Sunday, September 25, 2011

Just Plain Cake Pops

 This is how to make just plain cake pops. If you just want to make cake balls just forget about the lollipop sticks. Enjoy!

Ingredients: (just for plain cake pops)

  • A cake
  • A large mixing bowl
  • A container of ready-made icing
  • Large Metal Spoon
  • 2 baking sheets
  • 48 ounces of candy coating
  • Deep Microwave Safe Bowl
  • 48 Lollipop Sticks
  • A Styrofoam Block
How To make It!
Bake the cake and let it cool completely.  To crumble your cake, first cut into quarters, then take 1 of the quarters, break it in half and rub the 2 sides together. Repeat with the remaining quarters. After you crumble your cake add 3/4 of the container of icing, if you add all of it the cake balls will be too moist. mix the cake and icing together and roll into 1 1/2 inch balls. put on the baking sheets and put in the fridge to chill for several hours in the fridge or 15 min. in the freezer.
       Follow the direction on the bag to melt the candy coating. *Hint making the candy coating hotter doesn't make it thinner if it is to thick add shortening to it.*
       To dip: take a few cake balls (about 6) out of the fridge (or freezer) to work with.  If you had your cake balls in the freezer transfer them to the fridge now.  One at a time stick about 1/2 an inch of your lollipop stick in the coating, and stick it onto the cake ball, now submerge the cake pop completely in the coating. Now stick your pop in your Styrofoam block. Once you dip all of the pops let them dry completely. Now you can decorate them anyway you want!
Makes 48 cake pops (if you don't want that many each quarter of cake yields about 12 pops just adjust the icing accordingly)

4 of 52! Extra Chocolate Cake Balls!

This is a chocolate lovers must-have! These are very rich, chocolatey, sweet, chocolatey, delicious, and did I mention they were chocolatey? These were soooo yummy! My little brother Henry helped me make these and between us I was surprised there was enough chocolate chips left to dip the cake balls in! this is a chocolate lovers dish, really it is.  I had been craving something VERY chocolatey and this pretty much covered it.  I loved the little chocolate chips in the middle it was like a little surprise. All I can say now is I <3 Chocolate!

Here's the Recipe!
Ingredients:
  • A Chocolate Cake (I used chocolate fudge cake mix)
  • A 12 oz bag of mini chocolate chips
  • Two 12 oz bag of regular size chocolate chips
  • 1 can of chocolate icing
  • Chocolate Sprinkles


And how to make it:
Crumble 3/4 of your cake (see the how to make cake balls post).  Add about 3/4 of your mini chocolate chips. Add 1/2 of your container (or until the cake will hold a ball shape) of icing and mix together thoroughly. Shape into about 36 1 1/2 inch balls and stick in a fridge for 8 hours or a freezer for 15-20 min. or until firm but not frozen.  Melt one bag of chocolate chips at 10 sec. intervals until completely melted and smooth (if your chocolate is too thick try adding shortening, remember hotter doesn't mean thinner).  If you had your cake balls in the freezer transfer them to the fridge now. Take about 5-6 cake balls out of the fridge at a time and dip them into the chocolate one at a time in the chocolate and turn them until fully coated. Repeat  with the rest of the cake balls.  When the chocolate starts to get low melt your second bag of chocolate; you might not need all of the chocolate chips. After you dip all of your cake balls sprinkle them with your chocolate sprinkles or add chocolate chips to the tops. And then eat them! I suggest that you refrigerate them after your done or they will probably melt.
And here are the pictures!





My *sometimes* cute little brother Henry!
                                               

Saturday, September 17, 2011

3rd 52! Red Velvet Cupcakes!

I have never had red velvet cupcakes before but I think that I will make these again VERY soon! I loved these, they may possibly be my favorite cupcakes ever. Unfortunately its a LOT of dishes to wash! While I was making these I was having some doubts, for instance I tried the buttermilk, BLECH! And when I mixed the food coloring and cocoa powder it was all clumpy and the recipe made it seem like it was supposed to be smooth. But these turned out amazingly! I was planning on only making the cake and using store-bought icing but it wasn't until after I started cooking the cupcakes that I realized I didn't have any icing. So I looked through my cook books and found a very simple recipe for vanilla icing (I had wanted to make cream cheese icing but we didn't have enough cream cheese).  It was kind of messy because my butter wasn't completely room temperature.  But it turned out DELICIOUS.  It was very rich though so you don't need a lot but everyone said that it was good with the cupcake.
So if you want to learn how to make these look below!

