The New 2011 BYU-Idaho Graduates!

My Pride and Joy

...of the semester. This is my final cake project that I finished 10 minutes before class. It's a yellow cake filled with layers of cream cheese icing and strawberry preserves. Everything on it is edible.

Making this cake caused a lot of stress and frustration the past few weeks, but it looks beautiful and was worth all the effort in the end. If only I had some friends and family near to share it with...

Homemade Baked Goods

So here are all, or most of, the cakes and baked goods I have made throughout this semester. I have to admit that I've been enjoying cake decorating more that I initially thought I would, but it's a very time consuming and, at times, frustrating thing to accomplish. I've had some ups and downs with all the cakes I've created and you have to understand that I was not free to pick and choose what I put on my cakes, so some may seem a little disjointed. There were certain criteria that we had follow and certain elements that we had to include on all of our cakes in order for them the get graded. The few baked goods, however, were not graded so I made whatever I wanted with those. I have now started on my final projects so I will post those pictures when they are finished at the end of the semester.

First up is my first graded cake assignment: butter cream. I have to include my story for this cake because, at the time, I was so sad and angry with it, but after it was graded I was laughing about the whole thing.....

Back home in Twin everybody seems to think that Stephen and I have all the luck and we get "big breaks" all the time; nothing bad ever happens to us (which I think is funny because we don't feel that way) but, yes, we have been blessed so much these past few years while going to school it's been amazing looking back at what we have accomplished.


 So with that here's my story: My teacher told us we should have our cakes all made and ready to be frosted two weeks before our project was due so that's what I did. I had to make it two times because I was having problems, but I picked out the two biggest and best layers and filled and iced them so I could stay on top of everything. The cake has been iced for the past two weeks so one Saturday I decided it would be a good idea to finish putting on all the decorations so I could focus the rest of the week on my other homework. (my cake was due that upcoming Thursday) I worked on the cake for 6 hours straight that Saturday and finished it early evening. I put it in the fridge because Stephen and I had noticed that the sides of the cake were getting all wrinkly and droopy--its as if the cake itself, inside the icing, shrunk and the icing on the outside fell and kind of sunk in. A big portion of my grade is how level, smooth, and straight the cake is and now I'm going to lose a lot of points because of what happened.

After church that Sunday I looked in the fridge and saw my cake sitting there and it looked a lot worse than it did previously on Saturday. I got pretty upset by it and for some reason Stephen wasn't very sympathetic towards me he told me, "Suck it up; there's nothing you can do about it, and it's stupid to cry over a cake" those were his exact words, lol That didn't make me feel any better so I grabbed my phone and called Mom but no one answered so I just laid on my bed and started crying. I was just mad because I didn't know what was causing my cake to "fall", I spent 12 hours making it, and Stephen wasn't consoling me. After that, Stephen came into the room and picked me up and carried me into the living room, but as he went out the door he wasn't watching my arms very carefully and ended up smashing my right arm into the wall and scraping it up pretty good. It immediately turned pink and soon dark purple. I now have a GIGANTIC bruise going all the way up my bicep, haha. Stephen felt pretty bad about it. That following week we got our grades back for our cakes and I ended up getting a 95 percent. I guess it really was stupid to cry over a cake!!

My fondant cake

 

Royal Icing Cake

 Raspberry Rhubarb Pie

My first French bread and my midterm project for confectionery. We had to make a  centerpiece that was at least six inches tall entirely out of sugar. I hand sculpted the vase out of white modeling chocolate with the roses made from fondant and the butterfly and flowers on the vase are royal icing. 

It has been fun creating all these "works of art" and my baking knowledge has grown considerably, but I'll be glad when I can take a break from baking and making candies several times a week.

The End is Near

Stephen and I are still truckin' along; I'm getting ready to start my two final projects in cake decorating and confectionery. These will consume the rest of my time this semester which means I will be spending the rest of my Saturdays in the school kitchen. We have five weeks left!! I'm getting anxious for this summer to be over with so I can just move back to Utah. We have been looking at houses in SLC the past few weeks, so we made a list of places to look at over the 4th of July weekend. I'm getting excited for another break from school even if it is just three days. It'll be a whirlwind of a trip because we have to go to SLC for a day and half and then to Twin to see the family for another day and a half. I knew we'd have to make the triangle sooner or later.  That's a lot of driving for one weekend not to mention trips to the gas station, but it's all worth the trip.

I've mentioned before that I love ice cream, so this semester Stephen and I have done really well--some how we got a hold of a few  buy-one-get-one-free coupons to use at two different stores so we go out for frozen yogurt just about every weekend and pick up a redbox on the way home. I love our date nights:)

This last Saturday we took some photos because it's been about a year already from the last time we took some. We took them ourselves which is pretty hard to do if you want some really good ones. I ended up just setting down the camera on a table, rock, or side rail and put the timer on, haha, then Stephen would push the button and see if he could make it back to his spot before it went off...needless to say we only got a few good ones; the others had weird faces or just legs in the shot because he wasn't fast enough.

