Stupendous Senior Year?

The Book says 'Russian Language'

      School has begun here in Arizona as of August 1, 2013! Early compared to other states! The beginning of my Senior year. So much to do and so little time. Junior year came and went as quick as a rabbit when he see's my grandfather with a BB gun (He's the protector of the garden). This is the end of one part of my life, a very long four year part that is! Everyone has questions for me. Where am I going after this, What do I plan on doing, Do I have any unusual possibly unstable plans or dreams? As a child I always wrote down that I wanted to be a Defense lawyer for animals. That was my plan from Kindergarten to my Freshman year. Now I have no idea. Over the past four years I have learned more about myself than I thought I would. I discovered my love of languages, love of teaching and my love of baking as well as talent. I've entered baking competitions and read poems to the head of the near by College's Slavic Languages Department. What am I to do.

     Wouldn't it be great if I could combine them? A Russian bakery. A pastry chef while being a translator on the side. A Russian bakery in the U.S.? A teacher of languages while baking on the side? There is so much I can and could do it blows my mind. Now I must apply for scholarships and answer a million and one questions still with the same ole' answer. It splits me in two to choose one, the other or the other. All I can say is that I know I have a good future ahead of me and we'll wait and see. I get tons of college questions. Where, When, Why, Major and Minor. Same answer! I'll be sure to let EVERYONE know when I decide! 


      So far it seems that my Senior Year will be filled with questions, comments and concerns. I think I'll be looking into a comment box this year! In the mean time stay tuned in for more information on this gal's stupendous Senior year!
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Fantabulous Fair?

     I'm sure we all know that well, fried foods and the fair go together! They go together better than cake and me! Mmmm! Well yesterday I took a trip on down to our yearly fair with my friend! This was the first year that I had gone without my parents! After a more than needed amount of planning my friend and I drove off to the fair grounds! I love the road to the fair grounds! It's wavy and just amazing, now the one thing I don't like, is, CONSTRUCTION! The signs say go 40 mph through it, no. I'm afraid that whoever is behind me will be going slower today. 
     
     Thankfully my lovely culinary arts teacher let her and I leave 15 minutes early, which gave us time to find some foods to sneak in! Needless to say, 20 minutes later we were on our way to the fair with food and packed ready to go. My plan was correct when we arrived because there was NO ONE in line for the fair yet! I despise the long line of cars to get in! We parked in the first row and after spending $33 we had our admission tickets and wristbands! Woo!

      After arriving we discovered that the rides didn't open til 3pm! We were there at 1:15pm. So we had just enough time to tour all the halls, buy a few things, scope out the good rides. Then sit in line for 20 minutes and complain about the never ending heat and dust of the Arizona Fair! You think with a line they would open maybe five minutes early. Nope. They opened the rides at EXACTLY 3pm. We had til 8pm to have fun and arrive home. We went crazy on all the rides for about 3 1/2 hours til my friend (Who had eaten bad food the day earlier) could no longer stand it. Then we spent the next hour being lazy and watching some odd acrobatic show and getting ice cream! Woo! We played a few games, won some toys and in the end had a great time!

     As we were leaving I bought some wood roses ($1 a piece, but the guy let me buy 3 for $2.50!), I picked up some kettle corn for my grandfather (great present), and continued homeward. My family has always given away our wristbands afterwards, so I continued onwards with the tradition. I ended up offering a lady my wristband and she looked at me like I was trying to sell her drugs! BAM free $30! Why not take it. Blah! So I gave it to another girl who just about worshiped me afterwards and onwards we were! 

     So in the end! Go to the fair! All of you! It's fantabulous! Look for the cheapest day (wristbands, discounted admission) and enjoy! I brought 80$ and left with no money, but some great pictures and an amazing time (also covered in dirt)! So stay tuned for more terrific tales brought to by this glamorous gal!

    

As the Cake Flour Settles...

      As the cake flour settles and the floors are mopped, it has come to this...The end! It is over! The catering event has now passed. It took a week to prepare the lovely cakes, and it was all over in two nights! Everything was gone in two nights! I had been looking forward to the catering event for three weeks for it to come and go as fast as my cakes (My cakes disappeared pretty fast)! We made lists of who was where and who was doing what. The tables were decorated and made beauteous. Tea was prepared, Uniforms were inspected, Hair was tied up and ingredients counted.

      Before the catering event I mixed up two different types of cake. I created a chocolate cake and a yellow cake (from scratch) then my friend and I mixed a vanilla butter cream with a hint of orange icing for the yellow cake and a chocolate butter cream for the chocolate cake both had an apricot glaze (magnificent)! We then created some amazing thought up question mark cookies to celebrate the murder mystery production out of shortbread with a hint of lemon! Then we coated them with either cocoa powder or powdered sugar!

      We had around 11 people catering both nights! The second night was easier to go through and I wasn't nearly as sore. When I got home the first night and sat on my bed, Immediately I thought 'Where'd my legs go?'. We had a staff of four as the waiters! My three fantabulous and friends and I! It was pretty great! The food was said to be amazing and one lady remarked that her baby loved my chocolate cake! Well all in all, It was fantastic! Everyone worked great and take this tip! When working with chocolate watch your sleeves!

Baking, Baking, and Wait..More Baking!

These uniforms get incredibly hot!

