Green Cuisine Judging

Today I was judged an amazing event. The Fairfield Garden's Green Cuisine Competition. The event pushed high school students to create transform their typical gross, and unhealthy school lunches into not only nutritious, good for you meals, but also vegetarian or vegan. They had a budget of four dollars a meal, and i had to include a drink, main item, and side. These kids came up with some amazing dishes. I loved the vegan peanut butter cookies, that was my favorite item of the entire day, but because it had "peanuts" in it, it could not place. These stay at home moms said it could get kids sick. I say, if you are allergic, then don't eat one. It was kind of weird to be looked at as an adult, but I guess I have to get used to it. It was nice being the youngest judge there, by a lot...I'm sure it made them think i was a bad@$$...or pain in the @$$

Flamenco Pastillage Sculpture

There were three challenges. Either redo one of two already designed pieces, or create an original Music themed showpiece. I based it off of this image.













I wanted to reach into my spanish origins and do a Flamenco themed piece. The woman is made out of pastillage, as well as her guitar. Her face is hand painted, and her dress was airbrushed. Her hairband, fan, dress, clackers and flowers are made out of Isomalt. I learned a very good lesson in the drying time of pastillage and proper structure, because she danced for just enough to be judged and then she was finished. She will always be remembered. :b

Sugar Showpiece

Was given the task of making an aquatic themed sugar showpiece. I had a make of 15 hours for everything. I finished in 13. I did an homage to the Tampa sea life that included a dolphin, sea turtles, devil ray, and horseshoe crabs. I mostly made the piece out of isomalt since the humidity of Miami would have killed all my delicate pieces. I only used sugar for the base since it would be thick enough to not be effected. I made the sand out of brown and sanding sugar, as well as white and black sesame seeds with a little bit of cinnamon and course nutmeg...it smelled so good.

The column represent the saltwater, with the blue curls to represent the waves. I added sea grasses and corals as fillers, and made rocky coral out of hot isomalt and royal icing. Then I added color using an airbrush.

Mother Swan Pastillage Showpiece

This piece was made out of pastillage, a powdered sugar dough similar to gumpaste, pulled and blown sugar. It is my abstract interpretation of even when the young stray, the mother always has her eyes on them.

Practical Entremet

Snickers flavored. consisted of caramel cream, peanut nougat, sugar roasted peanuts, chocolate cake, caramel sauce, and chocolate jaconde...topped with chocolate top to represent the crunch of the chocolate coating and garnished with handmade chocolate flower, ball, and ring, and some roasted peanuts

Raspberry Bavarian Entremet

Pink heart jaconde surrounds layers of raspberry bavarian cream, vanilla cake, raspberry gelle and raspberry simple syrup. Topped with a raspberry glaze and hand made white chocolate flower

Final Practical Plate

Plated Desserts Practical Dessert - Chocolate mint mousse served in a chocolate cup, served with mango chipotle sorbet, smokey tuile cookie and rasperry and mango sauce

Chocolate Mousse Plate

Chocolate mousse garnished with mocha cream and an edible butterfly, served with strawberry sorbet

Cheesecake plate

Lemon cheesecake with cinnamon cream and cornacopia of fresh fruit, served with strawberry balsamic sauce, yum yum yum

Bavarian Cream Dessert

Vanilla and Strawberry Bavarian Cream, topped with fresh fruit and served with a strawberry Passionfruit Sorbet in a hand made chocolate cup

Flower cake

Decorated with a spray of roses with a marbelized border and hand painted script

Art Cake

This is a cake I have had roaming around in my head for over a year. It was inspried by an idea of having a hole/space in the middle of a cake. Then i thought of having something floating in the space. From that, i thought, "why not a mobile?" and from there, my trip to the MOMA inspired most of the rest. This cake took over 30 hours to make. Van Gogh, Pollock, Mondrian, Warhol, Calder, Britto, and DaVinci are all represented, see if you can tell where :)

Praline Crunch and Ganache Cake

Video Application

Check out my new youtube channel, has my new video application up.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MikeAnthony0917

This was the first realistic multi-tiered cake. It was for my sister's 21st birthday, and had a Hollywood theme. She wants to make it in the film/theatre business, so I covered it full circle.

Steak Cake

This cake provided me the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. My friend Erin was having a birthday, but was also starting her first job. So I made her a cake steak and logo.

Fathers Day Cake

This is one of my earlier cakes. My dad is defiantly a Carnivore, so I made him a huge, and messy, Hamburger cake.

Money Money Money

This was the first cake I was actually paid to make. The little girl loved High School Musical, so I drew up a plan that they approved of, and put it into action with this awesome cake.

Prom Cake

This was the best way I could think of to invite my date to the Arabian Nights Themed Prom. I slipped the invitation under the fondant sash. She said yes.

My First Fondant Cake

This was the first Cake I ever made using fondant. It was my girlfriend's, her mom's and her sister's birthday around the same time, so I gave them each a tier of their favorite cake.

Beer Pong Cake

A great friend of mine was having a huge Beer tournament for her birthday party, so I felt the best way to celebrate that would be to give her an equally awesome birthday cake. With the assistance of my friend Kelli, we made disposable red cups, made detailed cards, a beer can, and even a tiny sharpie.