Qu’ils mangent de la brioche

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The history-making day arrived where i learn the trade secrets of an empire, put them to practise, steal them, blog them, and take a cake for the road.

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My admiration for Carol and Michael is swoonily apparent when we get together, they are theatre-incarnate, such a pair (like my nana and papa, inseparable) the Carole/Michael show is entertainment at its finest I am happy to be on board.

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now watch how my initiation went down. i was very nervous and i hid it with vanna white smiles and then hiding behind the mixer.

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the whipping cream (slowly) goes in after the cream cheese, which is fun to watch fold around and around as the texture takes on a gloopier form. i am clumsy and often don’t trust myself, had a few hand mangled by blender visions to get over and shut out in order to pro it up in front of these ladies.

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can you see the fear in my eyes? hahaha. somehow the apron made me look more naked so now i have the idea for my own raymi nudist cooking show, episode one, bacon frying ahahhaa. ouch.

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turning something savoury, bordering on so, into something sweet is a magical experience.

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carole expertly doled out many helpful tips along the way, to turn the speed from 1 to 2 when adding ingredients, stopping to spatula the cream cheese batter from the sides of the bowl and beaters. it’s a process, not a long one, but still you mustn’t rush it.

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can you picture this woman in her basement making cakes as a hobby, and now look. not only did she create for herself a sensational success of a cheesecake company, she also started this city on carrot cake. careful when you browse the cake selections though because i tweeted a pic/link to the site yesterday and someone said they spent 5 minutes drooling.

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i love carole’s way, she’s sweet and a firecracker simultaneously. i can relate.

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got herself some helpers straight off the bat. do you guys wanna see the goods? heck yes pass’er around boy.

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michael had two costume changes for his dish presentations (the first he taught the class was how to make his rapini, oh so garlicky yum i inhaled a plate the second we got there, yesterday was a full busy one) so i think we have uncovered who the real diva is in this duo. i am adding vanilla and almond extract i believe here. potent stuff.

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have a whiff.

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make yourself useful any way you can. it was a fun relaxed atmosphere, like cooking with your mom, joking around and when too many cooks in the kitchen, take a step back or two this is the carole show here, i am shadowing her.

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my hair matches the batter, that’s what i asked for yesterday at the salon, please match my hair to cheesecake as i will be making one immediately after this appointment i might need a caption filler to save my ass on a few pics in case i run out of jokes thank you.

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add the eggs. always crack them in a separate container (like on tv)(or in real life if you aren’t an idiot) cos you never know what’s inside that shell, not to mention, shell cakes never really caught on.

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pouring the batter in. this is the almond cheesecake by the way, you missed the part when i poured in the crushed fine almonds as slowly as possible carole’s like, you can go a bit faster raymi. i got tempo-paranoia, too fast too slow everyone is watching infomercial live ack!

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all down to the last scrape.

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then you put it in a square pan

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and get michael to bring you a pitcher of water while he announces in a shakespearean accent a pitcher of wat-ur my lady. haha so funny. the water in the square pan heats up in the oven and i guess that’s the extra secret magic behind making cheesecakes right.

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i think i overheard them (again) talking about abducting, kidnapping, and/or adopting me, one or all three.

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put that baby in the oven and set to i don’t know what i was too busy pretending i was on a game show.

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and sweating by the ovens. speaking of shadows, colleague has himself one, she helped take these shots (thanks lindsay!) a much welcome addition to team crazy raymi colleague. also, she’s carole’s granddaughter, a very cool chick.

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then we got MORE trade secrets! the caramel brownie cheesecake starts out like this.

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omg i didn’t know there would be a test!

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this was fun, fun to watch, beautiful actually, seeing liz expertly spin the turntable (where’s a dj when you need to make fun of one?) as she spreads the decadent rich chocolate icing with that implement doo-hicky thing i didn’t hear what it was called cos a surgeon was too busy complimenting my writing, intellect, and teeth, and hair too hahh. when i meet blog readers/lurkers, some of them really like to discuss how i write, that i write, it makes me blush. i can’t describe the process, well maybe one day i will, but not now grasshopper it’s brownie time.

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i guess you make a divot gradually in the centre because next you will be adding caramal (omg mmmmm) and it will need a place to go lest it overflow? though, (stop rhyming raymi!) you will be stacking little brownie squares all around the top so the caramel will be safely confined within the brownie castle, and then my stomach.

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the caramel.

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it looks soooo goooooood.

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now here comes building your rook (chess joke!)

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everyone got up to have a go.

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i had other things on my mind.

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apparently that plaid shirt kid can speak like 4 languages. what is he thinking right meow?

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she was a quick study, and quite good.

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don’t you just want to dump that chocolate right all over it once you’re done with the building? one would think that’s the way to do it, the end result of course being totally sloppy ugtastical. this is why you don’t do that, you ladle it on. AH HA it’s a ladle! i’m so smart.

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that’s little lindsay. rules. and bill the dental surgeon, lovely people. see michael’s costume change? i suggested to carole having a michael figurine commissioned, their cafe regulars would so totally buy one. i’ll have a napolitana, a nicoise salad and a michael please, that’s all.

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liz is so sweet and soft spoken where do all these nice people come from!!? i may or may not have left with my own chocolate squeeze bottle (such a great idea). ok no i didn’t.

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a communal piece goes around (we all had our own forks haha yeah and the communal fork too can you imagine) to sample. it was a very oprah winfrey moment. i love when they would only give like 5 samples out to the audience and you could see vicious looks from the ones who weren’t chosen.

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i went right for the chocolate. one woman was like, totally girl.

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we kept cheering and clapping at each step in the process, no wait not yet, there’s more. time to adorn the castle.

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queen of the castle showcase.

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next up chef boyardee and a champers toast, it’s their 50th next saturday. congrats you devils.

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my eyebrows have disappeared, can you help me find them? NO REWARD.

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then teacher showed up looking all cute, see me checking him out haha.

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then the architect builds a beautiful salad.

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which i instantly called dibs on and massacred. michael, i ate your house.

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smoking, a disgusting habit.

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cakes everywhere! behind the scenes is my favourite.

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so could have fit in there.

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no thanks.

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checking on my friend.

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too hot he said, back in it goes. oh that was fun. i left with an almond cake, (uhh totally that almond one that i made i swear! hahah) for my dad for daddy’s day this sunday (dad i have an event in the day so we’ll be coming later in the day sorry!)

huge thanks to Carole’s Cheesecake for this (and for my birthday cakes too). i love cooking. i love eating. i love photographing, blogging and talking about food. it is no secret. it is my dream to have my own cooking show someday. oh and by the way their groupon deal sold through the roof like we knew it would, Carole’s back baby and she never left. next time i am shooting all her framed media glory from over the years adorning the resto and loos, great big hairdos in her past haha.

XOXOX your pal raymi.

ps. my title is french for let them eat cake i’m sure you’re familiar with this infamous proclamation.