Cake Pops!

I've made these delightful little things a couple of times now, but this will be my first time posting. I promised my coworkers that I'd make some Easter cake pops and instead of doing the cute animals featured on bakerella.com, I opted for just doing Easter eggs as they'd be quicker.

So, let's begin. First up, bake a cake, any cake, that strikes your fancy. I'm a fan of a simple white cake, so that's what I made. To make it a bit more Easter-like, I added some pink food coloring:

I think next time I do these, I'll dye the cake different colors and bake it in 2-3 round pans, just for more variety in the pops. Once the cake is done and cooled completely (don't mess around with this part!!), crumble it up into a big bowl:

You may have to pull off some of the corners that browned a bit much, but don't worry, this will make a lot of cake pops even without those corners. Next up, add your frosting of choice. It's about 2/3 of a regular recipe of frosting (to frost top and sides of two 8" cakes). You don't want to use too much frosting, the last two times I did this I messed up and it made them fall off the sticks and required much more refrigeration. You only want enough to bind it all together, no more. Don't worry, you won't miss it! I used cream cheese frosting.

Once it's all stirred in, it's time to get your hands dirty. Pull some out and make it into a ball (or, in this case, an egg shape). I use about enough to make something a little smaller than a golf ball. If you make it too big, it will fall off the stick...and while it may seem like there's not enough cake in there, there is.

Spend the next 20 minutes making many!

Then prepare the remainder of your ingredients. Candy melts (I used half a bag of three different colors) with about half a teaspoon of shortening in each half-bag to thin it out just a bit...and a bunch of lollipop sticks. I think a half a bag of candy melts is about 7 oz of chocolate, so you'll need about 21oz in total. You can also use real chocolate, you may just have to use more shortening. You want it to be relatively thin, otherwise it won't get smooth on the pops.

Once it's all melted and you've let your cake pops cool for about 10 minutes in the fridge (to bind them together a bit more), it's time to start putting them together! First, to put the sticks into the pops, it works best to put a little candy on the stick before inserting it into the pop.

Put it in about a third of the way through the pop:

Do that for all of them, the cool cake pops from the fridge should harden the candy relatively quickly so you can move on to step #2 as soon as you're done inserting the sticks.

Next up, start dipping them in their colors. You could use enough candy to dip them completely, or just use a spoon as I did to cover them. Either way works. Once you've coated them completely, tap and spin them gently to get off any excess chocolate (you don't want dripping all down the lollipop stick!). I will add a word of warning here: if you let them cool for too long in the fridge, they may crack the chocolate as they warm up and expand. So you want to only cool them enough to get them to harden up a bit, but not enough to be completely cold. Play with it, even with cracked chocolate they're super cute!

Stick them all in some styrofoam - $2 from Michael's - to dry. These aren't perfectly smooth, I obviously need to make more to perfect it.   

If you want to add sprinkles, I'd recommend doing it while the chocolate is still wet. I didn't do that, so had to re-dip several of them.

Then, enjoy! They're very moist and delicious in addition to being cute.

Jetlag Cupcakes

So originally, I'd intended on making some hi hat cupcakes as described here but realized upon arriving at home that I only had 2 eggs left so that put a wrench in my plans. Instead of going to the store (I just got back from Japan, I don't want to leave my house!!), I changed my idea.

I started with some cupcakes. The primary complaint I have with cupcakes is that they tend to dry out relatively easily. So to combat this problem, I find oil-based cake recipes. I also needed one that would only require 2 eggs, where most require 3. Fortunately, I found one. 

 I also thought it'd be cute to put some colored chocolate chips in there. This was a dumb decision that I blame on the fact that these were made at 3am (jetlag, how I hate you!). Because I used an oil based batter instead of butter, it was much thinner...and they all sunk to the bottom. Plus, the cake is so dark brown that you couldn't see the colors. They were cute in the box, though!

All baked and ready to go! Don't they look tasty?

I made some buttercream icing but instead of using milk and vanilla to flavor it, I used orange juice and orange extract. Orange and chocolate goes well together, right? Made it in three different colors, got all of my pieces together (I used tip #352 for the leaves/petals and some random star, prolly ~17 for the center):

I need to work on being a better photographer, I think.

First, start with a few leaves. I'm in no way an expert piper, but cupcakes and the people who usually eat my stuff are very forgiving, so here we go:

 Next up, add the yellow. I somehow managed to have two 352 tips, probably an accidental purchase not realizing I already had one, which made this much quicker to do as I made the frosting a little soft and needed to keep cooling it off in the fridge. So I could rotate.

Aww, look how cute it is! Starting to look like a flower! Sorta. A friend of mine stopped by tonight and he didn't really see the resemblance to flowers but I shushed him.

Then, add a little bit of brown. I should've probably used a clean piping bag instead of putting it in the green one, but I'm lazy.

