For my final in my Baking & Pastry III class, we had to do a “mystery basket” kind of thing – basically we had to incorporate cake, fruit and a sauce into a dessert.  One of my immediate thoughts (after a recent episode of “Cupcake Wars”), was to do a deconstructed drink (either that or a red velvet cake).

I thought through my dessert a lot, and after my first day of my final, I had to start over on my cake – I tried to make my first cake strawberry red, and it ended up being a kind of day-glo red/pink.  Very non-appetizing.  But once I remade the cake, the dessert came together perfectly. Continue reading →