Testing my skating skills

As I posted in January I've been working toward taking a couple of skating tests and Wednesday was the day. I took my preliminary skills test first--I was the only one taking this level. From the look of the other girls taking the tests it seemed like mostly older skaters take skills tests (as opposed to the 8 year olds I was on the ice with for the freeskate test). I'm not sure why this is, possibly because the patterns are supposed to be skated to a specific time signature (i.e. waltz-time), which might be too tricky for young kids. Skate Canada introduced the skills tests to replace the compulsory figures, which were last skated at senior level competition in 1990 (at the world championships in Halifax). In terms of comparing this to a piano exam (of which I took several as a child) this is sort of the like the scales and arpeggios part of the exam. I only received 'satisfactory' ratings on the 3-turn and mohawk  patterns, but I received and 'excellent' grade on my circle (or held edge). It's about as good as I could hope for, since I'm not exactly an undiscovered talent or something.

The second test I took was my junior bronze freeskate test (I took my preliminary test in this when I was young). There are two parts to this test. The first part is preforming the skating elements one at a time (i.e. jumps, spins, stroking). I was a bit (or very?) nervous so some of my elements were shaky. I fell on one jump I don't normally (my lutz), and I had trouble with my spins. My spins have always been weaker than my jumps, but I completed enough of my elements (12 out of 14) to receive a pass. I even received a mark of 'good' on several of my elements including my stroking, spiral and salchow-toe-loop combination.

Me in motion, probably about to preform one of my elements.

Preforming my backward spiral. See? Not bad, although I wish my knee was a bit straighter.

The second part of my freeskate test was a 2 minute program. My program started off really well, unfortunately I had a fall on my second last jump--the same jump I had trouble with earlier in the test. I'm not sure why I had so much difficulty with this jump on Wednesday, as lately it's been really strong, but unfortunately that mistake lead to a really bad fall on my very last jump. I was trying to catch up with my music so I rushed through the set up. To make matters worse I fell on my left knee the day before and I'm now still quite stiff and sore. Ultimately I passed, and I even received marks of excellent on the use of music and program composition parts of my program.

Showing off the skating dress my mom made for me. If you look closely you'll notice the pattern is steampunk-style!

This now means that I'm qualified to take the first coaching level course offered by Skate Canada--if I feel I have time (which I'm not sure I do), but I think in the future it would be fun to teach little kids. This also means that if I want to take the next freeskate test I'll have to start landing doubles (in two different types of jumps) and continue to improve my spinning.

Ciao,

Andrea

17:43: Decoration (Judgment) Day: Live Blog

And I pronounce this cake done, but sorry, no pictures of the completed project until after the wedding.

Ciao,

Andrea

16:00: Decoration (Judgment) Day: Live Blog

I've sent the lovely Andrew off to purchase a small package of white fondant. Meanwhile, I've added the flowers/leaves/vines to the cake. Now I just need to finish the top layer and I'm done.

Ciao,

Andrea

15:00: Decoration (Judgment) Day: Live Blog

I've hit my first major snag: I've run out of fondant and still need to cover the last layer. Blech. At least this can be easily fixed. For now I've going to start piping the vine/flowers up the side and will get a small package of fondant later. Also, I've smeared green food colouring into my white shirt. Good thing it's an older shirt. I've finished X-men 2, and I'm now onto Casablanca.

Ciao,

Andrea

13:22: Decoration (Judgment) Day: Live Blog

Whew! Managed to get all 3 layers spread on the cakes. Now it's time to roll out the fondant.

Ciao,

Andrea

12:45: Decoration (Judgment) Day: Live Blog

I have 2 of 3 layers of icing applied and I'm a little concerned that I might not have enough to complete the last layer--we'll see. I've also discovered how invaluable a turn-table stand can be for icing cakes. It's a heck of a lot easier to smooth out the sides when you can just keep the stand rotating. Not quite sure what movie I'll put on next to keep myself entertained in the meantime.

Ciao,

Andrea

11:39: Decoration (Judgment) Day: Live Blog

Cakes carved and coconut filling applied. Now to begin icing them. Three layers of buttercream before the fondant can be added.

Ciao,

Andrea

10:43: Decoration (Judgment) Day: Live Blog

And, I'm back! An hour of skating practice undertaken, and a board for the cake, and a 4 pound tub of fondant purchased. Now to carve the cakes (so that they're all the same size, and even), and add the coconut filling. Ooo, and I'm going to watch Center Stage while I work (haven't watched that in years).

