Cake Pop Favor

I made these super cute Cake Pop Favors for my holiday party this weekend - blog post to come soon!

Flower Cake Pops

I have been itching to use up the leftover flower cake balls that have been stored in my freezer ever since I made the Hawaiian Cake Pops.  I keep looking online for ideas, and dreaming about what to make.  Along came the Labor Day holiday, and I used the whole day to make cake pops!  After my frustrating attempt at Hello Kitty I have really wanted to redeem myself.  I have been researching different techniques and tips and ideas, and they turned out okay, but still not what I was hoping for.

 So, Bakerella, the inventor of the Cake Pop, recommends this brand of candy melts. 

 Here they are - ready to be melted in the microwave!  Bakerella says that she never has to add a thinning agent and melts them on 50% power in 30 second increments, stirring each time.  Yeah, whatever.  I still had to thin mine - I might as well go back to the cheap kind you can get from craft stores. 

 These flowers are so cute! 

 I love these candy coated sunflower seeds - the colors are so natural. 

 Getting the colored sugar all lined up and ready.

 This is a little trick I've used before but forgotten.  It's from Bakerella.

 I thought these super cute tiny tweezers from Target would help me, but they didn't.

 The colors of these melts were pretty and vibrant, but still not perfect.

 Done dipping the flower pops, getting ready to do the spheres.

 I added some chocolate - yummers!

 I would rather do sphere cake pops any day of the week.  They are low-maintenance (relatively anyway) and I just love that about them.

 I made some flowers with the sunflower seeds on the tops of some of the cake pop spheres.

 Here I am using the corn syrup to "paint" a design on the pop.

 Sprinkling the sugar.

 And voila!

 A mixture of vibrant, beautiful cake pops.

 They still didn't turn out the way I envisioned in my mind, and I still want to conquer this difficult hobby/business that I enjoy so much.

I will keep trying when I get free time like this lovely Labor Day Holiday!

What I've Been Up To

It's been a busy summer - and not a lot of time for baking!  Here are a few things I've done recently:

Here are some Hello Kitty cake pops that I made for a client's daughter's birthday.  I think they turned out cute - but not as cute as I had hoped!  These were incredibly time consuming and tedious.  I have decided that I do not like doing cake pop "characters."

These are some "New Year's Eve" inspired silver balls for a friend's 30th birthday party.  I made these the same night as the Hello Kitty cake pops, and it was very late at night.  In the end, they turned out fine, but they were not exactly what I was hoping for! 

These are some baby shower cupcakes that I made last weekend.  Let me tell you, I am always so happy to make cupcakes after struggling with cake pops!  These were so much fun and turned out so cute!!!

Again, not in-depth blogs unfortunately, but I wanted to post about my recent adventures! 

Black Forest

I have a LOT of Leos in my life.  Case in point: I have filled out 6 birthday cards in the past 3 days.  Yay!  I love my Leos, who are very similar in personality to my own Aquarius.  In the spirit of celebration, we decided to celebrate "First Friday" with Karaoke, and marked the occasion of both Don & Cecilee's birthdays with some black forest cupcakes!  I think Cecilee (who is also an amazingly talented chef, baker, person) has a particular affinity for black forest.  And how could you not?  Dark chocolate and cherries - sign me up!!

 So first, I needed to gather my materials - cherry liquor, pie filling, dark chocolate and maraschino cherries!  I could have made my own cherries and cherry pie filling, but had this stuff on-hand, and also didn't have a whole lot of time.

 I cored my dark chocolate cupcakes - they were so moist they did not want to core much!

 Add in that beautiful pie filling - yum!

 Infuse some liquor into the cupcakes for even more cherry flavor.

 Now time for the frosting.  Since these are so sweet, most recipes call for a whipped cream frosting.  This was the only part of these that I did not care for - I am not a huge fan of whipped cream. 

 I grated some dark chocolate.

 Sprinkled it over the cakes, and put a cherry on top!

 Delish!  And oh-so-cute!

Hawaiian Cake Pops

So the wonderful woman who ordered Mario Cake Pops ordered Hawaiian Cake Pops for this weekend!  She is keeping me busy but I am loving it!

 I saw this great blog post and was inspired by her pictures, but I wanted to "up" the ante a bit.  So I made a "stamen" from a licorice stick, made another "stamen" type thing from star sprinkles, and then made the other third sparkle with glitter.  Remember, I make cake pops to give folks a smile before they bite down and enjoy!  My cake is completely from scratch and so is the frosting.  This order was for 65 cake pops!  If I made only 5-6 cake pops for photographing, maybe mine would look a bit more perfect?  I am not sure.  :)

 These colors are so much fun!

 I've been working on different bases for my cake pops.  Last weekend I bought a 5 dollar cardboard "cake pop stand" from AC Moore and it was AWFUL.  I had to have help putting it together and it was terrible.  So I ordered two others from amazon, but I don't really want to let people use them if I am not 100% certain I am going to get them back.  So I bought a large Styrofoam block and covered it with a plastic white tablecloth.  I added some plastic hibiscus to this base to tie it into the Luau theme, and I have asked the customer for the base back, which can be re-purposed for in many different ways.

 I am still not loving the idea of using cookie or fondant cutters to shape cake pops - again, maybe if I'm only making 10.  You can see the indentations where I pushed the pop through the cutter.  It does help to dip the cutter in warm water, but it would also help if I smoothed them out some, too.  This was a 7+ hour creation, though, and I dare say I didn't have much stamina left toward the end.

 I still think they are awfully cute!

 The view from above.

65 Hawaiian Cake Pops!

Rainbow Cake Pops

So, I like to bake.  A lot.  Often and many.  But I have a day job, too.  I actually hold a Master's Degree in Early Childhood Education.  And I am very, very passionate about my job.  Currently, I work for NCaeyc (North Carolina Association for the Education of Young Children).  But only for a few more days.  It's very sad, because I love my job, but I have a wonderful opportunity waiting for me that I will begin on June 4th!

Through my work at NCaeyc I have met the most wonderful people, including our Association President, Eva.  She's someone who I've admired from afar for many years, and I couldn't be more fortunate to have met her, worked with her, and now count her among my friends.

We had a Board of Director's meeting last weekend, and when I offered to bring something to contribute to the lunch potluck, she asked for cake pops.  It was kind of a joke - she sees my blog and my Facebook page and I think once I had Lorie (my amazing boss at NCaeyc) sneak Eva a cake pop into a BoD meeting several months ago.

Since all of my stuff was still out (sprawled all over our dining room table) and I am so inspired by Pinterest, I decided that SURE I would LOVE to make cake pops for Eva.

If you're living under a rock, you probably haven't heard about the constitutional amendment that passed in North Carolina earlier this month.  It is incredibly devastating and heart-wrenching, and Eva and I both worked hard to fight it.  In her honor, I made rainbow cake pops, but honestly, I don't think they turned out quite the way I was hoping.  (Do they ever?)

Cake pops are HARD work.  I do NOT charge enough for them, I am sure of that (and these were free) but I really, really enjoy the process.  I hope to continue to get better at making them smooth, with no cracks, as I continue to develop my skills.

 I guess I have this rainbow backwards, don't I?

 I made these at night and left before 7:00 AM so I really didn't have any great light to use for photographing these, so I am really disappointed in the photo results.

Per usual, these photograph so much nicer when they are upside down!