Tag Archives: cake pops

Baking Food

Dolphin Cake Pops (and a Cake Pop Trick)

What are the chances that a bird poops on me twice in 30 minutes? And what are the chances that that happens AND the Winklevii become VCs? 100% apparently. (Though, having lived through a couple of fundraises, I would say in general that the likelihood of getting funding is generally somewhere between the Winklevii becoming VCs and getting pooped on twice in 30 minutes.)

It’s enough to make you want to eat a cake pop.

The girls and I made some recently. And I discovered a new trick. See, the candy coating hardens fairly quickly into something that requires a hammer and chisel to remove. So this time, I put the candy coating in a little ziplock baggie, and then slid that into a mug, folding the mouth of the bag over the top of the mug. Did you know bags had mouths?

So what’s cool about this is that you after you’re done with the coating for the day, you can just pull the ziplock out of the mug, zip it up, and plunk it back in when you’re ready to work with it again. This time, I added in a teaspoon of shortening to help the coating go on a little smoother.

Maybe everyone else already knew this.

Anyway, we made dolphins. Bakerella has great detailed instructions on how to make pops on her site, but here are the basics. First you bake a cake. Let it cool. Then, crumble it into a large bowl.

You may have noticed above that I grew two more hands to do this more efficiently.

Next, squish the cake together with some frosting. Again, see Bakerella for expert advice, but if you use canned frosting, use no more than 3/4 of a can or the pops will be too slippery to stay on the sticks.

Now go to your local police station before you wash your hands and see what happens.

Next, shape them into balls…or in this case, dolphin-ish things. Stick them in the fridge to chill overnight.

When the dolphin-ish things are firm, take them out five or so at a time and dip. We decorated these with just candy coating and edible pen.

Maybe you can’t tell these are dolphins. Some of them have tumors. Our waters are very polluted nowadays.

Some look like T-Rex. I believe he was an ancestor.

Oh, whatever. Cake pops are for eating. So we ate them.

Whatever you do, don’t forget to enter the *nora fleming* giveaway! You get an autographed rectangular platter (you will faint from its cuteness) plus three adorable minis that will change your life and make you lose weight.

 

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Epic Baking Day

Cake pop, bitten

Eeeeeeeeek! It happened. No, not that Nobel Prize thing. The Epic Baking Day that I’ve been eagerly anticipating ever since Bakerella got me popstruck and changed my life forever.

For months, friends have been asking me when I would make cake pops. Soon, I’d say slyly, soon. It was like that time in third grade when I told everyone that I was going to jump off the high dive at the pool and then when I got up there I looked down and thought, Hm, maybe I shouldn’t have told quite so many people that I’d jump off quite so high a diving board, because I’m probably allergic to this kind of thing and I might have a heart attack.

I was nervous about the cake pops, but luckily my friend Danielle from Cozycakes Cottage agreed to help me out (and by help me out, I mean buy everything, bring the book, and make me drinks while telling me what to do). This was a happy day because though Danielle and I have been friends for years, I hadn’t really seen her in a long time. Danielle is double-jointed just like me, so you should really check out her blog. Though I am trying to convince her to merge our blogs into All the Cozy Cottages are Taken.

Danielle unpacked this first so it must have been obvious that I needed it:

Sustenance

And then we thought we should take a picture of us, to document the momentous day (even if the momentous part hadn’t happened yet):

Me and Danielle

If we look a little strained in that picture it’s because we’re squatting. There was no one around to take the picture so we had to use my cheap, short tripod. That’s why I look like I’m in a huddle about to say “hut”.

Danielle also bought a bunch of other stuff, since we had big plans to make tartes and popovers. We never got to those.

Before we knew it we only had a couple of hours left, so we got down to business.  The objective: make baby chicks.

The night before, I made the cake balls. Following Bakerella’s advice, I used Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix and canned cream cheese frosting (about 3/4 of a container). They looked like meat balls. They chilled in the fridge overnight.

Cake balls

We started by punching out little stars and shaping beaks out of fondant, which as far as I can tell lasts forever, since I haven’t made it since this post. I used a handy punching tool that my friend Sandra sent me from Japan.

Punching tool

Then Danielle put the candy coating in a bowl and heated it up:

Candy melts in bowl

Doesn’t she have nice hair? I got that apron for Christmas from my husband.

Aren’t these sticks pretty too?

Sticks

Our first dip:

Dipped cake ball

…and our first baby chick!

Baby chick

Typical firstborn — we took tons of pictures of him. Yes, that’s dish washing liquid in the background.

Baby chick

Awwww, love you baby chick! We had to eat some of the really deformed ones in the back to put them out of their misery.

Here he is with some friends:

Baby chick with friends

…and at his school play:

School play

Maybe not such a flattering angle of him, that one.

Then I cried because Danielle had to go. The chicks were separated, and we hadn’t made that many. Danielle left us lots of candy coating and other supplies.

My kids decided to get in on the action:

Pidge

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-WxlSGdAZG4w/T2o6OoPBYVI/AAAAAAAAG6w/4EuYJ0szVEM/s640/DSC_0014-1.JPG

They made Rocker Chick:

Rocker Chick

…and her band:

The band

Then, abruptly, we had to stop! We had friends coming over. We cleaned up. So we didn’t get to the eating part yet…and actually we still have many more pops to make, so…more to come.

But for now, thank you Bakerella for making cake pops such an important part of my life. Instructions here for how to make the cake balls, and of course her site is full of amazing ideas for pops. Thank you Danielle for hand-holding me through it. And thank you friends for pushing me so far beyond my inability to make frosting.