The beautiful finished product:

A basket full of sunflowers! Of course, I'm well aware that sunflowers are a summer/fall flower, not a spring one...but if you can think of a way to pipe a daffodil onto a cupcake, I'd be all ears! :) Now, my friends, it's time for this jetlagged girl to head to bed.

They're quite delicious, by the way. :-)

Chile

This morning I awoke to an email from a friend asking if I'd heard about the earthquake in Chile. I hadn't, so immediately turned on the news and found out that the country I lived in for 5 years and in many ways consider my home country was hit by a terrible earthquake.

Watched the news for about 3 hours before deciding I couldn't sit in front of CNN all day. So I decided to bake something classically Chilean. At first I thought perhaps Pastel de Choclo or Ensalada Chilena. I decided instead upon Empanadas de Pino. So I set to work after a trip to the grocery store.

First up, the Pino. I was afraid that perhaps my onions were a bit old, since one of them seemed to want to be in the ground:

 

My others seemed to be ok, though, so I could proceed chopping, sauteeing, adding in beef and spice and end up with the final pino:

  

Once the pino was in the fridge, I needed to make the dough. Now, if I'm honest, pastry dough of any sort scares me silly. I just can't do it like my dad can, so why try? But, my dad's not in Baltimore so I must make an attempt.

The first part I've got down, I can cut the butter and shortening into the flour mixture. Easy as..pie!

Now comes the hard part. Slowly added the eggs/water mixture with a spoon until I couldn't stir it anymore. I tried the dough hook on my KitchenAid, as the recipe said, but I have trust issues when it comes to dough hooks, so quickly switched to the old fashioned way. Kneaded it, then made it into a ball and let it sit for an hour.

After the required hour, I cut it up (everyone should have a dough cutter in their kitchen!) and made it into a bunch of beautiful balls.

 

Next came the best part! Roll it out, fill it up, seal it. They're filled with the aforementioned Pino, raisins, a piece of a hard boiled egg, and olives (whatever you do, do NOT chop up the olives like the recipe says).

 

 

Made a few and then coated 'em with an egg and milk mixture

Baked for 30 or so minutes and then put them on some wire racks to cool.

  

And let me tell you, these are everything you could desire in life. The pastry dough is a little bit sweet, the delicious savory inside with those occasional bits of sweet raisins. So so good.

In other news, if you're in the Maryland area and would like to try some of these, please please let me know! I leave for Japan in 5 days and I have 25 of these.

The recipe I used is here but I can't say I followed it exactly, just as a guide. I measured nothing other than the empanada dough.

Cheese and Dill Biscuits

When not feeling well, I typically want to bake. So this evening, I went to my refrigerator to see what ingredients I had with which I could bake something. No milk, but half a carton of cream that I need to use before heading to Japan next week. Well, how about biscuits? I explored the internet for a recipe and found one from America's Test Kitchen. Interestingly, it has no fat (oil, butter, shortening) but lots of cream.

Mixing it up should be easy! I'm not sure how much cheese I put in there, but what I had left in the fridge, probably about 1/4 cup. Dill, about a teaspoon. Savory biscuits are always better than sweet.


Mixed it all up. Never underestimate the power of your hands in mixing! Hmm...doesn't look like there is enough dill in there.
Add a bit more!
Next I rolled it onto the counter in some flour and kneaded the extra dill in a bit (but not too much! You want flaky biscuits, not tough ones).

Rolled it out and now comes the hard part: what to cut it with. I don't own a biscuit cutter and usually use a glass. I looked through my cookie/fondant cutters and found a couple that were possibilities.

Went with the flower. What could be better than bite-sized, flower power biscuits? Put 'em on some parchment paper so I wouldn't have to grease the pan (I know, lazy). Look at that baking powder going to work:
I watched the oven closely and pulled 'em out 5 minutes earlier than called for (about 10 mins) since they were much smaller than regular biscuits. Put on a wire rack to cool.

Man these babies look cute and delicious!
Who needs butter when you have cheese and dill and a whole bunch of savory goodness?

Men should be lining up soon! :-)


Recipe:

2 cups flour
2 tsps sugar
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 tsp dill
1 1/3 cups cream

Mix together all dry ingredients and cheese, add cream. Roll out approx 3/8in. Cut out biscuits. Place on parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake in 450 degree oven for 10-15 mins.

How to Find a Husband

When I was a young girl, my dad always told me that if I wanted to find a husband, I had to learn to cook. This blog is all about this, my attempts at learning how to cook, well, bake. I may at times delve over into the world of cooking but I'm a baker at heart and why, per my Papa's logic, I'm 27 years old and still single.

I've been cooking and baking for years, but have only recently become interested in really improving my skillsets, particularly in cake decorating. Come along for the ride, if you'd like, and help me learn how to find a husband!