The Tale of the Really Ugly Beach Ball

First off, I want to let you all know that my mom will probably be horrified that I am sharing this photo with all of you.  It is not representative of our best work, but I figure half the fun is in laughing at your mistakes as well as rejoicing in your successes, right?

As I mentioned in my last post, we are officially done with December-holiday-themed cake pops!  Mom and I were looking for something easy to do (meaning, something spherical), so we decided to skip ahead a few seasons to summer and try our hand at Beach Ball cake pops.

Now, as you can see, it's a pretty ugly beach ball.  I will be the first to admit that we made some rookie mistakes with the sprinkles.  For some reason, I thought we could attach them using candy melt.  WRONG. It dries too fast before you can get all the colored sugar on the cake pop.  We were so disappointed in how this one turned out that we only made one (and vowed never to make any more again!).

It's okay, though, because after calming down, we decided to reflect on our failed experience and gather some practical advice to share.  First, as soon as your finish dipping the cake pop, before the candy melt dries, score it with a tooth pick.  That way you know where each sprinkles sections goes.  Second, you should probably pour your colored sugar into separate bowls and spoon them onto each section.  We tried sprinkling it on out of a shaker.  No go.  Third, we did eventually figure out the best way to glue colored sugar to a cake pop.  The secret is corn syrup.  Don't bother with candy melt or white chocolate or whatever else.  It dries too fast, leaving you with ugly gaps in the sugar.  Yuck.

Long story short, if you want to order beach ball cake pops, I suppose we will revisit this design and acquiesce.  But give it a few months.  I think we'll be more in the mood once summer actually rolls around!

You Can't Catch Me, I'm the...

...gingerbread man!

That phrase just doesn't sit right in my mouth.  Since switching to teaching third grade, I've gone from spouting the crazed antics of a cookie to reading the Jon Scieszka version, The Stinky Cheese Man.  However, fear not, these cuties are not made of any sort of fermented dairy (although, can I just say that I recently bought a wonderful pieces of blue brie cheese?  I loved it!).  These babies are chocolate through and through!

Our friend Ailynne (of Ailynne Abarado Photography) asked if we could make her some gingerbread men cake pops for her gingerbread house-themed children's party.  We were a bit rushed for time (Orchestral gig all weekend long--my arm is about to fall off from nonstop violin playing), so unfortunately my mom and I couldn't get too creative.  We also didn't have any gingerbread cake on hand, so we just used plain chocolate.  As usual, we piped everything on using candy melt!  We ran out of sprinkles for the buttons so we had to pipe those on by hand as well.

Well, I do believe that will be our last batch of December holiday-themed cake pops.  As soon as school lets out, I'm headed to NYC! Can't wait!

For My Favorite Aunt

Funny story... when I was six or seven years old, my grandparents moved into a new house.  At the time, my (favorite) aunt, my mom's younger sister, was still living with them.  The new house had a room with a built in (peach-colored) lofted bed against one wall, and a built in shelf/desk combo along another.  I immediately fell in love with the room, and for some odd reason, I was absolutely sure it was mine.  (I didn't even live with my grandparents, I was just visiting, but go figure.)  I mean, it was a peach colored room, so obviously it wasn't going to my brother (said my strangely unfeminist six year old brain).  And peach is totally a kid's color, so naturally, my aunt wouldn't want this room either!  I was so excited about the place that I even put a package of Juicy Fruit gum in one of the drawers of the built in desk (to mark my territory, of course).  Then I climbed up into the lofted bed and settled in for the day.  Sure, it was still daytime, but what better way to show you own a room than by taking a nap for everyone to see?

Long story short, after the adults broke the news to me (and broke my heart), my aunt moved into her brand new room.  She was going through a Peanuts character phase and decorated the room with Peanuts memorabilia.  I loved her room, and every time we visited my grandparents, I would sleep there.  (Getting married, though, has complicated my relationship with the peach-colored room... the lofted bed is a twin-sized bed. making it rather dangerous for two people to sleep in it at the same time...)

