Tag: Mom

Your Options at Hand

The need for professional chefs has become popular in the modern world. People now have lesser time preparing meals at home and many mothers have now become essential parts of the corporate community which naturally consume the majority a mom’s time. People now also want meals that are professionally done. Further, eating is not just a fixed part of everyday living but had already become an indispensable part of social life. Thus, it is only natural that innumerable people have already realized the need for people who would specialize in preparing food using art.

Due to the above reasons, working as a chef is becoming a sought-after opportunity. And many people who have the innate talent of using creativity in cooking are now seeing lots of windows of opportunities in the world of culinary arts.

While it may not be possible to succeed in this world overnight, there are various avenues that you could take so that you could advance in this industry.

For most people, there are just three options. One is through climbing the ladder of culinary arts education, second is to become an apprentice of a professional chef and the third is to set up a restaurant and develop from there on.

Well, we all know that the third option is the road less traveled since not most of us have the money to establish a restaurant and learn from the experiences that this could incur. Besides, not all of us are perceptive and skilled enough to do both learning and establishing of a business at the same time. It would either be that the businessman wanting to become a chef in return would specialize in only one field. It would either be that he’ll focus on honing his skills alone or focus on the business part often restaurant and hire professional chefs to work for him. Both are satisfying enough but either one of the two has to be sacrificed.

Some world-class chefs though chose to start in their own kitchens. While there are large discrepancies in the setting of work as chef in fast-faced restaurants and small home kitchens, both could have their individual benefits that could help in training a person towards a career as chef.

Taking the option of educating oneself in culinary arts is normally the choice of people wanting to become a chef. Formal settings are applied and pedagogical structure of education is followed. There are various options in culinary arts education and each school might present its own system.

There are schools offering a Bachelors Degree in Culinary Arts, others may provide certificates on culinary arts education but there are other institutes that offer courses on Associate in Applied Sciences Culinary Arts. If you are truly serious and sure about pursuing a career in culinary arts, your best and fastest option is a bachelor’s degree. However, if you are just testing the grounds it is best to take short courses that could help you explore the world of culinary arts while not taking as much time from you.

There are also programs that could accommodate you if you cannot attend full-time classes. These would allow you to bend your schedule depending on your flexibility. Additionally, there are apprenticeship programs and on-the-job trainings that could also expose you to this industry.

Apprenticeship is also among the popular option. An informal education and training from a professional chef will put you on the more practical side of being a chef. You get to see the reality and you get real and on-the-spot trainings.

A job as a chef could be very grueling but any form of training could prepare you on the demanding task that this career might pose on you.

Cake Decorating – How To Make Your Icing Smooth And

Cake Decorating – How To Make Your Icing Smooth And Even

If you want to become a master at cake decorating, you will need training and practice. Once you have mastered cake decorating you could become famous in the cake making industry. If you are a creative person you could go far when it comes to cake decorating.

Even a person who is new to cake decorating you want your cake to look beautiful. My mother just made a cake and frosted it, she may have added sprinkles, and she wrote a happy birthday message with icing. Those were our cakes, they may not have been well decorated, but they were tasty. This article will give you ideas and tips to make your cake look much better than Mom used to make.

When you make the cake, be sure that the batter is level in the pan before you place it in the oven. Check the cake at 20 minute intervals to make sure the cake is baking evenly, if you find one side of the cake is higher than the other, you should turn the pan around so it will rise evenly. If you find that your cake baked with one side higher, use a knife to even it. You should do this while the cake is warm.

The cake should be cooled for at least a day before you even think about starting any cake decorating. The outside of the cake could feel cool, but the middle of the cake may stay warm for hours. Frosting the cake before it is completely cool can ruin your decorating.

After the cake has cooled, turn it upside down on a cake board, you will have less crumbs this way. To avoid crumbs all together put a thin layer of icing on the cake. Once you have covered the cake with a thin layer of frosting, you can cover that layer with a normal layer of icing. Make sure the icing is smooth and even. You can dip your metal icing spatula in cold water and go over the icing, this will smooth the icing beautifully.

Icing is the most important ingredient in cake decorating. The icing should be quite stiff, if it is too stiff to work with you can always thin it out. When you are making the frosting, make a good amount. You will need it for other decorations on the cake. Make sure you have plenty of food coloring, as you will need it to color the icing for different cake decorations.

