Canadian Forces Logistics Training Center’s Food Services Cadre Instructor MCpl Annie Turcotte Pan’s Labyrinth-inspired cake delighted staff and students on 31 October 2022.
The magnificent dessert was carefully planned and executed using a variety of ingredients, including pumpkin spice cake layered with cream cheese icing, caramelized pecans, and marmalade, and some air-brushed fondant to achieve the ghastly creature’s skin. Due to the weight of the cake, MCpl Turcotte and their peers, MCpls Miller and Tuckett, had to build a supportive structure to hold it up, using PVC pipes, aluminum foil, and Styrofoam.
MCpl Turcotte has continued this impressive cake-making tradition for three years now. The Food Services Cadre utilizes this opportunity to showcase its members’ extraordinary skills to its culinary students in house, demonstrating the levels to which they can aspire by dedicating themselves to their trade and skills. The newest members had plenty of questions for their instructor, including how they created the life-like but deliciously edible ‘dirt’ at the bottom of the creation, and what inspired them to choose the ‘Pale Man’ from the horror movie as this year’s creature. MCpl Turcotte’s answer to this last question was that after having dedicated 54 hours in 2021 to their previous creation, they were looking for a slightly simpler model; this was not the case however, with this year’s creation taking at least 6 hours longer than the previous year!
All members in attendance were apprehensive to cut into MCpl Turcotte’s beautiful work, but the best surprise was the delicious taste found in the pumpkin cakes at the base of the creation. MCpl Turcotte showed a mastery of baking principles, balancing all the flavours expertly and adding a brightening touch of acid by including marmalade in the filling.
CFLTC is very proud of MCpl Turcotte’s dedication to their craft and to inspiring the next generation of CAF cooks – Bravo Zulu MCpl Turcotte!
