graduation weekend

hello world!

I just graduated from pastry school last week! sigh of relief. I'm glad to be done with school and ready to start working in the real world like an adult. Graduation was fun (perhaps due to the 2 glasses of prosecco I had before the ceremony) and I got a nice recognition for having the best average of the major projects we had to complete during our course of study (the chocolate showpiece, the menu project which I'll talk about later, the pastillage showpiece and the wedding cake) I don't have pictures from the graduation since my cousin was taking pictures with her camera and I haven't gotten them yet, but I do have pictures of my final showpiece. The theme was "The year I was born" and I chose to do it on IBM PC Compatible, which was introduced to the public that year. The guy sitting on the stool is John Akers, president and CEO of IBM at the time. Here are some pictures.

meet jeff

final piece: I had to make a quiche lorraine, an opera cake, espresso bonbons and an cinnamon-nut-raisin danish (not pictured). Jeff is sitting on the left, holding a microphone and the computer is on the right, under the spotlights.

After graduation, my cousins and former roommate and I got drinks and tapas and headed for a cool art opening, dinner and after party for Damian Ortega, an awesome artist who's exhibition is currently at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery in NYC (21st street). The afterparty was at a beautiful spot called Bongo West. Friendly staff, beautiful and spacious rooms, comfortable lounge chairs (great for a party!) and we danced the night away....


the weekend was beautiful and relaxing..... cleaning on Saturday and Sunday Brunch at 10 Downing, the food was delicious, as always.

jackson in my uniform

maxwell being sneaky

and..... hug!

how could it be any more perfect?

good times. having fun.

It was a long and productive weekend! As mentioned in the last post, my roommate, talented artist LAN TUAZON, had her show opening at Socrates Sculpture Park in a show called the "Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition" which is up and open to the public (FREE ADMISSION) until March 7, 2010. It was an absolutely beautiful day, a great turnout and the day was filled with dogs, kids, artists, and lots of ice cream. Here are some pictures of the work, the buildings which are replicas of New York City Buildings cast in Resin on 3 cement platforms. It looked SO beautiful in the sun and Lan's cute little niece thought that it was candy! The white pieces were cast in plaster and my friend Don and I were manning the booth, selling these replicas like hotcakes (limited 5 pieces per building). The most popular was the Chrysler Building, so detailed and impressive!

We also had a 2-man film crew staying with us in our apartment, from Berlin, Germany. My roommate is one of the protagonists of a documentary that this Berlin production company is working on, about 4 different artists who are participating in a 3-12 month residency in a castle in Stuttgart, Germany. That means Lan is going to be gone for 10 months, and it makes me sad because she was the best roommate I've ever had, but hopefully I will get to visit her and we can run around the castle in tutus and tiaras like princesses. 

crew getting ready for a day of shooting

it took him forever to do that

it looks like he's dancing with the equipment

Well the boys, Marcel and Daniel, were a fun pair. They were very sweet and even though it was weird to have a huge camera and boom microphone around the apartment, and sometimes on you, it was easy to forget that they were there. What was especially nice were the times when they weren't working on the documentary and we could actually talk to them and joke around with them. They were both fun and charming, and definitely left with a bang. Their last night here, we had cake, korean food and Karaoke in the East Village. And even after all of that, we came home and had a 4 person dance party in our apartment! Lan, Daniel and I picked these really great songs that we played off Youtube like classy people, but I'm sorry to say that Marcel's song selection was not so...... danceable? it's okay though. we are not holding it against him, but Lan and I were sore the next day because all we could do to his song choice was plant our feet on the floor, play the air guitar, and throw our head back and forth like rockers.

and this is what having fun looks like

the end.

exciting!

Busy Saturday!

My roommate is an artist and she has a show opening tomorrow at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, Queens. Please come if you would like!! It's called the "Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition" and will be open from 2-6 p.m. She's doing this awesome piece called "riot city" and I've been helping her do a few last minute things all day. We're both taking a small break because we've been up since 6 a.m. but will resume right after I finish this post...

I will try to upload some pictures later today or some time tomorrow, but I will definitely have stuff to share  after tomorrow's opening. 