Ingredients (for the cake):
  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 ounce bottle of food coloring*
  • 3 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 tsp vanilla 
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick) softened**
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vinegar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
* The recipe I used said 2 1 ounce bottles of coloring but I only used 1 and my cupcakes were very red.
**I found out 2 new ways to make butter room temperature! (Because I ALWAYS forget to take it out of the fridge). You can use a hair-dryer on the butter or stick it in a ziplock bag seal the bag and stick it under hot water (or in a bowl filled with hot water)

How To Make Them:
Preheat Oven To 350 F.  Combine Flour and salt in a medium bowl. Combine Buttermilk and vanilla in a small bowl. In another small bowl stir cocoa and food coloring together until combined (and maybe a little clumpy). Beat sugar and butter in electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy (or so it looks combined).  Add eggs to mixer and beat well. Add coca mixture to mixer and be well (until its all the same color red). Add flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately until blended.  Combine vinegar and baking soda in yet another small bowl (I used my flour mixture bowl because that was the cleanest). Fold Mixture into batter don't use your mixer. Spoon batter into cupcake tins and bake for 18-20 min or until toothpick comes out clean.        Makes 18 Cupcakes 
Adapted from 100 Best Cupcake Recipes

And Now for the icing!
Ingredients:
  • 3/4 a cup butter (a stick and a 1/4) softended
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3 cups confectioners sugar (same as powdered sugar)
  • 1-2 tsp milk (if needed)
Here's How to make it:
Cream the butter and vanilla until combined.  Add the sugar in 2 or 3 batches scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. And the milk if needed to make the frosting creamier. See I told you it was easy just make sure your butter is softened!
Adapted From Cake Pops By Bakerella
And here are some pictures of the cupcakes and icing!


                                                                                                   


I love this picture its so perfect!

Monday, September 12, 2011

PAM COOKING SPRAY!!! (its a must)

This past weekend I made gum drops. One of my biggest problems was I forgot to spray my pan with Pam!! And ohh yes I paid for it!! If there is even any chance of anything sticking to the bottom of your pan, dish, etc. use Pam, I promise there isn't a baking recipe out there that will be ruined by you spraying Pam in the bottom of your dish!!! In fact there are many recipes that could be ruined by you NOT putting Pam in!! And I have proof below!


                                                        


                                                     


I <3 Pam!
                                                 

My 2nd 52! Gum Drops!

Okay I will admit I am not completely satisfied with the these came out but whats done is done right? I have already promised my family that I will make these again and they will taste AWESOME! And if they don't I will continue making them until they do taste right! I think there are a couple of things that I screwed up that if I had done correctly they would have turned out better. Such as PAM!! if you are going to make these use Pam. it is not a choice do it or, well you'll find out. Then I didn't have the correct size pan I had a pan with nine big muffin cavities they were EXTREMELY hard to get the mixture out of.  Also I almost COMPLETELY screwed up the recipe because I almost forgot to boil my mixture, I actually had it in the pan ready to set about to pour the flavoring in when i realized that I had forgotten that step.  When I finally got the mixture on the stove an boiling I didn't stir it I did my dishes instead. The Part about waiting for it to crystallizing I'm not really sure about because the recipe says to let crystallize for 2 days but my dad wanted to eat them before then so we ate them a day early and they were (ew) crunchy. So to each his own. Below is the recipe from Bakerella.  I am also going to make a post all about why to use Pam you'll see why in the pictures!

Ingredients:
4 Tbsp gelatin (that’s about 6 envelopes)
1 cup cold water
1 1/2 cups boiling water
4 cups sugar
1/4 tsp flavored extract like lemon or peppermint
1-2 drops food coloring (I used four colors)
extra sugar for coating
PAM!!!

How To do It! (follow COMPLETELY don't end up like me!)

In a large pot, soften gelatin in cold water for five minutes. Stir in boiling water until gelatin dissolves.
Stir in sugar. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and boil for 25 minutes(almost messed up). Stir constantly (messed up). Pour mixture into 4 – 3X5 pans (wrong pan size). Add 1/4 tsp extract and 1-2 drops food color to each pan. Stir until thoroughly combined. Cover pan and chill overnight in the fridge. Cut gelatin mixture into 3/4 inch cubes using a knife dipped in hot water. The gelatin may pull, but continue cutting. Separate cubes and roll in sugar until coated on all sides.
Place gumdrops on wax paper and leave at room temperature for two days to crystallize (To each their own).
This Makes 8 dozen gumdrops I didn't want that many so I cut the recipe in half.
STICKY!
Nice, Neat, And HARD to get out!
That Did NOT end well!


All Done!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Cake Pop Bees!!!!

As I promised, I have the Bee Pop Pictures.  My cousin Christine (thanks sooo much!) sent me some pictures that she took of them!  These were really fun to make! I'll tell you how to make plain cake pops in this post too because its my first cake pop post.

