Coffee Crunch Cake and To-Do Lists...

This was the last picture to make it into my final portfolio for school. I made the cake in class on Thursday night and then the Engineer forced me to hit SEND on Friday morning to get all the pictures off to Snapfish for printing.

It's called a coffee crunch cake--angel food cake layered with whipped cream and these coffee crunches on the outside. The crunchies were fun to make--essentially, you boil sugar until the hardcrack stage and throw in some baking powder. The sugar foams up and when it hardens, you've got this odd, honey-combed candy. A DIY crunchie bar, kinda like this one! Good stuff.

So the end-of-year countdown is on! Two and a half weeks until I'm officially done and gradumikated from culinary school!

Here's a look at my to-do list for the next few weeks:

• Finish futzing with portfolio pictures HA! One down!
  
• Put pictures in photo album and be dun wit it
• Keep experimenting with dessert gnocci (my original recipe for one of our finals. More on this later!)
• Make flashcards for American cuisine
• Make flashcards for Asian cuisine
• Memorize things
• Bid my roommate farewell on Saturday. Sniff sniff. (Don't be too sad--she's moving back to California--where it's sunny? all the time? huh?--and also just happens to be going to Hawaii for vacation next week.)
• Say "Hello! I love you! Hi!" to the Engineer who is MOVING IN on Saturday (wooHOO!)
• Iron my red polka-dot dress
• Wear said dress to my friend's wedding next week (Thumbs up, Kate and Adam!)

Additionally, I need to purchase the following:

• A photo album
• Photo corners
• Teacup and saucer (for original recipe)
• Butane cartridges for creme brulee torch (for original recipe...aren't you getting curious!)
• Coffee grinder (cuz my roomie's taking hers with her and I am bereft)
• Candy thermometer
• Gelatin
• Plants for container garden before summer is suddenly over
  

Totally do-able, right? I'm not going to go insane in the next two weeks, right? Heh? Who wants to taste test some dessert gnocchi?!