If you can't make it tomorrow, it's open for a few months, so stop by anytime!

in the meantime...

come check out the store... there is a sale, buy two get one free!

here's a plush elephant from the store, and there are other prints and other items like stationary and hand printed/painted totes. 

happy weekend xo

global goodness. be good to the world.

oops. I know I was supposed to make my last post about a project I am doing for a non-profit, but I got distracted by the amazingness that is the mustache sisters. Now that I've calmed down, I'd like to talk about Global Goodness, a non-profit that was started by a friend of mine, Sarah Lynch, from my undergrad days in NYU.

Sarah started Global Goodness about a year and a half ago, and already they have collected over 10,000 books for a small community called Jamestown, just on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana, Africa, just from collecting from local schools, the NYU community, friends, and families.

I was moved by the purity and humbleness of Sarah and the organization and wanted to help, so I offered to make bags for them to sell to raise money for book shipments, and supplies like simple hardware tools to build bookshelves for the books that they are sending over.

Sarah is currently in Ghana right now, blogging as frequently as she can about the progress she is making for Global Goodness, and arranging for local Ghanaians to build these shelves. You can purchase a bag here (available September 15 in pink, blue or grey) or just simply donate any children's books or funds to help the impact of Global Goodness.


If anyone has any recommendations on how we can spread the goodness of global goodness, or would like to contribute, please send me an email at ddott.madebyanne@gmail.com.

we have already made arrangements to set up a table outside of the Park Slope co-op in Brooklyn (dates tba), but if anyone knows of any other stores/companies who would support our cause, any information would be super helpful!


Thanks for tuning in.

love,
global goodness and anne

wowy wow wow wow!

omg omg omg omg omg omg!

this

 is

  just

   magical

mustache sisters

speaking of mustaches, want to be invisible?

YES!

finished!

hello world! 

Last night was a feat! My classmates and I finished our wedding cakes, and they came out lovely, indeed. It was a long night and it started off with transporting my bride and groom for my cake topper from home to school....

I knew I had to keep them in the sitting position in case they lost an arm, head or shoe. Suri especially was a delicate case since she had such an intricate and fragile skirt. My solution? a square tupperware case, bride and groom sitting back to back on an upside down ramekin, everyone cushioned with toilet paper (clean and soft!). I put a piece of plastic wrap to cover them during the journey, which was funny because it was like putting a veil over a bride. Thankfully they made it thru the subway ride and walk in pristine condition.  

I'm so sore today from rolling out all the marzipan to cover my cakes. I would have used fondant to cover them, but I love love LOVE the flavor of marzipan and I think it's so beautiful in it's natural state. Each of the tiers are covered in marzipan, and the white piping is of Royal icing. The red poppies and pink rose petals on top are made from sugar paste, and my bride and groom are sitting on a bench also made from sugar paste. The brown branches behind them are pussywillows. My hands were shaking, so my piping came out not great, so don't pay too much attention to it, but I was pretty happy with everything else : )

Here are some pictures of the final cake.

front

back

poppy close-up

bride and groom close-ups

rose petals close-up

here are some pictures of chef kir and chef jae, two very awesome people. 

you can't tell from the first photo, but chef kir is QUITE the troublemaker....

of course they both LOVED the photo-op

this is chef toni, from level 1. she is amazing

There were a lot of beautiful cakes.. and one of my favorites one was made by my classmate Audrey. She's a sweet lady with a creative spunk and her artistic talent really showed! The cake is covered in fondant, and all the piping and illustrations are done with piped chocolate.

so simple and beautiful!

Thanks for tuning in again.

Next time I'll share about some bags I am screening for a non-profit, started by a friend of mine from college.

g'day

happy face

hello world!

This is my first blog entry, of hopefully many more to come. Today is the perfect day to start babolizard because I finally have something SUPER exciting to share with the world! I'm currently a pastry student, about to finish my studies in a couple of weeks, and our current project that we are working on at school is our wedding cake project! I had been waiting for this assignment I think since the first day I started school... 

I have been working on this project for a couple days already, and tonight all the tiers and pieces will come together. We are given the story of the bride and groom, their occupations, how they met, and all the wedding details. Meet Suri (Student at Cal) and Chris (Tattoo artist), getting married at the Japanese Tea Gardens in the San Francisco area. Here is the wedding cake topper I've been working on all day yesterday and this morning for their cake.... The bride and groom are finally finished! It was so much work, but I enjoyed every second of it.. it's so nice getting lost in a creative project, especially when I'm satisfied with the results : )

Here are some pictures of the process, including the initial illustration I made of the whole cake...

Thanks for tuning in : )

I will upload pictures of the finished cake tomorrow!!