What should we make next?

Baking Food

The Daddy of All Cake / Cookie / Cake Pop Decorating Tips

The Decorated Cookie Logo
The Decorated Cookie has posted some life-changing decorating techniques on her site today.

When I saw this this morning, I nearly passed out. It was as if I lived in 200 BC and spent my whole life trying to figure out what the circumference of the earth was (just forget for now that they thought the earth was a giant terrarium), tried a bunch of measuring techniques, got all prune-y and sunburned doing it, and then someone just came up to me and said: 24,901.55 miles.

I wish I were one of those bloggers who could refer you to “my pal Meaghen Mountford“, but the truth is she has no idea that I exist and fortunately for her, has never seen me bake. But Meaghen has a book and a website about all things baked, cute and decorated.

And today, Meaghen posted a startling compilation of tips from her readers — you can find it here.  Some highlights include mess-free ways to handle the frosting mixing and piping (from Karen’s Cookies), tips on keeping cupcakes moist by freezing them, and — I’ve heard this one before from Melissa V who made the initial cake pops that got me into all of this — adding shortening to the candy coating for cake pops.

And have you heard of this? A KopyKake Projector? I could go crazy with something like this. Nevermind that it will take up half my house — look at all the cute things you can make with it! And you could probably even make up the cost of it by providing tattooing services with it in the comfort of your own home, right? I’m sure tattooing is easy. I have food coloring.

Now, back to sitting around in yoga pants. Happy President’s Day!

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Popstruck

With all this talk recently about Santorum and the presidential election, there’s only one thing on my mind: CAKE POPS. Take a look at the Kermits below (by the amazing Bakerella). They are MADE OF CAKE. On a stick. That is what a cake pop is: cake on a stick, and apparently, incredibly, magically manipulated to look like Muppets.

Image courtesy of Bakerella

I know, I know, I’m a little slow on the uptake. It’s just like years after Brad Pitt was named one of People Magazine’s Sexiest People and I finally saw A River Runs Through It and started telling people, Hey, that Brad Pitt, he’s kind of cute!

This all started a few weeks ago when I was at a baby shower. Melissa V decorated the shower with Very Hungry Caterpillarstuff like little trees with caterpillars in them made of pom poms and other stuff I would never think to do (she also makes full-size nativity sets for plays and has a lot of children, which I would never do either), including:

Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake Pops
Some cake pops I did not make.

Yes, cake pops. The picture is blurry because I was high on sugar and shaking from all the cake pops I had. I would never have given them a second thought except that they were DELICIOUS. I kept eating them. I couldn’t stop thinking about them.

A late night Google search on cake pops invariably led to a visit to Bakerella, and hours ogling her photos (she takes gorgeous photos, which means she is doing with one hand what I cannot do with two. I am a bad baker. I’m an excellent eater, and I like my own cooking, but there is something about baking that compromises my ability to function. A few weeks ago I made some dipped truffles I was going to gift, and my husband said, “Uh, you can’t give those to your boss.” I would have been mad except that they did look like sad, decapitated snowmen after a nuclear war.). I had a full-on night of dreams about cake pops (mostly about how I made them for one of my kids’ birthdays, and when they were unveiled there would be gasps and some people would actually pass out from the awesomeness and a spotlight would shine on me, suddenly cueing R Kelly’s I Believe I Can Fly). Then I had to post about her on Facebook.  And that’s when I found out that my friend Danielle is obsessed with her too. Danielle can actually bake and has even made cake pops. And ebliskiver, but that’s a topic for another time. Anyway, this is what went down:

ME: So I was reading her FAQs and she’d like you to ask for permission to use her pictures SO I EMAILED HER!  What if she writes back!!!  Do you want me to ask her what her favorite color is???

DANIELLE: WHAT IF SHE DOES WRITE BACK!?!?!?  PLEASE forward it to me so I can be starstruck!!!!  It’ll be like you are famous along with her.  Ask her what her favorite NON-baked good food is.  Like does she eat steak?  Or stuffed mushrooms?  Or….Nachos?

ME: SHE WROTE BACK!!!!!  She actually typed letters back to me that were addressed to my email address!!!!  Here it is. Don’t faint.

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 5:55 PM, Bakerella wrote:
Sure. Thanks for asking.

Bakerella

DANIELLE:  Ok, so basically you’re famous. Seriously though.  My heart is kind of beating a little faster than normal bc of her email to you. Did yours, too, when you saw her email in your inbox???????  Who else can we have you email?  WHO ELSE?!

ME: Selena Gomez?!? E.T.???

Then it basically degenerated into a conversation about feelings regarding Justin Bieber (who I happen to love).  But THEN Danielle went to the store and BOUGHT US CAKE POP DECORATING STUFF! YES, we are going to make cake pops!!! This is important because I cannot do this alone.  This is not going to happen for a couple of weeks, but be prepared. It is going to be EPIC.  Like we are optioning movie rights now.

Maybe Bakerella could link to me when she needs to show what could go wrong if you screwed up her recipes. In case you thought I was joking about being a bad baker, let me share this photo with you. I even took it with a fancy camera and a pensive angle, but these are carrot muffins and, like snowflakes, no two look exactly alike. In fact, they’re not even near the same size or shape.

Carrot Muffins
Nothing says "professional" like muffins that are baked from containers of the same size but come out totally different

So Bakerella, thanks for letting me use your pictures. They will make this site a happier place. Oh, and she has a bookout too — we’re going to be using it as the basis for our epic baking endeavor.