Philadelphia-style Orange Iced Cream~With Recipe!

A trial plate from my menu project, with the iced cream as
well as orange-basil salad and a brie, basil, and chocolate panini

Remember the panini I made for my menu project? This is the iced cream I made to go with it. I don't think this is officially Philadelphia-style ice cream, which I believe is still churned in an ice cream machine, but it is reminiscent of the icy texture and strong cream flavor. As I implied, this is not churned in an ice cream machine, which makes it slightly icy. The no-churn aspect coupled with the fact that it is cream based rather than custard based makes this very easy to make--so easy that you can make ice cream on a weeknight if you really want.

A quick suggestion, don't use extra cointreau no matter how tempting. Alcohol is an anti-freeze and if you add too much the ice cream won't set up. On the flip side, don't leave it out unless you have to--if you don't have an orange liqueur, you can use a clear liquor like vodka--because it does help keep it from getting too icy.

This is great served with a brie, basil, and chocolate panini and orange-basil salad. Or with a nice wafer cookie. Or plain. It's really good, whatever you want to do with it. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
Zest of one orange and one lime
Juice of one orange and two limes
1 cup 2 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp orange liqueur, preferably cointreau
pinch of salt
2 ½ cups heavy cream

Instructions:
Put zest in a bowl with the sugar and salt
Add the citrus juice and liqueur and stir dissolve the sugar
Add cream and whip to a medium-soft peak
Freeze for at least 3 hours to overnight and store covered
Temper in fridge for 30 min or on the counter for 5-10 min before scooping

Cardamom Blondies

These cardamom blondies--from the Fat Witch Bakery cookbook--were incredible! They are moist and tender on the inside and cake-y on the edges with a slightly flakey crust on the top. The were sweet and tasted strongly of brown sugar and cardamom--sort of like a delicious cup of chai tea with milk and honey. I made them because thought they sounded like they would be nice, but they were really quite delicious.

As for serving them, they are great out of the pan, hold the plate. But they were also nice with a cup of coffee or (unsurprisingly) chai tea. My favorite way was with vanilla frozen yogurt and lightly toasted cashew nuts. I really like cashews and the slight Indian influence of the cardamom paired nicely with them. Yum!

A Lesson in Seasonality

I mentioned seasonality when I discussed my menu project, but I'm not sure I fully explained the concept. Making a seasonal menu means using ingredients that are in season. For example, using apples in the fall. Here is a very abbreviated list of seasonal ingredients:

• Spring: 
• Rhubarb
• Fresh Herbs
• Red Berries (late spring)
• Summer:
• Stone Fruits--plums, nectarines, cherries, etc
• All Berries
• Melons
• Mango and other tropical fruit
• Fall:
• Apples
• Pears
• Blueberries (early fall)
• Winter:
• Apples
• Tangerines and other citrus

Interestingly citrus tends to be at it's peak season during the winter but, presumably because it is so refreshing, we tend to use it in summer cooking a lot. This is facilitated by the import of food from regions where growing seasons are different. Happily non-produce items, like chocolate, are good all year round!

When creating a menu, seasonality also refers to the types of dishes you put on it. For example, people are more likely to order a heavy bread pudding when it's cold outside. Conversely, people are more likely to order frozen desserts or light dessert soups during the summer. 

I think that about sums it up. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments. 

Chef Jacques Pepin Bones a Chicken a.k.a. Why I Studied Pastry

Chef Jacques Pepin:
It's hard to see, but between those two women's heads
is a pound of butter with a butter rose perched on top. 

Remember in Julie and Julia, when Julie is freaking out that she's going to have to bone a duck? I've always sympathized with that. I like to know where my food comes from and I'm not terribly squeamish about the fact that meat was once part of a living, breathing animal. That said, I really don't want to pull a chicken's flesh off its rib cage like "chicken pajamas," as Jacques Pepin described it. 

Boning a chicken--or potentially doing
something else with meat, I was in the back row
and I can't quite make out exactly what he'd
doing in this photo.

I will admit, I was very impressed with Jacques Pepin's skill at boning the chicken. He was so quick--less than two minutes while explaining what he was doing--and made it look so easy; though judging by the incredulous laughter of the culinary students in the audience when he said that it isn't very hard at all and the applause when he finished, I'm guessing it's not nearly as simple as Chef Jacques made it look. 

