How to Make Cake Pops
May 25, 2011 by
Obviously you have heard of Cake Pops. If you haven’t, welcome back to the world. How was it under that rock?
In case you are covered in detritus from your long winter spent buried in the woods, a cake pop is basically this: cake, rolled in a ball, stuck on a stick and dipped in chocolate.
Sounds easy, right?
Well, lets get started.
I apologize, right off the bat, for the poor quality of the pictures! I’m not sure what happened. I’ll blame the camera. Or the tripod. But, not me of course. The step by step pics are fine . . . because they were taken by Paul, but the ones in the light hood are almost not worth showing you! **embarrassed**
One more thing . . . did you know there is a Food on a Stick Day? Random. It was a couple of weeks ago, and I meant to post this article for that, but you know, time got away from me. That, and, I didn’t see “Food on a Stick Day” on my Runner’s World Calendar.
NOW, let’s get started. I’m finished rambling. For now.
HOW TO MAKE CAKE POPS
First you need to bake a cake. Any cake will do. Once you have let it cool, add about 1/2 cup of icing to it and mix, mix, mix! Get your hands in there, and get dirty!
Using a cookie scoop, roll equal amounts of dough into round balls.
Melt your chocolate in a microwavable bowl . . . for one cake, you will need at least 2 cups of chocolate chips (or melting wafers). Using lolipop sticks, dip the top into the melted chocolate, and then immediately into the cake pop.
Repeat until all of your balls become pops!
At this points, I find it best to put all of the pops into the freezer to solidify. This helps keep the cake together when you start to dip and roll them in the melted chocolate.
When they have been in the freezer for about 20 minutes, you need to work quickly, and start rolling!
Make sure that you cover all of the cake pop!
There’s no such thing as too much chocolate, right?
I find it best to allow my cake pops to solidify by sticking them into a piece of heavy duty styrofoam. This way, any drips that might happen follow gravity, and don’t end up making your perfectly round ball into something else!
Perfection!
Decorate however you see fit, and enjoy 🙂
I decorated these ones for a local flower store that deserved a special treat! The flowers are made out of marbled gum paste and fondant.
We were also trying out the Cricut Cake for on these! The butterfly’s and the flower in the middle of the picture (above) and to the right of the pic are with the Cricut Cake.
Maybe next year I’ll be able to celebrate Food on a Stick Day! I better go write that down.
Fortunate Friday
May 21, 2011 by
Hellooo! TGIF!
My fortunes are grand this week . . . so here I go!
I’m fortunate for a four day weekend! Whoop! Bring on the sun baybee!
I’m fortunate to be leaving for a road trip with my number one lady, my mom, and my good friend Lisa, and her daughter . . . on a mother/daughter trip to Spokane. We’ve had this weekend planned for quite some time and its so exciting that it’s finally here! Target! Costco! TJ Maxx! And the real reason we’re going? To enjoy the musical Wicked! Ever since I went to NYC way back when (’06) and saw the flashy green billboard, I’ve wanted to see it! T-1 day.
I’m fortunate for the amazing cakes that Paul and I made this week. We had four due today, and they were all beautiful and I’m so proud to say I was part of all of them. We did a lighthouse (Peggy’s Cove replicate), a Sex and the City 30th birthday for my friend Patti, an edible image cake, and a hippo/ballet cake for a special six year old. I will post pics soon!
I’m fortunate to have gotten to be a part of Patti’s SURPRISE 30th birthday party! We gotcha! It was a lot of fun, and there were lots of laughs . . . and punch . . . and eats . . . and CAKE!
Have a great weekend readers . . . and if you’re lucky enough to be a British Columbian, Happy May Long Weekend!!
Spring Flower Cupcakes
May 19, 2011 by
It is FINALLY spring. It has been a lllllooooooonnnnngggggg, cold, grey winter/ “spring” ’round these parts this year (was that country enough for y’all?).
It’s almost the May long weekend and we are finally getting sun. I finally had to cut the lawn. I finally had to weed out the dandelions (which took Paul and I two hours each! . . . WITH a handy dandy dandelion digger-upper thingy). Some of you may think that weeding and mowing the lawn is not something that one would be looking forward to, but I totally was! Nuts.
But, I had my reasons for this . . . two reasons . . .
One: having to weed and mow a lawn means I have a lawn! WHOOT! I’m so happy where I’m living now. A real house! Who would have thought 🙂
Two: If the grass and dandelions are growing (weeds included) it means that the sun is shining and bringing everything back to life . . . from the doldrums of winter. S.A.D. anyone? Vitamin D is my best friend . . . best natural head meds you can find!
THREE (I said I had two reasons, oh well): My garden is growing! Rhubard is up, raspberry stalks are sprouting, and the seeds are in the dirt. Yay! I planted some stuff that I plan to use in my cupcakes, and I will be able to say I really made them! Like, really!
This was my Mother’s Day Spring Bouquet. Happy belated Mother’s day to all the fabulous Mother’s out there . . . especially to my own!
These next ones were an order for Mother’s Day cupcakes. I had free rein to try whatever I wanted, so I got out my tools and set to work!
I love the orange rosette on these ones!
Happy spring everyone . . . knock on wood . . . fingers crossed . . . salt over shoulder . . . and all other superstitions that could work in our favour and keep the sun out!
Peanut Butter and Jam Blondies
May 14, 2011 by
I am a traditionalist. I like stuff the way it’s supposed to be. My way.
I know that I like what I like, and if you try to get me to try something a different way, you are likely going to fail. BUT, I’m not saying I’m completely inflexible . . . I’m also not saying I’m easy going . . . because I can be, if it’s MY idea.
