Dr. Seuss Cake Pops

Our nephew turned one in November and had a Dr. Seuss themed birthday party, which included Dr Seuss cake pops that I made.  These were by far the most involved cake pops I've made.  As I was eight months pregnant when I made them, I started the process a week before the party so I could do a little each day and not wear myself out.  The first thing I did was make the cake (out of a box for ease), mix in the frosting, and shape the pops into the necessary shapes.  My next step was to make fondant, something I had never done before.  I used a basic marshmallow fondant recipe, made a massive mess, and ended up with successful fondant! 

I used a small circle cookie cutter to cut the fondant for the front of my 'Thing 1' and 'Thing 2' cake pops. 

I bought a tube of blue frosting (which was easier than making it) and squeezed it into my own piping bag.  I used a tip I had on hand to make the blue hair for 'Thing 1' and 'Thing 2'

Next I made the ham from 'Green Eggs and Ham'.  The white is a small fondant circle and the black is frosting I drew on with a very small tip and piping bag.  Boy, did my hand hurt from drawing those tiny lines on!

Last was the hat from 'Cat in the Hat'.  I thought this cake pop would be the simplest to make but it proved to be the most challenging.  The white disk on the bottom is fondant cut with a cookie cutter.  The red stripes are a fruit roll up.  Ha!  I tried many things here for the stripes but nothing worked very well and looked messy.  The fruit roll up worked great and was pretty quick to do, though it wasn't the greatest tasting thing. 

I think made three or four trips to Micheal's and Hobby Lobby for these pops.  I bought several items as back up items in case some of my ideas didn't work and ended up being able to return several of them.  These cake pops ended up being very labor intensive but where also a lot of fun to make!  I will say, the next time I make cake pops that take this much time, it will be for my own kid!!

The finished product at the birthday party!

This is Genius

This is genius.

Sadly, 1) I didn't think of it first and 2) I don't have $200 to buy it.  I guess I'll have to keep on using my cookie scoop.

Carrot Cupcakes

I have so many recipes for cupcakes I've been wanting to try and this was one of them.  I love carrot cake but you just don't see too many carrot cupcakes so I thought I should find a recipe and make some.  I found this recipe on Martha Stewart's website which meant it had to be good!

Carrot Cupcakes
Source: Martha Stewart
Print Recipe Here

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, spoon and leveled
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons plain low-fat yogurt
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups grated carrots

Frosting:
1 package (8 Ounces) cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon grated orange zest

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line muffin tin with paper liners.
In large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg; set aside.
In another bowl, whisk together melted butter, brown sugar, egg, yogurt, and vanilla.  Stir in carrots.  Gradually add dry ingredients to butter mixture until well combined.  Divide among muffin tin.  Bake 25-30 minutes.
Remove from pan to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
To make frosting, use an electric mixer, beat cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar until smooth, beat in vanilla and orange zest. 

Amy's Notes:
Note that this recipe is for 12 cupcakes.  I ended up doubling it, but wasn't quite thinking and didn't have enough ingredients to double the frosting.  So I improvised, but my frosting wasn't as good as it could have been if I would have followed the recipe.  The cake of these cupcakes is very good.  I love carrot cake but don't like all the chunks that some people put in it, so this recipe is great for me.  Next time, I am going to spend the extra money and buy the bag of pre-grated carrots because, ugh, I hated grating them!

Christmas Tree Cake Pops

It's Christmas time!  I love Christmas.  Like I said before, we are moving in the next few weeks.  Moving means we don't have any Christmas decorations up except our icicle lights on our apartment balcony that I made my husband put up almost a month ago because I knew it would be the only Christmas decorations we would put up this year.  With my lack of Christmas decorations, I'm surprised I haven't overcompensated with a load of Christmas baking.  Then again, Christmas is still weeks away. 

The first Christmas treat were these Christmas tree cake pops:

In this case, melting the chocolate and dipping the pops were the easy part. 

I made two different shapes: one with a cookie cutter and one that I hand formed into a tree shape.

The hard part was decorating them so they looked like a tree but didn't look like a child had decorated them.  Unfortunately, the first ones looked a child decorated them.  I even used the exact decorations that Bakerella used for her, except mine looked like crap. 

So I tried this:

And they still looked like crap. 

I didn't like the bare trees and thought they needed some sort of decoration so I spent a few minutes digging through all my baking supplies and realized I had some red candy melts.  I melted the candy melts, poured them into a plastic bag, cut a tiny hole in one corner, and drizzled it over the trees.  It was better but I cut the hole much too big and it was more of a gloop than a drizzle. 

So, I turned the bag over to the other side, cut a smaller tiny hole in the corner, and drizzled again.  So much better!

I also had been wanting to try packaging the cake pops.  I got little treat sacks and tied them with a little curling ribbon and the result was pretty cute!   

Overall, I am pleased.  Next up on my list of Christmas treats is peanut butter fudge topped with chocolate!

Strawberry Cupcakes and Cake Pops

I thought I'd try something a little different for cupcakes this time.  I haven't had a lot of fruit cupcakes and had no idea what to base my choice of recipe on.  I searched around and ended up choosing this recipe from allrecipes.com based on the high reviews that it got.  Thankfully, they turned out very well and the frosting was delicious! 

