cake POPs! :)

as promised, here's our much awaited cake pops post!!

so this weekend, ash & i teamed up to get to work on some cake pops for a fellow teacher who was going to pay us to make them for her child's birthday party. our first payin' gig! big deal to us, as it is a joke dream of ours to run a bakery or something like that someday. for now, cake-pops on demand will do!

so friday night, ash & i got out the mixer and all our tools, and got to work. to start, we baked a box cake in a 9x13 pan and let it cool

can you see the baby bump?! yay!! ok its not much, but its enough to leave a best friend exctied!! baby's first cake pop baking adventure....we're starting this kid out right! well, i suppose technically this would be their 2nd.... were they in the womb yet? tmi?  anywho, we had a lot of convos about the baby whlie we were doing these. fun times!

we used this kitchenaid piece i gave ash for christmas- its a bottom scrapper, so it scrapes while it mixes. pretty cool huh?

once the cake was cooled, we cut it out of the pan, and started crumbling.

here was our inspiration - from the cake pop book

once the cake was cooled & crumbled, we added in about 3/4 can of premade icing. bakerella suggests using boxed cake mix & canned icing because of its consistency.  we agree.

then, we started molding. for these cake pops, we needed 35 rectangles and then the rest just balls. we molded these with our hands, and its a squishy yucky mess. kind of fun though. the cake mix feels- well, kind of like, you know when you were a kid at the beach and you would pour water on the sand and mold it into stuff or let it drip and build up like spires on your sand castle? kinda like that.

attractive pic, huh? this was after running 5 miles and before showering. sorry guys. hands were clean though!

once everything was molded, we put them in the fridge to set, and made sure we had everything we would need for the next day. then, we went to bed- eager to rise and shine bright and early the next day.

our supplies

these pens did NOT work. terrible. 

saturday morning, we were up with the sun ready to dip, doodle, & decorate. after melting our candy melts and getting together a game plan, we were good to go!

styrofoam block to sit the resting cake pops to cool

candy melts

dipping

made me wish for snow!

bare pops with nothing but their popcorn on top

charlie helped us (while nathan was still sleeping) cut the marshmallows to look like popcorn. it was crazy how much it looked just like popcorn! i ended up having to eat some real popcorn saturday night after starring at this stuff all morning

i mean, for reals, looks like popcorn, huh? or teeth...one of the two.

we found the scissors worked better & faster than a knife

then we dipped the "popcorn" in candy, and stuck it on top

ta-da!

once all the popcorn was stuck on, we took a quick breakfast break, allowing the candy to fully harden, then we got back to work. while i was working on painting the pop and stripes, ash dipped the rest of the balls in green candy melts & multicolored sprinkles. she made this display to put them in- how cute and festive!

so we had originally planned on using the wilton candy markers on these, but they were an EPIC fail. we rushed to michaels to see what else we might could use, and we came across these "matte candy writers" by duff, the ace of cakes, guy. these ended up being pretty good- they were fine for the stripes, but it was hard to write with, so i ended up squirting it in a bowl and hand painting it on. not quite what i was hoping for in terms of finished product, but they were still pretty good. i'm a little bit of a perfectionist (as is ash) so i was a little let down, but i've learned for next time!

we bagged them in treat bags & tied them up, and they were ready to go!

notice, of course, the pink glittery nails :)

so there you have it. ash & i are in the process of starting a cake pops business, so be looking for more info on that soon!!! let me know your thoughts- and want cake pops at your party? get in touch, and we'll give you a quote!!

dan's birthday cupcakes!

so i've FINALLY gotten a chance to settle down and blog a bit! i had an EXCELLENT birthday (which i will write more on later) which has kept me busy the last couple of days. so now, let the blogging begin!

i had mentioned last week that i was making dan hamburger cupcakes for his birthday. friday night around 10:30, i finally got to work. first, i baked the yellow cupcakes. ashley and i took the wilton cake decorating class last summer, and in we learned that duncan hines boxed cake mixes are the best things to use for the most consistant results. i have a from-scratch recipe for yellow cake that i like even better, but because it was raining and i was short on time (and buttermilk) i whipped up these guys. per the counsel of wilton, i add in an extra egg and a box of instant vanilla pudding mix.

while the cupcakes were baking, i whipped up some of dan's favorite brownies. i made them in a big 11x17 jelly roll pan so that i could get the most "burgers" from one box (in the future, i would make a double batch of brownies and cook them in a smaller pan, because they kind of ended up looking like mcdonalds hamburgers because of their shrimpy size)

while the brownies were in the oven, i started mixing frosting. now, normally i would whip up some homemade buttercream, but i happened to have one last container of canned frosting, and since i was just using it as a "condiment", i gave it a good stir and started coloring. the yellow and green batches turned out great, but unfortunately, the red turned out looking a little pinkish maroon. i have never been able to make good red frosting. so, i just gave up and figured, who needs a lot of ketchup anyways.

so now, i just had to start assembling. i had let both the cupcakes and brownies cool, so i was ready to work! i used my bread knife to cut my cupcakes in half, right below the tops of them.

once that was done, i used a biscuit cutter with scalloped edges to cut out "hamburgers" from the brownies. to ensure that they didn't slide off, i put a little spot of icing on the bottom half of the cupcake, then layered the brownie burger, and topped it with some squirts of "mustard" "ketchup" and "lettuce."

and here were the results!

saddly, when i showed up at moms the next morning to take them to the little guy, i found him very sick. he had come home from youth camp with some sort of nasty stomach bug, so he didn't get to enjoy any. i have promised him a birthday re-do, and i will make these again for him then.

on a side note, the rest of the fam enjoyed them and there were none leftover!

so there you go- hamburger cupcakes. way cute. way easy. quite a hit. definitely will make them again!

