Pastry shop gingerbread house

Merry Christmas!

I hope you had a nice year in 2019, mine was quite eventful, I didn't have time to bake a lot, or explore new recipes as I was studying graphic design besides working, and doing my driving license. :) 

But for Christmas, I can not resist, I am baking a LOT! :D

I started of course with gingerbread cookies, and my tradition to bake a gingerbread house for Hungary's biggest gingerbread village in Budapest. It is a free exchibition, held in the Bálna shopping mall, and volunteers like me bake the houses. Each year it is getting bigger, many families bake, and besides the adorable houses, famous and creative buildings are built as well, like the Big Ben, our Chain Bridge, Star Wars space ships, or in 2016 I baked the Gru's house. (Check previous years' review posts here) It will be open in January untill the end of February.

So, this year I baked a pastry shop with many happy customers. :) 

The recipe was the same I used in all of my previous gingerbread cookies recipes.

Let's see the steps, and the final photos below!

Baking our wedding cake ♥

Hello Friends! 

The most beautiful day in my life (so far) was in June, we got married with the love of my life.

I was so excited, I wanted to do nearly everything by myself, the decor, the organizing, and yes... The cake! Now I wouldn't suggest it to any brides to bake their own wedding cake, as the days before the big day are already stressful enough, but it was so nice that I could tell to our guests, that I BAKED IT! 

The cake itself was a 4 layered cake, each layer with different tastes. And I baked a separate gluten-free cake, about 50 muffins for the dessert table and 160 heart shaped gingerbread as Thank you gifts.

Yes, I know, I am weird to do all this, but I loved baking them. The most stressful part of this was the way to the venue, as we had to deliver all this with our car, with the rest of the decoration and wedding dress. Fortunately, we could divide all these in two cars. 

So, In this post I will show you more details how I baked this huge cake, and the rest of the sweets. (And some insight into our wedding)

Hey, I became a pastry cook! A confectioner!

Hello Guys! :)

Finally my confectioner school ended, I passed the final baking exam, and now I have my pastry cook degree in my hands! :D

In this post I am writing about the exam, which was nearly 10 hours long. 

We knew that it would be a tough day, and it really was...

My pastry exam

Hi Dears,

It's only a small post about my baking exam I had this week.

Visiting the SÜTI. Home-made-style cakes, shop & manufactury

Hi Dears, 

It's time to introduce a really nice little Cake Shop & manufacture the SÜTI.  

I have visited it yesterday, and tried one of it's cakes...

Wedding Cupcakes with decorated cookies

Hello Dears, 

Last weekend, we were at a beautiful wedding ceremony, and party! 

(It was my second time to attend to one, and this time I was one of the bridesmaids, too! :) ) 

So as I am a pastry cook to be, what else could have been my gift, than some kind of desserts? 

The main color theme of the wedding was green with orange, that's why I've chosen the green cupcake liners, and even the cupcakes top were covered with green frosting.

Visiting the Ice cream Exhibition

Hello! 

Spring is finally here, that means ice cream season starts as well. :) 

And to start it in a glamorous way the biggest ice cream exhibition was held for 3 days in Budapest. 

As a confectioner trainee I felt it's my duty to be there.

(And let's face it who wouldn't have gone to taste the new ice cream creations of the year? :D )  So I visited it with my fiancé. 

I brought You my little review of the event and more than 30 tasteful pictures of it! 

Confectionery studies - 13-14th week

Hello! 

Long time, no see, right?

But I try to navigate you in my past few weeks of pastry chef studies. We learnt so many goodies... As I didn't write about the last 4 or 5 ? courses, now I combine two lessons, which were quite similar to each other. 

4 pastries with 1 dough

Hello Guys! 

Today I will show a fabulous, multifunctional dough, that we can use for dozens of pastries. Both for sweet and salty. 

And what's even better, this is the original recipe that most of the pastry shops use as well. I learnt it in the confectioner school, and the professional name is the"Blundel- dough " 

( You can read more about it in this post where I wrote about that course. )

The pastries that I show here are the mini versions of the original recipes, as I thought these are more edible in small sizes if you are serving them for guests. 

My boyfriend was amazed how quick I could present 4 really different pastries which tasted so good, and they looked nice as well.

 Finally, I could feel proud. :D (You know it's still hard to compete with his mother and grandmother in baking projects... I can thank this to my confectionery studies. :) ) 

Confectionery studies - 12th week

Hello! 