      Now the title is quite the understatement of my day. My day was spent fighting with a very large old angry mixer that does not enjoy my company! As lunch rounded the corner this morning the only thought that came to my mind was, Oh my goodness, baking. I then spent the next several hours on my feet and baking multiple cakes. I've never had to weigh out 7lbs of sugar, let alone 3lbs of eggs. That's a lot of eggs, a crazy amount. Then I discovered that an egg without the shell weighs about 1.1oz. Interesting right?
     
     I have to say, I dislike the large mixer VERY much. This mixer, hates me. I know that an inanimate object cannot hate you, but I swear it does. A while back while mixing a large batch of pizza dough it broke and from then on after it was fixed, it was out to get me.  So after mixing pounds and pounds of dry ingredients and moist ingredients, I managed to bake around 5 cakes from each batch, 5 HUGE cakes. So now we have quite the abundance of cake for this lovely catering event! We are stacking two together to make a two layer cake and tomorrow I am working on some fantastic frosting! We're doing a butter cream frosting for the vanilla cakes and a moose frosting for the chocolate cakes! I swear I could just gain weight by making it!

     Considering I am unable to be boring, not even for five seconds in life. I had to think of something cute to put on every slice of cake for the theater production which we are catering. So we're going to pipe cute question marks on every piece of cake because it's a murder mystery! Ha! Get it Mystery..Question Mark! It's going to be adorable! I'm so excited but oh goodness am I exhausted. Well onward with laundry! I need to finish it, everything I own was drenched in cake batter and everything that goes with it! So stay tuned for more Baking Bonanza!

The Interesting World Of Baking!

     I am quite the baking fanatic and I have to say, I just love it! I just bake all the time, whenever it hits me. I will spend hours and hours doing it. I don't need a reason to do it either, which causes other people to ask me why? Well I love it!  You can make art out of food and change it's colors as well! I am a lover of food-dye (Food gel is tons better!)! I've made rainbow sugar cookies, rainbow cakes, colored cupcakes, purple cake (my brothers birthday), well everything. The look on peoples faces when they see it too, is quite amusing! They look at it and it's like "Why's my cupcake blue?" This is especially a great idea for birthday parties, or parties in general. It makes it interesting, and not to mention little kids love the colors!

This is a cake my friend and I entered in a competition!

     Now with the cakes! There is an endless amount of things that can be done with a cake. There are yule logs/ roll cakes (Easy to make), Bunt cakes, heart cakes, tier cakes, They even have tons off odd cake molds in silicon formations, it goes on! I am a HUGE lover of ties cakes. A while back my grandmother bought me a lovely cake decoration kit and I received a huge cookie cutter set (Put me right in heaven)! I can't even tell you the things that I have been able to accomplish with these fantastic items! It's great!

     This week, I have a catering event and it's over two days. Since I am the head baker I get to start the designs on these 2 sheet cakes, I'll post pictures I promise! If you haven't experienced all the crazy things you can do with cake go try it all out! Where I get some really cool things, is the Good Will! They have tons of cool baking things and cook books! So keep warming up to this Gal and pop in later for more ideas!

Frosting Friday!

     Friday is literally RIGHT around the corner and guess what I suddenly made? 48 delectable cupcakes. Took a good three hours but their done, frosted, sprinkled and cuddled with love! Considering how much I love to bake, I don't have a taste for sweets. So onwards about these cakes in a cup form. I made 24 chocolate ones, and 24 strawberry ones. I took fantastic milk chocolate frosting (The best) and pretty good strawberry frosting and did them on a 24:24 ratio so their all mixed. I recently received this odd frosting dispenser that you can do designs with so I decided to finally break it out. I gotta say, it was really cool! I made a bunch of picnic designs on the cupcakes and fancy swirls. I love em! I actually have a real cake decorating set, but I'm busting it out on my brothers birthday!

     Now I faced a very large problem! Tomorrow (Friday) I want to take my lovely baked goods to school, as usual. So I went to the dollar store and bought four containers with lids on them and placed all my cupcakes inside. How am I supposed to carry these all the school? All four containers. No idea. I can't do it! So my grandmother helped me find one of those fabric bags and we managed to get three containers inside and I only have to carry one now! Woo! So stay tuned for more tantalizing tales from the talkative gal Ashley!

My Three Things.

     Currently in my little brothers school he is doing a project. He has to get three things that are the most important to him, put em in a box and write why they are important to him. Now I never really gave it much thought on what would be most important to me. I didn't realize how many things that we do on a daily basis that mean almost nothing to us. We wake up in the morning, get ready for school or work, maybe fill the car with gas, go to school or work, come home watch television or be on the computer and then what? Not much really. There are so many things that everyone does on a daily basis and if it came down to you only being able to keep three things, what would they be? Only three. No more, no less. Would you choose your car? Your journal? Your phone? That photo album that doesn't get looked at much or is still being put together? 

     
I've thought about this throughout the day and I can't even fathom what I would take. I mean, I would keep all my memories, but that's not a choice. Other than that I can't really say. I can't take my family, nor my friends. I don't need any fancy clothes, or a phone, let alone a vehicle (Of course if I didn't require it). So I have no idea. But one thing that I do know, is that now I see everything people take advantage of. They take advantage of their families, their friends, their cars, money, everything. So some of the only advice I can offer on this subject is be grateful for what you have. Don't keep fighting with that one family member, or friend. Don't be using someone or using anything wastefully, because one day you might not have it. Praise what you have and help those who you can, because in the end you might need them so don't lose them! I hope ya'll have some inspiring ideas so I'll leave you with a little question. What are you grateful for?