There was, of course, more to the demo than how to bone a chicken. Chef Jacques was discussing the basics--everything from how to hold a knife to what types of pans you should have in your kitchen, from how to pick asparagus to how to make a flower out of a block of butter (okay, I suppose that last one isn't a basic, but it was amazing!)

He talked a lot about produce, including how to break down an artichoke to get to the hearts. He suggested peeling the broccoli stems to get to the more tender inside and then eat it raw. Interesting fact about asparagus, you should look for the fat stalks with tight buds (the leaf like things at the top of the stalk). I always thought the thin ones were the way to go--a very common mistake, apparently--but the thick ones are apparently more flavorful. If they are too fibrous, you can peel the bottoms of them a little.

He gave some random tips. Use a non-stick pan to make omelets. You should always clean copper pots with salt and vinegar. Speaking of copper, a copper bowl is the best thing to whip meringues in. And while we are on the topic of meringues, you should always separate eggs by hand--it's much more reliable than trying to use the shell.

A perfectly sliced apple.

For me the most awe-inspiring thing that Chef Jacques showed us was how to slice an apple. I know that after discussing the awestruck culinary students' cheering Jacques Pepin after he boned a chicken this must seem somewhat dull. The thing is, slicing an apple is one of the first things we learn to do in the pastry arts course--we have to slice apples for our apple tarts, the first thing we make. I believe we sliced apples the second class. It wasn't easy. Don't get me wrong it's not like boning a chicken, but when you are new to professional cooking/baking quickly slicing an apple into thin, even slices while avoiding doing the same to your fingers is a challenge. Honestly, after all the apples I've sliced I've gotten better than I was during that class, but I'm not half as fast as Jacques Pepin was. I swear he had the entire apple sliced in under 30 seconds. I can't even imagine the amount of apples he must have sliced to get that good. (I will point out that Jacques Torres joked during one of his demos that you should never lend a pastry chef a knife because they will kill it. Apparently, we pastry chefs are notorious for our bad knife skills. So I guess I shouldn't feel too bad that I can't slice apples as well as this master chef.)

Overall, the demo was not quite as much fun as other demos I've been to, but definitely the most informative one I've seen. Honestly, it could have been dull as a box of rocks and I still would have enjoyed myself--just being in the same room as Chef Jacques Pepin was enough to thrill me! 

Graduation, con't

Sheets and sheets of food...and this was nowhere near all of it.

Oops, I almost forgot to tell you about the food at graduation. Well, actually it's the food we baked for our final exam. I think it is slightly cheeky of them to make us cater our own graduation--we actually have to come in early to heat up and plate all the food. That said, it makes sense, we made a ton of food for our final and it was excellent! All our chocolates (peanut butter nougat and assorted bonbons), our viennoiserie (croissants, danish, and brioche rolls), petits fours (palmiers, macarons, bourbon pecan cookies, and pate de fruits), tarts (linzer tarts and jalousies), and cakes (genoise, lemon chiffon, and chocolate). Unfortunately the lemon curd tartlets and everything made with choux got too soggy in the refrigerator over the weekend.

You see that whole cake behind the tray?
That's my cake!

We had so much food that my cake ended up being used as decoration. On one hand, bummer I wanted to eat it; on the other, very cool that it was nice enough to be decorative!

Graduation!

Me, my graduating class, and our chefs!

I graduated yesterday! I'm lucky, the FCI is changing their graduations to have one large ceremony a year for all the students who graduated in the 12 months prior. However, for now they are still holding small ceremonies for each individual class. I think the mass graduation is nice in theory, but small ones are so lovely and personal. Our three main chefs--Chef Mark, Chef Toni, and Chef Kir--were there and each of them gave a little speech. Chef Toni even made my mom cry, granted that's not very hard.

My chefs (from left to right: Chef Kir,
Chef Mark, Chef Toni, and Chef Tom)

They give a number of awards at graduation. I did not win the perfect attendance award (I missed two classes--one of which was to attend the James Beard gala and auction for free, so I don't regret missing that one at all.) I won the service award. I have to say I'm surprised I'm the only person who won it--you self-identify that you have done enough community (meaning the school and culinary community at large) service work and you get the award--in theory that means everyone in the class could get it.

I got my diploma and my toque!

