December 2013- Week 4

ORGANIZATION SKILLS

This week was definitely one of those very effective weeks. However, I encountered a few problems in which I am still trying to find possible solutions. Nevertheless, I managed my time very effectively this week, despite going on vacation. However, I know I have to speed up really fast so that I can get my products ready on the due date. My goal is to finish 1 ½-2 cakes before the break ends.

COMMUNICATION WITH SUPERVISOR

When I was told that the plastic boards are out of stock and the shop has only one left, I was literally panicking. I didn’t know what to do. And so, I immediately asked Mr. Pat for help and asked for suggestions. He told me to reflect on this and to not panic, but find an alternative way to present my cakes. This helped me in finding another possibly more creative way to show my cakes.

INFORMATION

Upon the glass boxes problem I encountered this week, I finally decided that the cake that I am going to put in the glass box is the wedding cake, as it is the most fragile. For the rest of the cakes, I am going to purchase wood, cut into squares, and paint on them based on the theme. I will then set the cake on top of it and presented it on top of the tables.

            This week, I also made black forest at IPS and decorated it myself. As this was a pretty tall cake, I had a few minor problems, but I managed to solve it by recovering the cakes with more cream. It was fun decorating a classic black forest cake with chocolate shavings, but then I realized I had to transfer the cake from the turntable to the cake board. This took me like, 15 minutes. I was so scared that the cake would fall apart but with some spatula I managed to transfer it.

            As for my product, I finished my second cake this week. I am really happy with the outcome. Though some royal icing was falling apart as it is very breakable, I managed to redo the piping and everything went fine. However, I encountered some problem with the 3^rd tier. The fondant was too smooth and breakable to be thinned out by the ball tool as what the tutorial says, and so I figured out that pinching the edges would work fine. After putting the strips of ruffles onto the cake, the ruffles break within a day due to the very rainy weather. I had to redo everything again, this time with thicker fondant, and it works fine (it hasn’t rained yet). However, it did fall down but I managed to stick the pieces again with some Crisco, as Jessica Harris recommends. I am working on the flower, which petals need about 3 days to dry out first. Due to the humidity and fragility of the cake, I am going to finish this cake as soon as possible, put it in the glass box, and transfer the cakes to a room with AC at my dad’s office.