Anyway, this whole story is to lead up to the fact that my (favorite) aunt has been bugging me to make her a Peanuts character cake pop for some time now, and I've finally obliged.  It is not great quality, so I'm still working to perfect it, but here's a sneak preview for you (and for her):

Snoopy was found wandering through Winter Wonderland.

I've had some pretty awful luck getting edible markers to work well on top of candy coating, so I've stuck to just piping things on with candy melt when I need to draw any details.  It works okay, but I wish it had a smoother finished look.

I came close... but something's just not quite right with this Snoopy.  Any suggestions??

Cake Pops: Winter/Christmas Edition

An order of Christmas-themed cake pops!

Christmas trees, presents, and snow people!  We used sour belt candy for the snowpeople scarves, sprinkles for the buttons, and mini M&Ms for the ear muffs.  Everything else is piped on candy melt.  I love sour belt candy.  I haven't had any in years, so I kept sneaking in a few bites during the process. :)

We also had leftover jumbo heart sprinkles from our Hello Kitty order, so we used some to make a bow for the Christmas present cake pop.

I couldn't decide which type of bow looked better... 4 jumbo sprinkles standing up, or 2 flat on top of the present?  Which one do you like better?

An Army of Kitties!

So... remember that big order I said we had coming up in the "Sneak Preview" a few weeks ago?  Well, the big order turned out to be MUCH bigger than we thought it would be.  Yikes!  

Originally, my coworker ordered 50 Hello Kitty cake pops.  Then, she asked if we could double the order!  Up to that point, the most we had ever made in a day was an order of 80 cake pops, consisting of 4 different cake pop designs.  Even though this order would be bigger, we thought it would be a piece of cake: 100 cake pops, all Hello Kitties?  No problem!

Little did I know... About 50 cake pops in, I began reverting back to my 3rd-grade self (sometimes on the weekends, I channel my students when they're not around) and couldn't help asking every 5 seconds, "Are we done yeeet?"  Shape all the cake balls into ovals.  Glue on the chocolate chip ears.  Dip all the cakes.  Glue on the red mini M&M.  Glue on two red jumbo heart sprinkles.  Repeat x 100...

(Actually we would complete one step for each cake pop before we moved on the next step, but still, you get the point.)

By the end of the day, I had to move the cake pops in front of the TV so I could pipe on the eyes and nose while watching my latest Netflix obsession (Numb3rs) to keep myself awake.  Who knew an army of kitties could take so much outta me?!

Notice how the lighting has drastically changed from the previous picture.  That's right, we started when it was daylight out and didn't finish until it was pitch black outside!

It was still a blast, but my mom and I have agreed that from now on, we will not agree to make any more than 50 cake pops on any given day.  We only have enough stamina to get through decorating 50 of them at a time... Lesson learned! :) 

Until next time!

Birthday Bouquet 2

Flashback to a few weeks ago...

My friend Tiff's birthday was right after Thanksgiving, so over the long Thanksgiving weekend, my mom and I made another Birthday Bouquet (version 2!).  My brother's girlfriend, Meg, was able to spend Thanksgiving with us this year so we had an extra pair of hands to help!  She took care of all the piping.

We have finally found a brand of candy coating that we like to use.  My mom likes making sure that our cake pops only sport a very thin coat of candy melt.  Otherwise, eating the confection feels like you are swallowing a mouthful of nothing but sugar.  Ambrosia's White and Chocolate Bark Coating has worked the best for us so far.  It melts into a smooth consistency that makes coating the cake pops a breeze!

We used the same thin candles as we used in our first Birthday Bouquet (which actually aren't candles, but rather, Wilton's Sparklers).  Meg and I had to scrape off the wax from the tip to expose the wick to make it look like regular candles.

These were fun to make, and much less work intensive than shaping the birthday cakes in our first birthday bouquet!  Lesson learned: spheres are much easier than cylinders.

Anyway, happy (belated) birthday, Tiff!  Hope you enjoyed the cake pops! :)