I graduated with distinction, again I was the only person, which again surprised me. Distinction is based on GPA, so I would have expected at least one or two more classmates to have over a 95%. Since no one did, there wasn't much suspense about who would be top of the class--in fact they just announced them at the same time. This made it all the more surprising for me that I got it, I really hadn't expected to be top--even if a couple of my classmates told me they were expecting that I would be (thank you guys, you're very sweet!)

Getting my engraved "Top of Class" pastry scraper!

They make the person who is top of the class give a speech. They don't tell you in advance--instead when you go up to shake hands and receive the award they whisper in your ear "we're going to ask you to say a few words." Yikes! I was going to rattle on and thank everyone from the chefs (I couldn't have do it if they hadn't been so great) to my mom (for eating everything I brought home) to my classmates (for being there for me). In the end, I didn't want to make people sit through me rambling on and on so I said a few words to thank my classmates for being so supportive and fun to be around. I figured I could thank my chefs in person, but I'd extend a kind word--that I really did mean--to the people who were all probably a little upset or at least mildly disappointed that I'd just beaten them.

Getting the pastry projects award from Chef Toni!

Lastly they announced the award for best pastry projects--this is for the top average grade for four projects. I think the projects are the wedding cake, the menu project, the chocolate showpiece, and the pastillage cake stand. I could be wrong though. At this point it wasn't terribly shocking that I won it. But honestly I'm most proud of this award. The overall high GPA could have been attributed to my test taking skills--painstakingly honed over my four years at Barnard, not to mention 12 years of grade school--and the fact that I only did miss two classes (every absence counts against your grade), not to mention that I always participated and almost always volunteered for extra tasks. But the best overall grade for these four projects means that I am actually a good pastry chef! By the way, the prize for this is a signed copy of Jacques Torres' Dessert Circus at Home, which is the only Jacques Torres cookbook I don't own...so that worked out nicely!

Final Exam, the Judging

The judging room.

As I mentioned before, the final exam is judged by guest judges. We had five judges come in. Each judge get randomly assigned 4-5 students--they don't know our names until after they judge us. Once they are done evaluating our food and our showpieces, we meet them and they tell us what they think.

My judge was Zac Young! 

I was the fifth person in my group to get judged and the wait to be called in was the longest 20 minutes of my life. Finally, they called me in. My judge was Zac Young--a former contestant on Top Chef Just Desserts and one of the hosts of Unique Sweets (it's on the Cooking Channel, check it out.) I was really happy to have Zac Young judging me because I really do enjoy watching him on Unique Sweets, because he seems nice on the show, and because I'm considering a career in food writing/food media.

My plate for the judge:
 (clockwise from top) a mini lemon chiffon cake, a cherry danish,
a piece of peanut butter nougat, and a lemon curd barquette.

First, he judged my plate. The plate had one of each of the four things we had to make. He said my danish was delicious and baked perfectly. Apparently many people underbake their viennoiserie--I however am "not afraid of the oven." He said my lemon curd barquette was excellent--both the curd and the shell. I'm very happy he liked the shell because I spent a decent amount of time getting them perfectly even; something that is especially difficult when they are so petit. My nougat, unfortunately, was grainy. I knew he would say that, though, so I was prepared for it. He did say that the even shape of the pieces and the smoothness of the coating made it look like they had been made by machine! He only had one complaint about the cake--he wasn't sure what was going on with the rosemary. I explained that it was supposed to match the woodland look of the piece and that it was supposed to be thyme. He got the woodsy-ness of the green herb but was still hesitant to agree with it on a cake. At which point I explained that I like the flavor of thyme with lemon--I would have infused the lemon curd filling with thyme if I'd been allowed to change flavors.

My showpiece: I know I've posted this picture already,
but I want you to have the visual while you read about the judging.

Next he moved to my showpiece. He really liked the overall look. He complimented my use of different materials. I was worried he wouldn't like the lack of sugar work, but he actually liked that I'd had the foresight not to use a material that would be so affected by the weather (summer in NYC is humid and humidity ruins sugar). His one criticism was that my piece could have used more height. I completely agree; it was a bit diminutive. Still, he said my work was clean and well executed and that the height thing is an aesthetic issue not a technique issue and he is judging on technique rather than aesthetic. He also did point out that my basketweave on the small cake was cleaner and nicer than the basketweave on the large cake--I knew that. I used an easier, quicker technique to do the large cake because, well, it was large and the intricate method was already driving me nuts from having done the small cake.