Don’t I sound like a barrel of laughs? To know me is to love me. I hope.
I have come by my personality traits genetically . . . and no matter how many times I try to get my dad to try a new creation of mine, “You know I don’t like desserts. I don’t have a sweet tooth” blah, blah, blah . . . is all I hear. I make him the same treat each year for Father’s Day, his birthday and for Christmas. You would think he would get bored, but nope! He LOVES PB & J! He loves it so much that I named one of my cupcakes after him, “The Classic.” ‘Cuz . . . PB & J is nothing but classic!
Last week, he (randomly) decided that he needed to have a coffee break snack for him and his retired friends to enjoy after volunteering one day, so immediately these PB & J Blondies came to mind. I had seen them a couple days prior on another blog (click here) and immediately thought of my dad, bookmarked them, and knew the recipe would come in handy one day soon!
Here is a photo montage . . . and if you can’t figure out the recipe from the pics . . . keep scrolling! It’s down there!
Peanut Butter and Jam Blondies
(click here for original recipe)
Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 kosher salt (I used regular)
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 1/2 Tablespoons creamy peanut butter (I used crunchy)
2 Tablespoons jam (I used Raspberry, low sugar)
Recipe
Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a bowl. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl with the paddle attachment (a handheld mixer works fine), mix together the melted unsalted butter, brown sugar and vanilla extract. Once it’s combined, add in the egg and mix.
Slowly add in the dry ingredients and mix until almost combined. Take a spatula and fold the ingredients together.
Spread the batter out into a lightly greased 8 by 8 inch baking pan.
Place 1/2 Tablespoons of peanut butter and 1/2 Tablespoons of jam on top of the blondes. Starting with the first row down, place peanut butter first, then jam and finally peanut butter. Repeat until you have three rows.
Take a knife and swirl the peanut butter and jam throughout the blondie batter.
Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Cool on a cooling rack and then cut into pieces.
Fortunate Friday
May 13, 2011 by
I am fortunate for the sun that has been out this week . . . though it’s hiding right now! Come back! Come back! The flowers and vegetables in the garden want to grow!
I am fortunate for movers who KNOW what they’re doing. I decided that I needed a second fridge downstairs, so we paid the extra $50 for delivery, and two very handy, experienced fridge movers, had that thing down the stairs, on it’s side, plugged in and ready to refrigerate in about 4.5 minutes! I think Paul was fortunate for that too! I can’t wait to see him and my Dad have to move it out. Perhaps another $50 will be needed when it needs to come back UP the stairs.
I am fortunate to be feeling better! The incisions are holding up . . . my guts aren’t hanging out through them (yes, I seriously worried about that!). One incision is fighting an infection from the stitch that was tied and knotted . . . or something like that . . . it was doctor speak in the hospital yesterday. I had to go and get it looked at because it has been causing me so much pain! It’s right where my pants sit, so I basically have to pull the waist band up under my boobs so that it doesn’t rub the incision. No fun . . . but I guess a little extra support doesn’t hurt the “ladies”! I am hoping to be back to work on Monday (yay!) and to ease back in. It might be a little bit difficult teaching Kindergarten without being able to bend properly . . . my guts might pop out of my holes.
I hope that you all had a good week, and have a great weekend!
S.O.S.- First Aid Cake
May 10, 2011 by
Need help? Maybe you need a first aid kit? One comes in handy in your car. In your backpack. In your house. Pretty much anywhere!
If you’re like me and often loose your battle with the grater . . .
WARNING!!!
DO NOT
SCROLL
DOWN
IF YOU
DON’T
LIKE SEEING
BLOOD.
Just kidding.
I actually did have a picture to put up here, but I can’t find it. I can hear the little voice in my head, “Get organized!” . . . that voice strangely sounds like Paul.
I have a horrible reputation for grating my fingers and knuckles on the cheese grater, and OMG does it hurt! The cuts aka bone jarring flesh removal, take forever to heal. Avoid doing this to yourself!
Perhaps I should start wearing gloves while grating.
A little cake info for you . . . the bandaids looked so real, they were kind of gross! Paul even detailed the backs of them with a piece of white fondant to look like the gauze. So good, yet so wrong.
The great big tensor bandage is made out of rice krispies, and is wrapped in creepy coloured fondant.
One of the men who ordered this cake said he ate all of the bandage and the bandaids! I don’t know why, but I so couldn’t have done that. I made the cake, I watched Paul make the bandage and bandaids, but still it seems kind of gross to me.
I’m weird. And always in need of a First Aid kit.
Urban Sprawl?
May 10, 2011 by
Living here in the East Kootenay’s . . . nestled in the neck of the Rockies, we often have an excess of animals at our doors.
Skunks. Sick.
Bears. Scary.
Elk. Large.
Eagles, hawks and other flying things. AAHHHHH! (I hate things that fly.)
I love when city mice, come to visit the country mice and see all of the deers running around. I like the word “deers“, by the way. Yes, I know it’s not a real word. Said visitors always want to stop and take pictures of the deer . . . it can be like a bus full of Japanese tourists in Banff!
As common as deers are in my backyard, driveway, garden (grrrr!) and everywhere else, it completely creeps me out when they walk down the sidewalk! It is so WEIRD!
What are YOU looking at?
How to they know to do that!?!?!?! And what could be worse than a deer on the sidewalk?
"Well, should we get going?" "I guess so."
A deer in a CROSSWALK! Yes, I have seen that too! Seriously, it was crossing the road in the crosswalk.
"Stay on the sidewalk kids."
Paul managed to capture this yesterday and I had to post about it. BECAUSE IT’S SO WEIRD!
"Mom! Wait up!"
Now, the question is . . . are we invading them, or are they invading us?
