New Obsessions

I've acquired a few new obsessions over the last year. One of these is cake pops.

For the uninitiated, cake pops are when you bake a cake, crumble it, mix with frosting, put it on a stick and coat it with candy coating.  These are the brainchild of Bakerella. Seriously, check out her site, if only for the beautiful pictures. These became so popular that she came out with a book.

I stumbled across this at the library and fell in love. And because I am just that insane, I decided to make some. Actually, I decided that I would be making some for Little Miss's first birthday party. But who wants to do something like that for an event that big without a trial run? Well, normally that would be me, but not this time.

Little Dude was having a Valentines party at daycare (or as we call it 'school'). I figured a bunch of three year olds would be a good test audience. And so the experiment began. I let Little Dude pick out the cake and the candy colors. We ended up with Strawberry cake and candy melts in pale blue, pink and yellow.

Here are the balls rolled and being shaped into the hearts. And there is the book. 

 

Here are the hearts. I probably picked the most difficult shape to start with. I had a few that jumped off of their sticks; I think my cookie cutter was a little too large and the hears became too thin. The hearts really don't lend themselves to dipping and covering very easily. I won't say how late into the night this went. 

Sadly I don't like strawberry cake, or the vanilla flavored candy coating, so I didn't like them. I actually made my neighbor try one and tell me if it was any good. Well, I shouldn't have worried because they were a huge hit at daycare. All of the teachers were raving about them the next day and asking how I did them.

So the experiment was a success and it was a go for the party. Little Miss's party didn't exactly have a theme. Well, it kind of did but not one that translated to cake pops. Little Dude decided that his sister needed to have a Tinkerbell party and so I bought plates and napkins, but that was about it. I couldn't figure out how to do Tinkerbell cake pops, so I went with what I thought was the cutest thing in the book: the owls. Her invitations had owls on them so it worked.

This time I worked the project over several days; baking one day, rolling and shaping the next and then dipping them the night before the party. I was still doing it in the wee hours because I really can't start until the minions go to bed. And both of them wake several times in an evening.

The owls were more intense. I had to improvise for the beaks since I couldn't find the candy chips suggested and I did away with the wings completely. Here is what I ended up with. I don't seem to have gotten any close up pictures. My favorite one is is the one we dubbed 'Sleep Owl', seen towards the middle back. I had gotten some of the coating on the candy for the eye and decided to touch up the eyes and make him a sleepy owl. They were yellow cake with vanilla frosting and dark chocolate candy coating.

I'll be making more in the future. Little Dude is requesting a pirate party for his birthday and I think the pirate pops and some skulls are in order. I'm also trying to figure out how to make little TARDIS and Dalek ones without making myself insane. The possibilities are endless.