happy birthday dan!

at my berry graduation

today is my littlest brother dan's 12th birthday! that's so crazy! i'll never forget the night we got him (he was adopted in case you didn't know). i was heading out to go to relay for life with my dad, and my parents got a call and shortly had a newborn to look after.

if you don't know dan, you are really missing out. he is the funniest, wittiest little dude. he might be 12, but he acts about 65. from his perch on the couch (literally, a perch, a spot that he has worn down and sat in since he was like, 1), he is a champ at video games and loves to record and watch nba basketball games. he is so loving and thoughtful, and will always make you an ice water if you ask. his vocabulary is incredible (one time, him and nathan were watching star wars:clone wars and he said that the bad guy was impervious...what?!). he copies everything my dad does which is pretty darn cute.

at our wedding, he was a little too young to be a groomsman, so instead, he escorted my mom (along with critter) and read some scripture for us. he is our family's little theologian- its not uncommon for him to ask you for your view on israel or to tell you his thoughts on salvation.

dan has come to LOVE nathan. its pretty cute. no sooner have we pulled up in the driveway for a visit at the lake, and dan is waiting by nathan's door with a basketball in hand asking him to play. and he's pretty good.

dan and nathan chatting it up before the wedding

dan is also quite the ladies man. i'll never forget it- on my birthday a few years back, we were sitting at lunch and he tapped me on the shoulder and said "excuse me, but um, do you have a map?" i kind of laughed and said no why? he then went on to say, "because i'm lost in your eyes." throughout college, he would randomly call me (he memorized my cell) and he would leave me long messages, asking when i would come home and what i was doing. one day, he called me and said "hey love muffin" and ever since, we have called each other "love muffin"

one of our favorite treats- at the crepe cart in breckenridge, awaiting our scrumdidilyuptious nutella crepes

needless to say, he's quite a hoot! so heres to a happy happy 12th birthday little guy! we will be celebrating with him on sunday, and for the occasion i'm making him a surprise special treat (of course there will be a blog about it!) as far as a gift gos, no joke, when i asked him what he wanted from us for his birthday, he said that since he knew we were poor and trying to save our money to buy a house, he just wanted nathan to take him to the LA Fitness to play a game of pick up basketball, and then to go to the world of coke museum and then to dinner at Flip Burger Boutique (because thats cheap). so there will of course be a blog about that as well!

until then, happy birthday dan!

on the lift in colorado

and here's a sneak peek at what i'll be making tonight!

from bakerella's website

cake pops

about a year ago, i was introduced to a new concept that i loved- cake pops! i learned about these when my best friend ash and i were attending the wilton cake decorating class at our local michaels (which, by the way, was great fun!) cake pops are awesome. the possibilities with cake pops are endless. so basically, a cake pop is a ball of crumbled cake, mixed with icing, dipped in candy melts. yes, they are super rich and super unhealthy. and yes, they are WAY cute.

from bakerella.com, the creator & founder of all things cake pops

cake pops have been quite the rage. all over the blog world, in pinterest, in stores, and i've even heard that there is a cake pop truck in some parts of the world.  my favorite coffee shop, starbucks even has them now.

three flavors! tiramsu, rockie road, and birthday cake

my personal favorite, the tiramisu with a big for-here cup of cappuccino. yum! and, at starbucks, each one is under 200 calories- a steal! :)

about a month ago, ash and i decided it was finally time for us to try our hands at cake pops. we had exchanged pictures of them, she even bought bakeralla's cake pop book, and we had talked about how fun it would be. a girl in our lifegroup was pregnant and we were planning the baby shower, so we thought it would be the perfect time to showcase our work. the theme of the shower was a safari/monkey theme, matching the bedding of the baby boy's room. after surfing the web and looking through the book, we decided to make 2 different cake pops- the lion & the monkey. we followed the directions from the book, and had everything ready. here's some pictures detailing our adventure in cake pops:

our workspace all ready for us! i baked the chocolate cake the day before, and early that morning, we mixed in the white icing and rolled out the balls, putting them in the freezer for a bit then moving them to the fridge. its hard to tell, but that is a big foam rectangle that we had pre-poked holes in for the sticks to fit in. also, we had all of our decorative elements pre-portioned out in cupcake liners- a tip we picked up from bakerella.

here we go! ash dipped the stick first into the melt, then quickly inserted it in the ball, then dipped the ball in our peanut butter flavored candy melt.

lions first, these are drying, waiting to be decorated by me

and here is the finished guy, drying off. here's the details- for the mane, we used reeses peanut butter chips. we attached them with some of the peanut butter candy melt for the eyes, we colored a blue dot with icing onto a large white sprinkle, which we also attached with the candy melt. the nose was a brown m&m cut in half, and then we drew on the mouth with icing.

ta-da!

the monkeys were much harder. we dipped them in plain chocolate flavored candy melt, then before they dried, as  soon as ash lifted them from the candy melt, i shoved in two giant peach colored sprinkles for ears and two reeses chips for eyes. them, once dry, we affixed an unmelted peanut butter candy melt as the nose (they were a little splotchy when we took them out of the bag and not totally smooth, so i took my thumb and rubbed them ever so gently until they looked right). to that, we added a brown rainbow chip, and drew on the mouth, and to the eyes, for pupils, a dark sprinkle. these didn't turn out quite as good, but we think it was because the balls were too cold when we dipped them (the chocolate kept cracking from where the balls expanded from the heat)

needless to say, they were a hit!

so there you go. they took a lot of time- about 6 hours just to dip & decorate, but they were such a hit at the party. i definitely couldn't have done it without ash. we have often dreamed and talked of opening our own bakery someday. mostly just dreamed. we make a great team, and its such an honor to have her as a best friend!