We are still having fun up here while finishing school; we don't get to do too many exciting things because of school work and lack of funds, but we make do with what we have and have a ball!

Spanish, Cakes, and Fortune

I don't know where the time goes. After begrudgingly moving back to Rexburg for the LAST time to finish school I thought this semester would be the longest and most dreadful because I was dreading having to come back. Quite the contrary, in fact, it's hard to believe that the semester is already half over and I've already taken all my midterms this past week. I have been finished with my horticulture classes for some time now and am just trying to finish up my minor or cluster, if you will, in culinary arts and Spanish.

I don't know what made me want to take Spanish classes (Stephen) but I did it, all the while struggling the whole time to understand this frustrating, wonderful, beautiful language. I have never worked so hard in a class just to maintain a C average to graduate on time, but I did it. I actually wish I could retake them all so that I can get a real good grasp on the language, but I think I have come a long way since my first class.

I was really afraid that I wouldn't be able to get into all the classes I needed for my last semester, and when registration time came that fear became a reality. Some of the classes I needed (or would have preferred to take) were not offered and there was a schedule conflict with the ones I could take. In short, I had to email begging and pleading with several teachers to let me in their class so I could graduate with Stephen. The hardest class to get into was cake decorating because I had to take a written test, scale a recipe, and bake a cake with precise criteria all before school started just to get into the class. With the help of my wonderful mother-in-law, who was a wedding cake decorator, I passed all the tests and got into the class, whew!

Even though I didn't want to take cake decorating I have really been enjoying it more than what I thought I would. I'm also taking baking and confectionery classes which Stephen loves because I bring home all sorts of goodies throughout the week. I am even doing really well in my Spanish lit class, which I am surprisingly enjoying as well.

Stephen is taking it easy this final semester just because he can. After taking several semesters of 17 and 18 credits plus working late nights at Burger King, this semester is easy-going with just 12 credits and lots of time to spend together with our free time. We were fortunate enough to both receive large federal grants and scholarships through the school to completely support us through this final semester without having to work. We have truly been blessed throughout our journey through school together. We have had some great times and made many memories here, but are excited to move on with our lives and fulfill our dreams.

The 10th of May

Tuesday was C.R.A.Z.Y! It started out as a normal day--wake up and go to class in the morning, come home and do homework for my afternoon cake decorating class. But on this day, as I was reading my text book, I got a call from Scott telling me that there have been some changes made to the wedding (which was to be in October) My first thought was, "Oh no, they're calling it off" and then I thought, "Maybe they're pushing it back some more." Then Scott said, Well, we talked to our bishop and he counseled us to get married before I leave for Oklahoma." I said, "But you're leaving in TWO days aren't you?" "Yep" was his reply, so I asked what he planned to do about it and he said, "We're getting married tonight." WHAT!! I didn't see that coming, haha. I haven't even met this girl, and I have class in less than an hour.

So I told Stephen what was going on and we decided we needed to be there. There was no way I was going to miss my little brother's wedding. Stephen finished up the homework he was working on so he could turn it in to his teacher's office on our way to Twin. We made it to the institute building where the ceremony was being held with 10 minutes to spare and we were the first ones there! It was a cute, short-and-to-the-point ceremony with just immediate family. Heidi sure is a cute little thing and the two of them are so in love--you could see it from the way they were looking at each other.

 Stephen and I thought we should drive back to Rexburg that same night, so he wouldn't miss any of his classes the next morning, but I thought that was too rushed and too much driving so we stayed at Mom's house until the next morning. We got back home in the afternoon just in time for our afternoon classes to start. Then I found out that because I missed my class the day before I missed out on 15 points plus all the practice for my test for the next day. Stephen found out that he missed out on 20 points from a pop quiz that he missed that morning as well....the sacrifices we make....

We wouldn't have missed Scott's wedding for anything, and are so glad we could be there to support him and his new bride. I guess Scott has all the bragging rights for the shortest time dating his girlfriend (two weeks) getting engaged (two weeks) and finally getting married six months after returning home from his mission. Congratulations Scott and Heidi!!

Spanglish

Es tres semanas since escuela started and I am now just starting ir clase de español. Mi profesora tuvó

surgery at the beginning of el semestre, so este semana fue mi primera dío de clase. Yo quiero aprender hablar español, pero yo no hago un bien memory—es hard to remember más words and the order everything is spoken in. I had a hard time last semestre con mi clase de español y oró tuvó pass con a “C” grade. Este pasado clase de español yo necesito pasar es clase de literatura y I’m a little rusty en mi leyendo y hablando. I wish I didn’t have tomar Clase de español, pero no hay va back. Este semestre sería major si yo no tenía que tomo este clase. Yo amo a mi clases de culinary arts más que yo pensé que iba; sería el major semestre si no tiene que tomar español. Me gustaría poder tomar estas clases de español de nuevo so I really understand what I’m doing. Si tuvó otro chance tomar la clase de español hubiera tomo in a heart beat. Deséame suerte!!