The Letter A

A Baking and Culinary Terms Alphabet Blogging Challenge

A is for A-hole << That’s me! What was I thinking taking on the whole alphabet in one month? Naaah. Just kidding. I got this! Learn more about the A-Z April Blogging Challenge here. All beginning with the letter A, I give you photos of my culinary career creations.

Apple Caramel Bundt Cake

Apple Caramel Bundt Cake

When I worked as Research & Product Development Manager in a giant baking factory that cranked out bundt cakes, the challenge was making simple products look unique and upscale. The key was food styling, using props to evoke the cake flavor and add splash to the marketing photos. This was the first glamour shot of my career.

Almond Chocolate Cheesecake

Vanilla Swiss Almond Cheesecake

I baked these wholesale: Chocolate cheesecakes enrobed in chocolate glaze, rimmed with toasted slivered almonds, topped with chocolate-dipped whole almonds in a flower configuration.

Artist’s Palette Cake

Artist's Palette Cake

The above 3D sculpted birthday cake was carved to look like an artist’s palette, frosted with smooth chocolate buttercream, dollops of colored buttercream, and decorated with piped chocolate inscription and modeling chocolate paint brush and tubes of paint.

Almond Genoise Cake

Almond Mousse Cake

I made the above layer cake in culinary school. It’s made with layers of mocha buttercream, genoise sponge, and almond cream topped with chocolate glaze and chocolate dipped almonds.

 Apple Spice Cakes

Apple Cakes

When I worked in a baking factory, I cranked out these 10-inch apple spice cakes frosted in caramel buttercream, rimmed with toasted walnuts and topped with a cinnamon apple decoration sifted with a stencil. Below is another version with a different stencil.

Apple Walnut Cake

Arms in Gumpaste and Modeling Chocolate

Arms for Edible Figurines

The little orange arms above belong to the Oompa Loompas in my Wonka Factory Gingerbread House. The longer modeling chocolate arms belong to a figurine that appears in the book, Cake Decorating with Modeling Chocolate.

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Comments

The Letter A — 16 Comments

  1. Apple spice cupcakes with Maple cream cheese frosting and Candied Bacon Crumble was my newest flavour combination experiment at http://www.facebook.com/specialoccasionscakesetc. It’s as Canadian as you can get for flavours. I wasn’t impressed with the cupcake recipe, and there wasn’t enough maple punch in the frosting, so I know what I’ll do differently next time, but if you visit my page, you’ll see how I feel about that bacon! And my taste testers? Full agreement all around!!

  2. I just love this!! I remember doing the Almond Genoise cake in school too. I really like the Artist Palette Cake!
    A is for Adidas… this is my sneaker box cake

  3. Apple picking! Because you need some delicious apples to make an amazing dessert.

  4. I am drooling right now. Don’t know which I would prefer a slice of. I guess a slice of each would be just fine. Yummmmm

    • Here is the recipe:
      60 lbs of cream cheese, softened
      24 lbs of sugar
      2 gallons of whole eggs, the fresher the better
      1/2 cup of vanilla extract
      2 T almond extract

      Begin with chocolate cake crumb crust in the bottom of each pan. Cream the cheese and sugar until fluffy. Very slowly, pour in the eggs, scraping the bowl 3 times. Bake in a hot water bath at 275 degrees F. Decorated with chocolate glaze, slivered almonds, and chocolate dipped almonds.

  5. I love this idea of the a-z challenge!!!
    My daughter, Maddie loves to bake. She baked and decorated this cake herself
    She loves baking so much that we decided she needed to sell these cakes to get them out of our house
    Today was the first day she sold a cake and this is it. She made $20 and is giving all the money to help fund an adoption
    So she titled this cake “Awesome Adoption”
    It is a 2 layer chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting.

  6. Wow! And that’s just “A”!

    Your work is amazing, and there’s so much cool stuff on your site. I’ve been sharing some of your creations already.

    Looking forward to B through Z!