an in-class game show. Chef wondered how we should be grouped. The five of us females were totally up for "girls against boys," and Chef said she was open to any combination that didn't include Andy and me on the same team.