Do You know the little ball or cube shaped, creamy layered little cakes, that are covered with colorful fondant? These are the mignons...

I have two different stories of their history. One of them is due to a famous Hungarian Confectioner of all time, Mr. Kugler invented it, and called them Mignons, as it means My Little Darling in French. Firstly, it was called Kuglers as the inventor, but now they are Mignons.

The other story is coming from France, from Mr. Mignot who placed poems in the middle of the sweet creation, which made it even more expensive.

Nowadays, you can find these in all of the confectioneries in Hungary (without poems) and they cost a little bit less than a cake slice, because of course the size is much smaller.

The funny thing, that you can't really find the recipe of these on the Net, because if you type it in, only the Gru's Minions are coming up. :D 

So let's see what beauties we had created that week...

Starting my confectioner (trainee) life

I mentioned it before, but I thought I should write more about this milestone in my life... 

I started my internship in one of the best confectionery / café in Budapest as a confectioner trainee.  

It's not really what I thought it would be...

Well, what everybody thinks of working in a pastry shop?

• plump ladies and podgy men with mustache are preparing beautiful cakes and muffins while they are singing yodels
• or at least there is a granny from Little Red Riding Hood who knows all of the recipes of the famous café by heart who is the head confectioner
• creating cakes is fun and needs lots of creativity
• confectioners have enough time to decorate the cakes, that's why they are so beautiful
• they eat, or at least they taste all the time, so that's a heavenly job

And what's the truth?

Confectionery studies - 9th week

Dear Readers,

Sorry for not posting lately, but as I am working now in a real confectionery I am more and more busier as time is getting closer to Christmas. We have sooo many orders, like last week we baked for a 6000 members event, which means thousands kilograms of cakes and savory scones to prepare.

But at school we continued our studies as well, on the 8th week (unfortunately I left my cell at home, so no pictures) but we learnt the basic sponge cake recipes.

That means, that the next week we started the real cake factory duties. :)  

So I brought many-many tasty and beautiful cakes this time! 

Isler

Hi Guys! :) 

I brought You, a nice recipe today, that is one of my favorite.

It was even more special as I baked it for my loved Fiancé's birthday. ♥

We usually celebrate on the weekends with the family with the actual birthday cake, but what happens if the Big Day is on a weekday? I just had to bake something for him, right? :D 

Plus, I have news for You! I am working in a real café & confectionery now as a trainee. I baked these before that,3 weeks ago and now (as I dipped more than 1000 little islers into chocolate I found mine really unprofessional, but still they were super tasty!)  Next time I bake it, I will bring more photos to change these. :D 

Confectionery studies - 7th week

Hello! :)

Last week we studied a bunch of Puff pastries. It means, that the pastries has many layers when they baked. We can reach that, if we use folding Technics, and two different dough.

The main ingredients for the dough (in portions): 1 flour, 1 butter, 0.5 water, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp vinegar.

Beigli

Hello Dears, 

I brought You a real Christmas treat, the walnut Beiglis, that is one of the most popular dessert here, in Hungary  in winter. 

The dough and the stuffing is the same as the Walnut crescents, the "Pozsonyi kifli" dough, just the way of rolling is different.

Let's see how...

Confectionery studies - 6th week

Hello! :)

Last week we had a little "break" at school, as we didn't baked anything.

We had our first drawing lesson. We used melted dark chocolate for that. :)

Confectionery studies - 5th week

Hi Dears, 

Last week, it was a really busy course in school.

At the same time we learnt 6 different pastries to bake.

It can be tough to look each groups, while we are baking our own pastry in our group. Usually that's why I bake at home something else to learn at least 2 of them properly. :) 

This time we have baked mostly mid-morning, or afternoon pastries.

Come and check them out!

Confectionery studies - 1. week

Hi Dears! :)

I am SO super excited, to announce that my Confectionery studies began this week! :D

I decided, that I would keep You updated in the blog as well, in a regular, weekly post, and if I manage, with photos as well. :)

For those, who don't know about me much, I already have a Bsc./BA degree certificate as an Economist specialized in Catering and Hotel management. 

But now I'm started a 1 year long course, which will give me a prof. confectioner degree as well, at the end. This certificate will allow me to start my own confectionery sometime if I will be able to do it ... :D

 And the most important part, with this school, I will develop my baking skills on a higher level! :)

So, let's start with the first week...