Saturday, September 25, 2010

My Trip to the Fair: Part 1 - Awesome Crafts

The fair was a month ago and I still haven't gotten around to posting about it! School and work eat up all my time. Most people seem to go to the State Fair for the food; I got for the crafts, fine arts, Eco-Experience, and the ag exhibits. Well, okay....and the food :)

First are some pics below of my favorite crop art pieces. Some of these must take crazy patience! It's hard to remember to take a pic of the name plaque with so many people jostling to see but I've tried to show them when I can. The DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor) party has strong roots in populist left-leaning farm communities so a lot of the crop art leans to the political left. Some of it is just for fun, of course - like the moustaches below :)








Below are some entries in the creative activities building:

An awesome paper cutting; these are becoming a popular craft form again.

A "quilt on a stick". They have a contest each year with a theme. This year was "The MN State bird" - the mosquito. Har har.


Amazing detail on this quilt! Can you read the "Ole & Lena" joke around the side? I can't remember the first part but here's the rest, "Lena says, ' Ole, dat pie I bake for you, the dog ate it.' Ole says, ' Dat's okay, Lena, I'll get anudder dog." Har har.



These topiary horses below were pretty cool. Kind of scary, actually, if they were in a different context.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Cakes from Class

Sorry I haven't had any recipes or projects lately. This is just another quick post of some of the things I've been doing in my class this term.

Above is a Black Forest Torte - cherry filling, chocolate genoise cake, whipped creme frosting, and a cool chocolate mosaic garnish on the sides.


Above is a vanilla genoise with lemon swiss buttercream frosting, filling is lemon and raspberry. We made this for our first practical exam and had to practice piping a shell border.

The one above is a banana cake with milk chocolate ganache frosting and marzipan decorations.

I bet you know what this one is (the marzipan carrots are a clue) - carrot cake with cream cheese frosting!
This last one is a caramel mocha genoise cake with salted caramel cream cheese frosting as the filling. Yum!