Punk Rock Pastry

My culinary school friend and I went to a Cupcake Business Class in Chicago at the Bleeding Heart Bakery this past weekend.  Neither of us are truly interested in opening a cupcake bakery, but we're in culinary school, long to be pastry chefs and have both considered opening up a place of our own down the road.  It was a fun and informal class to hear about the background and experiences of two pastry chefs/bakery owners and it was eye opening to hear about their trials and most of all the time commitment.  The class was offered along with the blog, Cupcakes Take the Cake.  I loved hearing about Michelle Garcia's background and future plans and felt like we were amongst pastry chef celebrity since she's a contracted Food Network chef for the cake challenges. 

Michelle's bakery, Bleeding Heart, is a very unique place unlike any bakery or pastry shop I've ever seen.  It's so very non-traditional and I'm so very traditional. But, while the punk rock pastry theme may not appeal to me, her pastries definitely did.  She had some amazing cupcake flavors, including a poached apple filled cupcake with caramel icing that we tried. 

These were some fun sugar cookies with a plaid design.  This is probably the frilliest thing we saw in there.

We LOVED the huge whisk attachments that they turned into light fixtures.

While I prefer classic white marble tables, these custom cupcake shaped tables were pretty creative.  It was a fun class and I need to go back to the bakery as I wanted to try her best selling scone, the "Take a Hike" scone, but they were all out.