B is for Bakery and Bee's

Friday must stand for fun, cause that is exactly the kind of day I had. We changed our locale for the day, and headed out for the bakery. We got a quick tour by Robert Min, the bakery manager, before we got started. He explained what each piece of equipment does, and how it is used in the bakery here at UConn. After our tour, I was introduced to Donna. She was one of the bakery employees and was going to be my trainer for the day.

Donna had a couple of things on her agenda for the day. First, she needed to make cupcakes for catering. Donna allowed me to make the yellow cupcakes. I weighed out all of the ingredients, mixed all the ingredients per the recipe (using a commercial sized mixer), and then split the batter into two equal portions. The first bowl was going to be basic yellow cupcakes, and the second bowl was going to be yellow cupcakes with a raspberry filling that we would pipe into the batter before the cupcakes baked. We got all the cupcakes completed, and put them into the rack oven.

Our next project, cake decorating. Let me start off by saying that I have in no way, shape, or form, ever decorated a cake other than the basic home baked cake where you throw some icing on the top and call it good. Ace of Cakes I am not. Needless to say, I was a bit afraid of messing up the cakes, but I pressed on. Donna reassured me that you can't make a mistake that can't be fixed. The cakes had already been baked, we just had to piece them together and make them pretty. Our first cakes were Mississippi Mud Cakes. I weighed out the topping for the cake which consisted of marshmallows, heath candy crunch, and mini chocolate chips. We grabbed the chocolate icing and the fudge icing and got started. I was given a quick tutorial from Donna, and then was with her nearby, I completed my cake. I was pleasantly surprised with my end product. This decorating wasn't as scary as I had thought.

The second type of cake that I was going to decorate was Red Velvet cake. There were five cakes we needed to complete. We grabbed all of the icing and materials needed, and got started. We used white icing and then put coconut on the outside of the cakes. Now for the hard part...piping icing designs. Again, no experience ever from one Miss Gretchen Smiley. Donna showed me the design we were going to be doing, seashells. I think she could see the fear in my eyes, so she showed me again and then had me practice on the counter top until I was comfortable. I got fairly good at the up and flick motion of creating the seashell design, and completed four of the five cake's seashells. All that was left was the finishing touches of toasted coconut over the seashells. Voila, pretty cakes complete! We had a little more time before we were leaving the bakery for the day, so Donna showed the other interns and I how to create roses out of icing. I gave it a go, and surprisingly, mine actually looked like a rose! :)

The other two interns and myself had plans to pick up a bee shipment for the hives, so we said our goodbyes to the bakery for the day. None of us really knew what was in store for us over the next few hours. Before I go into detail, let me just say that if anyone ever has the chance to see bee hives up close, or deliver new bees to a hive I'd highly recommend it. It's quite interesting and exciting (and I'm terrified of bugs)!

We arrived to pick up our bees, and found that the bees were in screened in boxes. Each box, contained their own queen bee. We were picking up eight boxes. We put them in the trunk of the car, and set off to deliver the bees to their new homes. We stopped for a quick lunch, and then arrived at the hives. We were given protective hats that had netting to protect us from the bees. We were shown where the queen bee is stored, how to properly put the queen into her new home, and how to put the new bees into their home as well. We were then shown where the queen lays her eggs (we were told anywhere from 1800 to 2000 eggs were laid a day), and how it looks in the wax frame. We were also shown where the honey is stored within the combs. We were doing this all whilst the bees were buzzing all around us, and not one of us got stung!

We trekked it back to the car, and headed back to McMahon to spend our last hour working on our project. We talked with Tom, one of the chefs, for a while and had a good idea of where we wanted to go with our meal. Brittany and I spent a couple of hours Friday evening hitting the books, the recipe books that is, and I am happy to say that we now have a possible menu for our luncheon. We are meeting with Chef Rob on Tuesday and we will see what he thinks. Hopefully, all systems a go!

Back to the bakery tomorrow, and we were promised that we would get to play with some fondant tomorrow. Pretty excited, this decorating business might not be so bad afterall.

Smiley :)