Overall, he had good input and completely fair critiques. He was kind and constructive. I'm happy with my showpiece, I'm happy with my food, and I'm happy with the judging. It was a good last class. I'm going to miss school, but at least I ended on a high note!

Final Exam, con't

Before I discuss the judging, I want to share some of my classmates' showpieces. Everyone produced delicious looking food and impressive showpieces. Here are just a few of them:

Kristin:
The balancing act that she managed to achieve with that
chocolate cylinder  and that large piece of blue sugar
is very impressive!

Marliese:
I love the sugar work on this piece--
the yellow dots and dark blue pieces seem
practically suspended in midair!

Emma:
I love the delicate chocolate leaves and the
beautiful curves!
(Please excuse the elbow in the photo.)

Sam:
It's hard to see in this photo, but the chocolate work
was incredibly delicate and clean--
plus the chocolate spray texture looked perfect!

Celia:
I am so impressed that she managed to get the cake
in the ring without banging anything!
Also, I loved the tiered effect.

Final Exam, the Showpiece and the Food

My Final Exam Showpiece

These last five classes have been the most intense classes of the course, but they were worth it! I am really happy with my showpiece and the food I presented. By the way, I know I mentioned earlier that class theme was "my imagination" and my showpiece theme was "Pure Imagination"--I was planning on a sort-of homage to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  As I started making the piece, I quickly realized that this is less Willy Wonka and more woodland--so I'm going with that!

My showpiece before I put the food on.

One of the most nerve wracking parts of the final exam is transporting the showpiece; we have to carry it down a relatively long hallway. Luckily we don't have to put the food on until we've put the showpieces where they will be judged, so we don't have to worry about it moving or falling--we just have to worry about the showpiece itself. I made my piece relatively small and decently light, so it wasn't hard for me to carry. I glued everything down with either isomalt or chocolate, so I didn't have to worry about things sliding/falling/rolling off.

My lemon curd barquettes floating down a chocolate river.

I am very happy with my lemon curd barquettes/tartlets. They came out perfectly, if I do say so myself! Everything from the tart shells to the smooth finish of the lemon curd to the fresh blueberries on top. The chocolate river (which is hard to see in this photo) came out pretty darn well as well.

My peanut butter nougat on my stand.

I love how the nougat looks and how it tastes, unfortunately the texture is slightly grainy. Also as much as I like how they look, the chocolate covering, while perfectly tempered, was not quite as perfect on the bottom edges as I would have liked. At least they were very evenly sized and coated.

My cakes, waiting to be put on the showpiece.

My cakes survived being stored--the icing didn't get smushed at all! I just piled some fresh berries on, attached my sugarpaste flowers and stuck in some sprigs of rosemary (I wanted thyme, but rosemary came instead.) As you can see I tried two different types of basket weave. The method I used on the bigger cake is slightly less refined, but much easier than the intricate two tip basket weave method I used on the small cake.

A close up of a sugarpaste flower on top of my cake.

My sugarpaste flowers weren't my finest sugarpaste work, but I do really like them. Plus I think they help tie the cake into the whole showpiece.

My nougat on their stand and more sugarpaste flowers.

As you can see, the flowers act as a sort of tie-in as they are all over the piece. I really like my candy and cake stands (even if this one is ever so slightly slanted...oops!) They give height to the piece and integrate the food well.

As you can see, I made meringue mushrooms. I used the technique we learned in class of piping vacherin meringue stems and caps, sticking the pointy end of the stem into a hole carved into the underside of the cap, and dusting with cocoa powder. However I added another element to take it to the next level. I dipped the under side of the caps in tempered dark chocolate, let it harden, and then dipped them into tempered white chocolate. At that point I let the white chocolate set until just about the cutting point (ever so slightly before it, actually) and scored it with a tooth pick so that lines of dark chocolate emanating from a central point showed through--like the gills on the underside of a mushroom cap. You could barely see this detail once I attached the mushrooms to the showpiece, but it was there and demonstrated an attention to detail that I think was pretty impressive.

My pastillage candy canes.

I am really happy with my pastillage candy canes. They came out just how I wanted them to! I also really liked my chocolate spheres. I've never attempted to make chocolate spheres before. They aren't easy. You have to make half spheres, which is rather like making a bonbon shell except instead of filling them, you unmold them hollow and stick them together with tempered chocolate. I painted them with more tempered chocolate so that you couldn't see the line where they were glued together or any smudges from where I was holding the two halves when I stuck them together. After all that work they looked pretty much perfect. Unfortunately, they ended up slightly hidden on my showpiece, but you can see one sticking out from behind the candy canes in the photo above.