Ingredients: (just for plain cake pops)
  • A cake
  • A large mixing bowl
  • A container of ready-made icing
  • Large Metal Spoon
  • 2 baking sheets
  • 48 ounces of candy coating
  • Deep Microwave Safe Bowl
  • 48 Lollipop Sticks
  • A Styrofoam Block
How To make It!
Bake the cake and let it cool completely.  To crumble your cake, first cut into quarters, then take 1 of the quarters, break it in half and rub the 2 sides together. Repeat with the remaining quarters. After you crumble your cake add 3/4 of the container of icing, if you add all of it the cake balls will be too moist. mix the cake and icing together and roll into 1 1/2 inch balls. put on the baking sheets and put in the fridge to chill for several hours in the fridge or 15 min. in the freezer.
       Follow the direction on the bag to melt the candy coating. *Hint making the candy coating hotter doesnt make it thinner if it is to thick add shortening to it.*
       To dip: take a few cake balls (about 6) out of the fridge (or freezer) to work with.  If you had your cake balls in the freezer transfer them to the fridge now.  One at a time stick about 1/2 an inch of your lollipop stick in the coating, and stick it onto the cake ball, now submerge the cake pop completely in the coating. Now stick your pop in your Styrofoam block. Once you dip all of the pops let them dry completely. Now you can decorate them anyway you want!
Makes 48 cake pops (if you don't want that many each quarter of cake yields about 12 pops just adjust the icing accordingly)
To decorate as bees:
You'll Need-
  • 48 ounces yellow candy coating
  • a bag of white candy coating
  • a black icing writer
  • edible markers
You can prepare the wings ahead of time, cut away part of the circle of candy coating to make it similar to the curve of the cake pops. Shape the cake balls into ovals. Dip the cake balls in the yellow candy coating. When they are dry use your black icing writer to make stripes on the bees.  After that use some leftover yellow candy coating as glue to attach the wings.  when they are done make cute little faces on your bees with your candy markers. the recipe said to use black but my black marker wasn't working so I used blue or green eyes and a red mouth.  If you have any questions put them in a comment and I'll answer them as best I can.
I got these recipes from www.bakerella.com and there are many more great ones on her site! So go make some Yummy Stuff!!
And here are the pictures! (again thanks Christine!)






A buzzy bye from these bees!!

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Bakerella!

So at my Grandmom's Birthday party I made Bee Cake Pops.  Once I get pictures of them I will post them but until then I want to tell you how I came about making them!  For my birthday I got this book called Cake Pops by Bakerella.  I didn't really think about the author because I was to busy drooling over the delicious food in the book. But when I realized that nobody would name their kid Bakerella I looked it up online.  Bakerella is a popular baking blog started by Angela Dudley.  Angela doesn't have any formal baking experience just a passion to try new things.  The recipe for the bee's was on her site along with a lot of other cool recipes and ideas to try.  You will probably see many of my 52's on her site. I have attached the URL to her site if anyone wants to check it out or buy the cake pops book.
www.bakerella.com





Friday, September 2, 2011

Banana Boats! My First 52!




Banana Boats!!!
We had a bonfire a couple nights ago and I decided to make a banana boat. These are simple to make and taste DELICIOUS! I think that these just might taste better than s'mores! I put in Nutella, toasted coconut marshmallows, chocolate mint marshmallows, and a crumbled up Reese's fast break. Enjoy!!

Here’s what you’ll need:
1 Banana
2 Tablespoons of peanut butter or nutella
Mini marshmallows
4 blocks of hershey's chocolate
Nuts, candy, or whatever else you want to add
Enough foil to wrap around the banana
A Fire
Here’s how to make it:
Cut you’re banana in the peel down the center but not all the way through. Slather with as much peanut butter or nutella (or both) you want, then put in your chocolate pieces, next add your marshmallows, after that add whatever else you want to put in. Now you’re ready to cook! Wrap in your foil tightly and put on hot coals in a fire. Cook for 5 minutes, take it out unwrap the foil and eat your treat!

5 minutes prep 5 minutes cooking
Before I cooked it
I added LOTS of Nutella

Ready to eat!! YUM!

In the fire

Yum52!

Hi! My sister Mads loves to take pictures and she did something called a 52; where each week she took a self-portrait of herself and made something cool with it. Since I love to bake I thought it would be fun to do a different version of it... Instead of taking self-portraits I  will attempt to make a sweet treat each week for 52 weeks (or 1 year) take pictures of it and document the recipes and my adventures. It was my mom's idea to make a blog for myself and put the recipes on here! So get ready to make some Yummy Stuff!!