Who else thinks America is devoid of any type of originality, creativity or whatever. Why must Hollywood REMAKE Asian films. They say imitation is the best flattery, why not just get the rights and import the film?! I rant because my mom showed me The Lake House, and it’s a direct redo of one of my favorite Korean movies ”Il Mare.”

I wonder how Hollywood will mess this one up. OH, they already have! Keanu? Anyone see the ”Matrix”? ”Whoa!” What about ”Bill and Ted…” ”Whoa” I can even remember a commercial for a cable airing of the ”Matrix” where they cut pieces of where he was talking to the Oracle and it made him sound completely… brain deficient. The guy just can’t act…

I’m sorry, but I feel this is an insult to the original ”Il Mare.” Why must America pick up Asian (any of them) movies and redo them. Get the rights to the original subtitle (yes, subtitle. I hate listening to the crappy English voice acting) it and send it to the theaters. Don’t change/add anything. If America doesn’t like it, oh well, you didn’t pay multiple millions of dollars for high priced Hollywood stars and you just reaffirm that America is stupid when it comes to GOOD movies. Hollywood with the ”blow it up it’ll sell” attitude, it’s no surprise.

My opinion, go pick up Il Mare. If nothing else, during the movie you won’t think of a speeding bus or ”Whoa”. Stop making American versions of GREAT Asian films and get some creativity.

…END RANT…

Holy shit! I’ve been sending everyone this video of Dat Phan, a pretty funny Vietnamese comedian who was first found in ”Last Comic Standing.” And I just saw him in the movie ”Cellular.” I’m thinking holy crap, WTF.

Here’s a Black Forest Cake, sans the traditional cherries… I was a little bored so I kept adding decorations. I didn’t want to make it too busy on top. mmm

Here’s a great well known cake. It’s a carrot cake, as the title implies, it contains carrots. The usual cream cheese filling, it’s topped with a thin layer of butter cream and marzipan then a marzipan carrot is placed on top. Ain’t it cute?

Yes, more cakes. Where to start?…

Below is some kinda dobos layer cake, with layers of dobos, chocolate butter cream, and a caramel top.

Below is the Sweedish Chocolate Cake. I was absent for this cake so there isn’t much I can tell you about this cake. But it’s damn good. I will be making this for one of my final projects.

This one is a Lemon Honey Cake with raspberries and Italian meringue. Lots of people like this one because it’s hard to mess up so it’s really moist and stays moist.

This is the Swiss Kirsch Cake, which has kirschwasserin it. It’s like a cherry liqueur, brandy to be specific. Take a Japonaise meringue, add a chiffon sponge, add a crap load of red colored kirshwasser flavored buttercream and you get the Swiss Kirsch Cake. This is topped with a short dough cookie with marzipan cherries and piped chocolate stems.

A funny little story about the Boston cream pie. It’s not a pie, but a cake.

So, I don’t even know why it exists (well I do, but it’s kinda dumb), but May fourth is Star Wars Day. Because someone coined, ”May the Fourth be with you.” it was close to ”May the Force be with you.” But, WHY? I mean it’d be cool if it was the release date for ANY of the Star Wars series. But everyone knows the Original Star Wars was released May 25th. Whatever, happy Star Wars Day.

So, standing in the shade for about a half an hour, Giada gave a quick Q&A. Quickly after my brother and I rushed over to the end of the LOOOOOOONG line for her book signing. We stood in the hot sun for about 3 hours. But, it was great to finally see her face to face. I was really bummed that they didn’t allow pictures to be taken this time. =( I’ll go see her next time… Wait, I’m tempted to do to San Francisco and see her again! jk… Darn I was really hoping to get a picture with her. Oh well, there’s always next time. YAY!

So, I find out I’m not too great with piping buttercream, so perhaps traditional wedding cakes will not be one of my main focuses, fondant topped wedding cakes maybe… We’ll see how I do in the wedding cake section. Now is the regular cake section. Let’s see how I did… So, I’m not so good with buttercream, but piping chocolate figurines is another matter. Ok, so maybe I’m good tracing with piping chocolate, I will probably suck at freehand, heh.

Not bad if I may say so myself. Which is a good thing since I had to use my l337 piping skills for my next project.

This is a Sacher Torte made with a Sacher buscuit chocolate and apricot glazes and, yes, the S on the top stands for Sacher. A cute story, brought this cake to Caffe Adria where I frequent (and where my brother works) and gave it to one of the girls there (don’t you wish you lived closer to me? then YOU’d be getting all my goods) and she says, ”’S’ for Sarah?!” I wasn’t sure what to say but I politely said ”yes er no”. HA. As you can see S is for Sacher, but I put my own name on one of my pieces. Another funny thing I did was put my first initial on one of the pieces. Shortly after, I realized I spelled ASS on my cake and had to do our line up of all of our pieces for Chef. As he looked at our cakes he reached my table and I just looked at Dylan and just laughed with her as he looked at my cake pieces. Luckily for me, I don’t think he noticed.

Above is the Diplomat Cake, a nice cake with pastry cream, fruit jam, and topped with macaroon paste flower petal looking designs. These petals are filled with thinly sliced fruit. Yum!

Next is, simply, a caramel cake. A great tasting chocolate almond sponge mixed with a yellow cake, filled with a caramel mousse, and it has a short dough cookie bottom. The real trick to this cake is getting enough color from the caramel but without burning it or getting it too bitter.

Above is a Poppy Seed Layer Cake, in between the layers is a layer of whipped cream and thinly sliced strawberries. Unfortunately, the cake is only good the same day as it had died and became too dry by Sunday.

So, I’m a little said because my last section is over. It’s one of the sections I had a great time with. Although, I believe there’s an Advanced Plating section where I can shine HA. So, now I give you the past few days:

Above is a Chocolate Mint Torte with a Golden Touch. It’s a nice chocolate mint sponge with a chocolate glaze with a thin, thin film of gold. Yes, gold, or it wouldn’t be called ”Golden Touch” LOL. Something happened and somehow it was kinda dry. But damn doesn’t it look great HA.

So, above is a Princess Cake, which marks my first cake with a layer of marzipan on top. This cake is a yellow sponge cut in three layers, bottom layer coated with cake syrup and strawberry jam, middle layer coated with cake syrup and bavarian cream, and the top layer is coated with cake syrup and whipped cream then the whole thing is layered with green tinted marzipan. The funny thing is, NO ONE can explain why the Princess Cake is traditionally topped with tinted green marzipan… NO, those are NOT my hands LOL…

This exercise of rolling out the marzipan spawned my want to play with marzipan in class. My partner, Roxi, started by showing me how to start a rose, but then she rolled it into a ball, and I looked at her with my mouth open and she was like, ”what?” She didn’t know I wanted it, I was so sad LOL. So before I left class, she left before me and she left a little green rose on my area, Hehe. (we had leftover green marzipan) So, I went home and played with marzipan. I actually made some… decent roses.

Ok I’m gonna start today with a little fun pic I thought I’d like to share with everyone. We’re a really tight bunch, and despite getting everything done and looking really great, we to let loose a little… OK maybe we let loose A LOT. Here’s me with a big mouthful of buttercream, well not really…

Above are my plated Tropical Mousse Cakes. Yummy!!! On top is a kiwi gelatin, then under is a layer of kiwi/orange ”tropical” juice, then a layer of chocolate almond sponge, repeat. Surprisingly light on the tongue, and has a blast of tart flavor.

I cut off the isomalt sugar decorations because you’ve probably seen them before, but these are my cr