Nine months of classes, five days of intense work, and it all
comes down to what the judge thinks of showpiece number 21.

Stay tuned to hear about the judging!

Final Exam, Day 4

I know I skipped days two and three, but I didn't have too much to say. I still don't actually, but I feel bad neglecting my blog for so long. I didn't take photos after the first day because, well honestly, I forgot. So sorry, there won't be anything fun to look at until I finish my showpiece on Friday.

Even though things haven't gone exactly to plan, everything has gone pretty well and I'm happy with how much I have to do next class. I've baked and assembled my cakes--I've even done the basket weave decoration on them. All I have to do is pray that they don't get smushed before next class--I packed them incredibly carefully in my own plastic cake carrier, which I then wrapped in plastic wrap. Assuming they survive Thursday, I will just have to top them with some berries and my sugarpaste flowers (which I made today). My nougat is finished. I cut them and dipped them in tempered chocolate; they look delicious. I had more than enough lemon curd left over from filling the cake to use next class for the tarts. Speaking of tarts, my tart shells are made. Happily everyone is making different things and working with different schedules, so there is never any fighting over ovens and my cakes and tart shells baked off perfectly. My danish are shaped, they just need to be filled, baked, and glazed--all of which must be done the last day.

As for my showpiece, I've made the meringue mushroom tops and stems, I just have to put them together. All my pastillage is sanded and (thank goodness) nothing I needed broke. I even got my cake and candy stands "glued" together. My chocolate river, which I poured onto the base last class, looks great and completely covers two of the three cracks I got in my pastillage base. The pastillage base, unfortunately, took forever to dry (I made it the first class) because of the humidity, so it cracked a bit and warped more than a bit. Like I said, two of the three cracks are hidden and I know I can cover the third with decorations. The plywood base I bought and covered in white wrapping paper fits under my pastillage base perfectly and looks really clean.

I'm worried about getting everything done on time--we only have a few hours before the judging starts. At least I know the final products will taste good and--as long as no one jostles my cakes--I know that everything will look good as well.

Final Exam, Day 1

My pastillage candy canes

The first hour and a half of the first day of the final exam is devoted to the written exam. After that we start our practical exam. I made my peanut butter nougat so that it can dry out enough that I can cut it and cover it. I also rolled out my pastillage base and decorations--there are a lot! I really don't like working with pastillage, but I'm steering clear of sugar because I'm worried it'll crystalize given the humidity and rain in the forecast. I'm a bit annoyed with my nougat, it's ever so slightly grainy--it tastes great though so I guess I'll have to be okay with it.

Today actually went pretty well. I had an extra half hour because I finished the written section early, so I had time to make the pate sucree for my tartlets (I'd been planing to do it next class.)

I think today was a pretty good start to the final exam and I hope the rest of the exam goes this well.

My peanut butter nougat 

Wedding Cake, con't

Now that you have seen my cake I want to share some of my favorite cakes made by my classmates. It's really interesting to see the various ways we interpreted the theme and if I write about this I don't have to think about the fact that my final exam starts tomorrow--actually, that theory isn't really panning out so far. Anyway, here they are (in no particular order):

Marliese's cake:
She actually made all four layers out of cake even
though we could use a dummy--impressive! And
how cute is Gaudi-esqe lizard?!

Lauren's cake:
The whole thing is covered with chocolate panels!
On a side note, is it just me or do those lovely flowers
have a Van Gogh quality about them?

Caitlyn's cake:
The piping is just perfect!

Erin's cake:
The hand-painted pastillage mosaic is beautiful!

Celia's cake:
Look at those lovely sugar paste poppies!

Jessica's cake:
She used an obscene amount of those
 lovely orange blossoms on the cake--
I  believe there were nearly 100!

My Wedding Cake

My wedding cake

In case you didn't catch the post about the wedding cake project, I should note that this is not the cake from my wedding, it is the wedding cake I made for my second to last project (the last being the final exam showpiece and food) at the FCI. We were given a wedding held at Gaudi's Park Guell. The colors were orange and golden yellow; the attire was formal; the general feel was formal yet modern and sleek; and the flowers were gazanias, red poppies, orange blossoms, and wheat.

