Cake Pops!!

Yesterday, I did the unthinkable.  I decided to make cake pops.  It was actually pretty hard to get them right, and they are quite time consuming.  Although in the end, I felt pretty happy with my colorful, tasty results.  I bought the cake pop mold thinking that I would need it to make the delicious dessert, but little did I know that you actually don’t need these; all you need is cake and frosting and two hands waiting to mush them together (I secretly had fun doing the messy part).  

Of course, I chose funfetti. 🙂 I only made a batch of 12 in the cake pop mold (I thought it would be fun to use it even though I didn’t need to), then baked the rest into a giant blob (mmm)

Even though the balls spilled over a little in their mold, I just ended up mushing them into cake+frosting goo.

 

They look like UFO’s! Haha

Post-mushing

 

Shaping them into little balls was the easy part.  I had to dip the lollipop sticks into the chocolate, stick them into the cake, and wait for it to harden.  I learned this after I tried to completely coat the cake pop with chocolate immediately after sticking it*.

Clearly, things got a little messy**.

 

The final product!!  Some of them are prettier than the others, but let’s not judge the poor little things. 

Not bad, huh? 🙂

 

*Note the failure. 

**Note the eaten failure.

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

Yesterday was my dad’s 50th birthday! It was an exciting and absolutely beautiful day filled with surprises (an iPad), mountain biking, and a glorious dinner at Helmand in Cambridge (the food was so amazing I completely forgot to snap a picture…).  As the resident baker in the family, I always make a fabulous cake.  This year, as requested, I made a Carrot Cake.  It was amazing.  Martha Stewart clearly knows what she’s doing.  This recipe has the perfect ratio of spices, carrots, pecans, everything.  Everyone was pleased, especially the birthday boy, when they all took their first bites of the scrumptious confection.

This recipe is heavy duty on the spices (and butter), which made the cake that much better.

The 30 minutes of baking time gave me the perfect amount of time to wash my mixing bowl and make the Cream Cheese Frosting.  Absolute Heaven.

This is a snapshot of the cake upon completion.  You can’t even tell that there’s a crack in the cake! -It crumbled just a tad when I was flipping the second layer on top of the first layer.  I have made this before, and the same thing happened last time I made this cake.  I discovered that, since the cream cheese frosting is essentially like glue, you can just slather it on a little extra and leave the cake be in that area.  That way no one can tell that the frosting is hiding a (shameful) secret!

The pecans encrusting the sides of the cake are a nice, decorative touch to such a massive cake.  And they’re yummy! 🙂

Time to make a wish and dig in!

Love you Papa Bear! Happy Birthday!