Wedding Cakes: It's a Business

We began class today with a wedding cake demonstration and lecture. Chef Lorriann assembled a three-tiered cake made from layers that Derrick made on Monday, using buttercream icing, talking all the while about the basics of wedding cake construction. It's one of those things people might expect you to be able to do, now that you're a culinary school graduate, and you can certainly do it for love, but if you do it for money, make sure you get enough. And don't forget to add on a delivery charge. Plus an "annoyance fee," if the bride or her mother are especially difficult to work with.

With Anthony absent today, I finished the nectarine-blueberry crisp he began yesterday, making crumble, dishing them out, and baking and plating them. I did some "experimental" sugar work for garnishing, and my first batch of caramel had to be dumped, because I wasn't prepared with an ice bath once the caramel began to color. So the caramel kept cooking in the pan, becoming too dark and burning within no time at all.I plated the second batch of triple-chocolate mousse. These didn't have quite the same "issues" that aggravated me yesterday. Sarah and Silvia plated these lovely baked lemon puddings, sort of a Valentine's Day theme but hey, we pay to practice all kinds of stuff.Before we left class today, Chef Lorriann announced that she won't be with us next week. She's leaving the CCA to take a job at Laney College, the community college in my very own 'hood, where she will not only be well compensated and receive generous (public school) benefits, but she will also have the summers off, with pay. As a single mom with a seven-year-old son, she relishes her personal time, and there's not much vacation built into the CCA schedule. She was referring to the wedding cakes when she said, "It's all about the money. I need more of it, so I can have more free time to spend with people I love." Amen to that.