I decided on a relatively tall, narrow cake. The bottom tier was 8 inches in diameter, the middle was 6 inches, and the top was 4 inches. The middle tier was about double the hight of the other two layers. To achieve this look I sat a cake dummy (a styrofoam cylinder) on top of the regular hight middle layer then I just crumb coated the entire thing and covered it in fondant like it was all cake.

I took inspiration from the mosaics and 

curves on this wall at the Park Guell.

A close up of the mosaic on the middle tier

I knew I wanted to do mosaic decorations on the cakes, but I wasn't sure what. After quite a lot of sketching and looking at pictures of Park Guell, I settled on doing narrow mosaic borders on the bottom and top tiers and a large block of mosaic on the middle tier. I chose to use a variety of oranges and golds ranging from almost red to pale yellow. I was going to mix in a section of dark blue, green, and purple, but when I dyed the fondant I didn't like how the colors looked together so I left it off.

My cake topper: I'm really proud of the flowers!

As for the flowers, the orange blossoms were easy enough to make. The wheat was easy as well, though it definitely required some trial and error before I figured out how to make it look right. The poppies weren't too hard, but I realized after I made them that they looked more like British remembrance poppies (those paper or plastic poppy pins worn to commemorate soldiers who have died in war) than actual poppies. Ah well, they were still beautiful. I was planning on making one large gazania for the top of the cake. I'm really glad I only planned to make one, because it was really difficult! It came out quite wonderfully, albeit not a very accurate depiction of the real flower.

More flowers and another shot of the mosaic

One last picture of my sugar paste flowers

By the way, the base under the cake is a stack of 10 inch cardboard cake circles covered in foil, then in fondant. I glued--with nontoxic glue, just in case--a nice coordinating ribbon around the edge to spiff it up a little.

The inside of the top tier

By the way, the cake itself was amazing! It's a Martha Stewart recipe for a really stable, moist, white cake. We were meant to use vanilla buttercream for the whole cake--filling and frosting--but there was a little mix up--which was a bit the storeroom's fault, a bit the chef's fault, and a bit my fault--that resulted in my having a coffee buttercream filling and a vanilla coating under the fondant. I'm actually glad about that; I liked the coffee flavor a lot.

The back of my cake (I like when the back
is still pretty so that it can be a proper
showpiece) after the chefs cut a slice out of
the bottom tier and then shoved it back in.

There are a few spots in the fondant that got a little stretched in some spots and was slightly bubbly in and I'm a bit bummed that the block of contrasting color mosaics didn't work out in fondant on my cake like it did in marker on my sketch. But overall, I'm really, really happy with how the cake came out. I think I did good work, kept the cake clean looking, and still embraced the wedding theme. Apparently the students that gave us the theme agreed, because they chose my cake as the best in the class!

Fun with Sugar Paste

For our upcoming wedding cake we are allowed to make our sugar paste flowers at home. Since I haven't worked with sugar paste since the two classes we had on making sugar paste flowers a few months ago, I thought I could use some practice. So I bought a set of sugar paste flower cutters (it's a pretty cheap set so the quality isn't great but it works for now) and had fun experimenting with the different types of flowers I now have the cutters for. I also bought a few colors of petal dust (again, not the best quality, but they seem to work well) which I used to make a variety of colors by mixing them with each other and/or with cornstarch to lighten them.

I made a bunch of different flowers:

A Rose:
 I used a different technique than the
 one we learned in class--the results aren't as
good but it took a fraction of the time

A Rose from any other angle:
I like the center few petals, but the petals
in the two outer rows are too loose

A Few Hibiscus-like Flowers:
I like the yellow one with the orange center more than the reverse

A Colorful Daisy Silhouette with a Leaf: 

Yes, I know the leaf is white--I was practicing using the veiner for 

small leaves but I didn't need to practice coloring it, plus I think it

looks kind of cool this way!

A Daisy:
I had a little bit of fun with this pic and my photo editing software,
but I promise it looked almost like this in person, the color was just
slightly more pastel.

A Dogwood Blossom

Quasi-Briar Rose in Two Sizes

An Almost-Lily:
 (this is made with the same technique as the tulips we
made in class, just with different shaped petals and stamen)

A Bunch of Blossoms:
With wires, floral tape, and a bit of patience you can make lovely
clusters of flowers in the same way you wire petals to make a flower

I'm really happy with the results of my practice sessions (these took me quite a while)--tomorrow I'll start on the flowers for the wedding cake.