Ciao,

Andrea

8:20: Decoration (Judgment) Day: Live Blog

Second 1/2 batch of buttercream complete and stored in a large Tupperware container. Now to pause for breakfast, then I'm heading over to the U of A to skate for an hour. After skating I have to pick up a tub of rolled fondant from Bulk Barn. So for now, I adjourn the coverage of my cake decorating until approximate 11:00 a.m., when I get back from my outing.

Ciao,

Andrea

7:47: Decoration (Judgment) Day: Live Blog

Crisis averted, and first 1/2 batch of buttercream icing completed. Initially I forgot to add the sugar to the egg whites while warming on them stove, and yes, I have made this particular recipe more than once. I'd whipped the whites up to stiff peaks by the time I realized my error. Thankfully, reheating the white with the sugar does not seemed to have had any negative affects on the icing. On to the second 1/2 batch (1/2 batches are all my poor little hand mixer can handle).

Ciao,

Andrea

7:12: Decoration (Judgment) Day: Live Blog

I like to live dangerously by separating my eggs directly over the measuring cup. Thankfully, no yolk in the first batch of swiss meringue buttercream icing. Egg whites are warming, and the first cup of coffee's ready to be poured.

Ciao,

Andrea

7:00: Decoration (Judgment) Day: Live Blog

It seems my body is set to a certain wake up time during the week--I'd only set my alarm to go off now. Oh well, it gives me a bit of extra time to get dressed and set the coffee going before I start the first cake-related task of the day. Time to pull the cakes out of the freezer. I'll let them thaw for a little while before I set to work on them. In the meantime I've got to whip up a batch of buttercream icing.

Ciao,

Andrea

Cake-central at the Milne appartment

I worked on my second wedding cake this weekend--primarily the baking part. I'm a little nervous about this cake since this one's not for family and I'm getting paid for it--therefore it really needs to look good. I made a test cake back in December? January? for the bride to taste and see if she liked the flavour. I'd been asked to make a coconut cake, which I just happened to have a recipe for. The cake was given bride-approval. On Friday night I baked the top two layers of the cake (10 inches and 12 inches respectively), then on Saturday morning I finished off the bottom two (14 inches and 16 inches), plus an additional small layer (8 inches) since I had enough ingredients left to do one more half batch.

One of the biggest challenges this time around is that I only have my tiny apartment kitchen to work in. Back in October, I had my parent's giant kitchen, their huge (and much newer stove), plus my mom's industrial strength mixer. My oven is inconsistent at best (and so burning the cake was a concern), and I only have my trusty old hand-mixer to whip together the batter. To my great relief everything worked smoothly. I had to mix up 6 single batches of the cake batter as my equipment couldn't handle more than one at a time, and by carefully monitoring my oven and rotating pans I was able to avoid a charcoal catastrophe. The whole process took around five hours. Now all the cake layers are wrapped in plastic and taking up almost all of the space in my freezer until this Friday when I'll complete the cake.

All the ingredients I required for baking the cake.

The largest cake pan filled with batter.

My trusty mixer, plowing through a batch of batter--this was toward the end of the process where I'm adding in the egg whites.

The freezer filled with 5 layers of coconut cake. I'm sure I could figure out how many square inches of cake that is, but I don't remember all the mathmatical formulas to make the calculation.

Then on Sunday, in an effort to make my life easier come Decoration Day (possibly also judgment day?), I piped out around 3 dozen icing flowers. I used royal icing for this so there won't be any chance of the flowers going droopy on the Wedding Day, and coloured them a dark purple (with a little white to liven them up). I opted to make 'sweet pea' blossoms as they seemed relatively easy, and used instructions from an old (1970s) Wilton book my mom gave me at Christmas. It took less time than I would have expected to pipe the flowers taking me only around an hour (while watching Jane Eyre on YouTube).

Me piping a flower using my flower nail. By this time my icing was getting a touch soft from the heat of my hand, but everything still worked all right.

The spoils of my hour.

Finally, a few things I learned this time around:

1) Alberta Bulk Barns do not rent their large cake pans (even though they do in Ontario). I am now the proud owner of a set of four circular Wilton cake pans.

2) Cake Release is SO worth it. Each cake layer just slid out with next to no effort besides loosening the cake a little on the sides.

3) It's probably not a good idea to look at Cake Wrecks when you're a little nervous about the icing flowers you piped, either on Sunday when amazing cakes are featured, nor the rest of the time when the cakes are terrible.

Ciao,

Andrea