My new favorite store...

...and my favorite new Deluxe Diner cup & saucer. It's from Roost on Clark Street and it's filled with all sorts of vintage china/dishware from hotels/diners and Grandma's table. It's just exactly what I didn't need to discover. Thankfully I have yet to find any cake plates there so I might be safe...

Time to Study

Here we are again with exam week upon us. You'll notice all my books on the coffee table just waiting for me....

If only there was room on the sofa...It's nice that the dog let's me sit on her really expensive dog bed.

Oh yeah...back to that studying...name three things that you shouldn't do when designing a showpiece....

Some highlights from the beginning...

Little Baby Tart!

I just love the teeny tiny tarts...not quite bite sized but just right!

Tarts Tarts Tarts!

And I'm not just talking about the girls in class! :)

It's been a week filled with every kind of tart you can think of from fruit to bacon.

Most of the class has been fun but I have to say that rolling out tart dough must be done at the speed of a Nascar pit crew. No time for errors or you find yourself in the freezer again and again with lots of cursing...

So much pastry cream....

This looks like such a simple little cake but the components took three days to make. The inverted puff pastry took three days with several turns in it each day. Not sure it's worth all the trouble when you cover it with caramel coated, pastry cream filled puffs....

And here I am...

Here I am to share my crazy journey through sugar and flour, chocolate and cream and everything in between.
I have completed the first 12 weeks of the program at The French Pastry School in Chicago and what an experience it has been thus far....