Rollet chocolate cake with chocolate shavings topped with raspberries

Today I had a French Chocolate Rollet birthday cake order. This is a birthday cake for a friend's mom and she loves chocolate and raspberries. It will be a chocolate cake with fresh whip cream in it and on top, then decorated with chocolate shavings and raspberries. For my cakes I never use frosting. I am totally against frosting - its high in sugar, cheap, and does not make for a delicious tasting cake.

Lets get started and see how it turns out............. I have finished! Check out my work of art - it looks fabulous.

It will taste delicious too. Recently most of my orders have been rollet cakes and I enjoy making them. I also decided to add mandarin oranges to it for a more diverse colorful look. This particluar cake will easily serve 20 people and it is something different than your usual round or rectangular birthday cakes. It has a different look which I think captures the eyes. It will be eaten on Thanksgiving day, so I will have to wait and hear the reviews. It is really fun making something too pretty to eat :)

OK, gotta get back to other thanksgiving day pastries. I will be making an apricot pie with almond and custard filling - a french style of making pies. It was a huge hit in the days of our bakery and I expect it will be a hit again this year. Of course there will be pumpkin pie as well, but thats nothing to rave about. I will post some pictures of the apricot pie though.

Happy thanksgiving to all!

Why blog about french baking?

Wow! I have finally started my blog. Been thinking and talking about this for some time now and decided to start blogging :) Why? Well, for quite some time now, friends and customers have been telling me how much they love my work, how great it tastes, whether I sell my recipes or books, give lessons, and to share with them my work. So here it is...

A little about me. My family and I ran a very successful french bakery in Santa Barbara, CA called Le Chateau French Bakery for about 12 years. Then I moved to San Diego and worked as a school teacher and real estate agent for a number of years. Recently my passion for baking was re-ignited by my husband (who kept asking me how come he doesn't get to taste those delicious desserts that he has heard so much about). After baking a few french cakes and pastries whenever family or friends came over for dinner, I realized how much I missed baking. Slowly I got the word out that I was baking again and orders started to come in from friends and referrals. The thing I enjoy most about baking is to see the expression on people's faces when they see my work of art and to hear their delight when they taste it. Yes, the art of gourmet desserts! It is such a rewarding experience for me.

What I hope to achieve is to share with my readers the experience of making french baked cakes and desserts! The process (yes, its hard and labor intensive), share some pictures, and eventually put my work together for a book (that might take some time). If you have any ideas, questions, comments, please share them with me.