Strawberry Cupcakes
Adapted from: allrecipes.com
Printable Recipe Here

Ingredients:
1 (3 ounce) package strawberry flavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
1 (18.25 ounce) package white cake mix
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 ounces pureed strawberries (fresh or frozen)

Frosting: 
8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
5 cups confectioners sugar
3 ounces pureed strawberries

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Place cupcake liners in pans or grease and flour cake pans.
In large bowl, dissolve the gelatin in the cold water; stir in the cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil, flour and 5 ounces pureed strawberry.  Beat for 5 minutes on medium with electric mixer and pour into cupcake/cake pans.
Bake cupcakes for 15 minutes and cake for 25-30 minutes, or until layers spring back when lightly pressed in the center.  Cool caked on wire racks.
To make frosting: With electric mixer, cream together cream cheese and butter until well combined.  Sift in 4 cups confectioners sugar.  Add 3 ounces strawberry puree and mix until well combined.  Add 1 cup (or however much it takes) confectioners sugar in 1/4 cup increments until you reach the desired consistency.  Frosting will be soft; refrigerate cupcakes once frosting is piped on.

Amy's Notes:
I made half of these as mini cupcakes and half as a nine inch round cake for cake pops.  The cake was very good but the frosting is the winner of these cupcakes.  The strawberry puree in the cream cheese buttercream frosting was awesome.  I did add quite a bite more confectioners sugar than I normally do for my frosting to get a good piping consistency, but the extra confectioners sugar did not take away from the taste at all!  It was really good.  I will admit that I was pretty proud of the frosting.  I took the idea of strawberry puree from one recipe and adapted it to the recipe I always use and I will definitely do it again, probably with other fruit too!  The cake pops were good too.  I realized I need to get a few versatile types of sprinkles for cake pops.  I had already used everything that I had on hand except for the orange ones I ended up using that I happened to buy the day before because they were $1.  Overall, cupcake and cake pops success and sprinkles on my grocery list.

Half for cupcakes...

Half for cake pops.

Lookin' good, cupcake!



Tried a new frosting style.  Need to perfect.
(Look at the flecks of strawberry in the cake and icing!)



Look at the color of that cake!

Crumbled and awaiting icing for my cake pops

The orange sugar coating is festive for fall, but not color coordinating with the pink cake!

Tried a few sprinkle options before settling on the orange.  This looked too much like Christmas for me.

Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

Chocolate and peanut butter just might be one of the most delicious combinations of all time.  So when I came across this recipe months ago, I printed it and knew I would make it one day when I was a little more brave about melting and dipping things in chocolate.  And that day came yesterday.  This cupcake is pretty much a Reese's peanut butter cup in cupcake form--need I say more?

Perfectly Chocolate Cupcakes
Makes about 24-27 standard sized cupcakes
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (best quality available)
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (best quality available)
1 cup boiling water

Directions:
Line muffin tin with paper liners.  Heat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla.  beat on medium speed for one minute.
Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin).
Fill liners 2/3 full with batter.  
Bake cupcakes for approximately 22-24 minutes.  
Cool completely before frosting.


Peanut Butter Frosting
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 cup softened, unsalted butter
1 cup creamy peanut butter (not natural peanut butter)
2 cups powdered sugar
approximately 1/4 cup heavy cream

Directions:
Combine butter with peanut butter.  Add powdered sugar.  Then add the heavy cream a little at a time until you get the consistency you like for spreading or piping.


Chocolate Coating

Ingredients:
2 cups (12 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chips or baking bar chopped up
2-3 teaspoons canola or vegetable oil

Directions:
Melt chocolate in double boiler or in a heat proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water (but not touching).  Stir frequently.  Or melt chocolate in the microwave for 2 minutes and then by 30 second intervals until melted.  Once chocolate is smooth, mix in the oil and transfer to a smaller, deeper bowl that will be better for dipping.  Let cool 10-15 minutes before dipping (if chocolate is too hot, frosting will melt when you dip it).  Enjoy!

Amy's Notes:
I have been looking forward to making these cupcakes for weeks now!  I mean, there's no going wrong with the chocolate peanut butter combo.  The chocolate cake recipe is one that I have used in the past and the best one I have at this point.  It makes a little more than a normal recipe.  I made one 9 in round cake (now in the freezer for cake pops later this week), 12 mini cupcakes and 8 regular cupcakes.  This peanut butter frosting is quite possibly some of the best frosting I've tasted.  I had a little leftover and couldn't bear throwing it away so I made a few graham cracker sandwiches for later!  I have to think about it more, but I might try using milk chocolate to dip next time instead of semi-sweet...hmmm, need to think about that one though.   Dipping was a challenge and took a little time to get used to what worked, but that's normal.  Overall, these were awesome!  Yum yum yum!

I would be happy to eat these cupcakes without the chocolate coating!

Here we go....

The mini cupcakes freshly covered in chocolate

Cupcakes freshly covered in chocolate

Looks so pretty!

I drizzled a few of the cupcakes in chocolate instead of dipping them



Mini cupcake once the chocolate hardened



Peanut butter frosting leftovers!