Just Like An Airplane Landing...

...and taking off again from the center.

That is how you are to move your knife to get the icing of the cake to form a perfect 90 degree angle where the top and sides meet. How do I know this... well the first part of our practical exam was today and we had to ice a cake (made the same day we had a substitute chef) using the Italian buttercream we made yesterday. It might sound like a simple task but sides and top of the cakes needed to be smooth as glass! This is possible, but try as I might I couldn't get the whole thing totally smooth. I could get most of it right, but most isn't really good enough for Chef (or me.) It did get to the point that I realized I was doing more damage to the cake in re-icing and trying again and again, so I decided that it might be wise to let it go.

We also had to make soft dough rolls in the shape of croissants, I still need to work on my rolling technique, but out of the 12 I made I found 5 that I liked enough to present to him. All in all I didn't do as well as I would have liked to have done, but it is only a small portion of my grade!

We have the final exam and the second half of our practical exam on Monday. I have no clue what we will be making, but according to Chef it is "something we've made before."