Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Adventures In My Kitchen.

I should start off by telling you I love to decorate. Not with fabrics, paint, glass tiles or shrubbery but rather with icing, candies, chocolates and sprinkles!

I love food blogs, especially blogs that have anything to do with cakes, cookies, and cupcakes!
I'll stand up now and say it, unashamed and with the pride that only a novice cake decorator can:

"My name is P and I'm addicted to blogs about, but not limited to, Sugar."

That's me.

So, when I came across this blog-that-blows-my-mind, Bakerella , I just HAD to try my hand at the entity that is known as - Cake Pop.

I won't explain it, I can't explain it. I can only half-ass'd make it and full-force eat it!

Ok, I can sort of explain it, but if you want full detailed instructions, go to Bakerella's site here: for full Instructions.

This is how I did it. It's probably NOT quite right, but it was my first time and as with all first times, it's not perfect.

You take a baked cake and turn it into to dirt, like this...
Note that I do not have a food processor. So, after trying to crumble it with my fingers into a fine soil-like substance with no success, out came the hand mixer. I do not suggest you use a hand mixer to do this unless of course you want crumbs of cake EVERYWHERE! Including down your top and in your cleavage!

Then you take a can of Frosting, or your own home-made if you wish, and dump just about the whole darn thing into the finely crumbled cake. Mixing it with your hands...kinda feels like making mud...until it's fully mixed together and looks something like this. I'm pretty sure I used a bit too much of the frosting. I kind just went for it here. Next time I won't implore my give'r and git'er done approach.

Then, with clean hands of course, roll into little balls. Then chill. I stuck them in the freezer while I wandered off to read a couple of foodie blogs...of course, YOU could always use this time to clean up the cake crumbs that are EVERYWHERE, including down your top and in your cleavage.
Once chilled in the freezer for say oh 15 minutes, dip the tip of yer sticks in a bit of melted candy melts and with gentle hands, stick a stick a little less than half way into your chilled balls. Chill again. I'm pretty sure there is some cake crumbs way back there where you didn't expect them to be, so go clean them up while these chill.

Now, I didn't take any pics of me actually dipping them because, well, I was busy dipping them! All the while trying to keep Super-toddler girl out of: the sticks, the balls, the melted candy melts, the sprinkles and my way. You'll just have to believe that I dipped and dipped until I didn't want to dip no more. *Note: Melted candy melts are a tad too thick to dip these balls into, so after a brief Google of "how to thin candy melts" I discovered that you can thin it out with a few drops of Vegtable Oil. Worked like a charm and I continued to dip, with much better results.

I dipped and decorated until they looked like this...

My foodie felts didn't like to write on the dried candy shell so I only did one like this, special-like for Super-toddler. Cute enough though, eh?

Once all the hard work was done - ie: cleaning up the cake crumbs from EVERYWHERE including down my top and in my cleavage, the two teen girls came out from my teen girls bedroom where they were held up watching Twilight, to help decorate and give me tips on what to sprinkle on what until I ended up with these.

I'm pretty sure that every and all Cake Pops I make in the future must go into this Jack mug because, well, he looks like a Cake Pop!

Please remember, especially if you do venture over to Bakerella that I am a novice. An amature. A decorator person who has never attempted anything the likes of this, ever.

I enjoyed it though, as fiddly as it was. I know things now that I will do differently next time, and the ideas for next time keep running through my head...even though I recall saying there wouldn't be a next time.

Oh, and I made some of these the next day too. These are pretty much the same, but different.
These 'lil babies are Cupcake Bites. No stick = MUCH less fiddly. You need a chocolate mold, left over balls of cake mud, and no where as much patience as you had to have with balls on sticks.

They looked like this when all was said and done. OH and after Super-toddler flattened out every single one of them when my back was turned melting and stirring the colours.

These I will defo make again! They are super-cute! Easy to decorate. My old camera doesn't do them justice. And, while I found Cake Pops to be overly sweet, these were perfect. Not because the mix was different, it wasn't, but because they are smaller and cupped in chocolate =)


So there ended my sweet adventure in my kitchen for the weekend. It was fun, and messy, and I'm pretty darn sure I still have some of those cake crumbs in my clevage ;)





2 comments:

  1. Oh, ye have far more patience than I! lol

    Good job.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey,
    I am from Alberta too. I am following you now too. Come check me out!

    http://thesingletons4.blogspot.com/

    good work on the Cake Pops!

    ReplyDelete

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