Saturday, February 11, 2012

Trial and error...

OK, been a busy week. Got short stuff all set to FINALLY start school on Monday. Tomorrow is his birthday and I decided with all the creativity going on around here, I should make him a catapillar cake again. ( plus I can take pics and use it for a Pin  :P)

The oven temp knob on my stove is broken so I fooled with it this morning and felt pretty good about it but made a plain sheet cake first since I planned on trying my hand at cake pops anyway. Everything came out fine so I baked the bundt cake for his birthday and set everything out to cool, then started the dough for some pink peanut butter kiss valentine cookies for his class party on Tuesday.

Now mind you, I still am barely moved in this place and only have about 3 feet of counter space but, I did it. I had to do dishes about 5 times and there is yet another sink full to do now but...I'm rockin' it.

I did a test batch of cake pops since in reading the comments where I got the recipe seemed as though it may not be as easy as it looks. I only had one can of cream cheese icing so I whipped up some butter cream from scratch and set out on my mission. I would have to say that I should have tried the first batch stick side up, simply for level of ease on a new project, but I was feeling adventurous and tried it cake ball up. I repurposed some styrofoam veggie containers and an empty coffee can for my stand while creating. I think dipping the stick in chocolate prior to inserting in the ball was a great tip but I am absolutely going to add a hint of shorting on the next round to thin out the chocolate for dipping. Also, I didn't "dip" the balls, I held the cake part over the melted chocolate and used a teaspoon to pour the chocolate over it then spun the stick between my fingers to shake off excess chocolate.

The original plan was to form hearts but...I was kidding myself, again reminding myself that just because Bakerella makes it sound simple, I should probably get some sort of candy form to try that...instead I just made round balls and the plan was to use the chocolate to attach a conversation heart to each one, but this is also where laying them flat would have helped. The ball is so round, and those candies are hardly well formed....having the face of the chocolate be flat will also improve this. Lastly, I made my cake/icing combo about the texture of mashed potatos. Since I was only doing a little to test it, I didn't have exact measurements to work with and I thought it seemed too soft but then after some time in the fridge it seemed I was wrong about that.....I sampled one and I was right, needs more cake and less icing. It was just too wet.

Anyway, pics coming tomorrow once I finish his catapillar and I will post pics/ instructions for that too....is it bed time yet? lol



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