The Stand

Hey everyone,
Sorry it's been a while since I've posted, but it's been crazy busy and oh so productive. Last week was super stressful, what with our big chocolate project...the chocolate candy stand. This was the practical part of our chocolate test, and it spanned two entire classes to get completed. Our theme for the stand was fairytales. Now, seeing as how I generally shy away from anything that's happy and sappy, I knew I couldn't go with anything Disney. So, I started reading Grimm's Fairy Tales for inspiration, and whoa boy, did I find out a lot. I'm officially fascinated with/horrified by the blatantly anti-Semitic story, "The Jew Among The Thorns." I won't go into the details, but the long and the short of it is that Jews are sneaky and cannot be trusted. Sigh...I guess it's a positive sign that this story has been all but forgotten. Still, though......

Anyway, back to the stand. I ended up picking Cinderella, because I kind of love how dark the Grimm's version is, what with the birds pecking out the step sisters' eyes and whatnot. However, I chose to highlight a more tender moment: Cinderella weeping under her dead mother's tree, wishing "shiver and quiver, little tree.sSilver and gold throw down on me," at which point, the birds (and, like, her mother's spirit, or whatever) send down a beautiful gown and slippers.

So, here's my interpretation:

Thoughts? The elevation is made of three cutouts I designed and cut out of poured dark chocolate, which I brushed with a thin layer of milk chocolate to give the appearance of being wood. The bowl is made out of milk chocolate, using a mold that we all had to use. I made Cinderella by using a cookie cutter, that I basically turned into a mold, and I'm really happy with how she turned out. The slippers are made with a mold I bought, and I brushed them with a little pearlescent powder to give them the appearance of being glass. Inside the bowl are three types of candy we made: Praline squares (carres), chocolate orange rochers, and chocolate covered almonds.

We also made a cake in our last class, kind of our last hurrah with chocolate...for a while, anyway. It's called a Reine de Saba, or Queen of Sheba, and it's essentially a flourless chocolate cake that we glazed and decorated with tempered chocolate "shingles."

And that concludes our first chocolate unit...out of 3, I believe. The next unit is plated desserts, which should be interesting.

In other news...I GOT AN INTERNSHIP! I'm really excited to be joining the team at Chikalicious Dessert Club. If you haven't checked them out, you really should. Their stuff is amazing and really creative. I know I'll be learning a lot in the next few months.