When you are ready to start decorating your cake you will need a few pieces of equipment. You will need more than one pastry bag, and the icing tips you will be using for the decorating you want to do. These items can be bought at craft stores and cake decorating supply store.

To start with, choose the tip you will be using first. Hold the pastry bag with the hole down and place the tip inside, as far as possible. You should use about a cup of icing in the bag at a time, and start it out in a bowl, that way you can thin the icing with a little milk if you need to, before you put it in the icing bag. The icing should be thin enough to go through the tip, but thick enough to make the designs you choose. If you are still a novice at cake decorating, you should practice making the decorations on waxed paper before you attempt to put them on the cake.

When you are ready to ice the cake, you will need to hold the bag with both hands and apply steady pressure. Applying a steady pressure assures that the icing the icing will come out in an even strip. Unless you are making a long strip of piping, you should place the bag closely over the cake start squeezing and count to three, then stop squeezing and lift the tip up and away from the cake. If this decoration looks the way you want it to, move on to the next one, if it isn’t quite right, keep practicing until you get it.

If the cake decoration stays in the shape you intended, then you have the frosting at the right consistency. If it does not hold together, the icing is too thin, and if it was hard to push it through the tip or the cake decoration cracks, the frosting is too thick.

You can get a list of the equipment needed for cake decorating before you start. The list can be found in craft store or pastry supply. The basics are Several pastry bags, icing tips, a coupler to hold the tips in the bag. You will find a cake stand would be a big help, as it swivels so you can frost all sides of the cake, and bring the cake up and closer to you. You should also have several sizes of cake pans, a rubber spatula, a short and a long metal cake icing spatula, a sharp knife, and a baking tray. These are the essentials.

Although cake decorating can be frustrating at times, it can also be very rewarding when you realize the beautiful cake on that stand is something that you created. With a bit of patience and a can do attitude, you will become and accomplished cake decorator.

Wine Tasting For Beginners

Attending wine tasting events can reproduce a great worldliness and a lot of fun, although a lot of people choose not to attend out of fear – or not knowing what to do or what to expect. Comparable though there are no mysteries to wine tasting, there are some things that you should always remember.

During a wine tasting event, women are always served before the men. Some tastings will serve you bottled water between tastings, so you can clean your mouth out and be ready to taste the next wine that is served. When you take the wine, you should always shaft the glass by the stem, to avoid heating it with your hands. There will also be crackers and other goodies on hand as well, to help you cleanse your mouth between wine tastings.

As you may already know, you can tell quite a bit about the wine by the color. When you attend a wine tasting for the first time, youll notice that the glasses are clear. This helps you to examine the wine better. There should also be white tablecloth on the table as great, to service you glimpse the color the wine more clearly. You should never go by the name of the wine alone, as it duty easily fool you.

Youll also notice the more experienced wine tastes swirl their wine around significance the glass before they taste it. Although it may look weird, slightly swirling the wine actually helps to bring out the flavor. Most wines have been aging in bottles for long periods of time, sometimes even second childhood. When the wine is swirled around in the glass, the swirling will release the flavors in the wine and bring them out when the wine is tasted.

At wine tastings, youll need to look at the wine, smell it, then after swirling it around in the glass – taste physical. Smells play an integral part of the process, as youll get a lot more from the wine by smelling existent first. Wine has quite an intriguing fragrance, which helps to bring out the taste that wine is so well known for. Once you have smelled the wine, you should allow a few moments to cut in the smell and take about the wine that you are smelling.

Last but not least, youll want to know how to properly taste the wine. Your tongue has taste buds in the front and the back, which helps to detect flavors. Wine is full of flavors, and how you taste it will make the biggest impact. When you put the wine in your abyss, you should always swish it around in your mouth for a few seconds, and allow the flavors plenty of time to dance on your palate. Once your taste buds have started to explore the wine, you can think about what you are tasting. After swallowing the wine, the aftertaste that remains in your mouth should lease you even more of an idea as to the type and flavor of the wine.

Before you attend a wine tasting, you should always learn as much for you can about the many different flavors and varieties of wine. This way, youll have a better understanding of what you should look for in both taste and flavor. Even though you may be unfamiliar to wine tasting, you should never pass up an opportunity to go. Youll get a great experience in the world of wine tasting and get to contact wines that you may have never heard of before.

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