I read at Bakerella regularly, lusting after her perfect macaroons, delicious cookies and being super jealous of her amazing creativity and skills. For Lucas' party I attempted, and was pretty successful with, the brain cake, chocolate lollipops and also chocolate covered marshmallows.. so I will admit, I was feeling a little cocky. Can I actually be the girl that decorates AND bakes with Pizzazz?! Can I lose myself in the joy of perfectly decorating a cupcake and the table to go along with it? A girl has to have goals.
I have this vision for the dessert table at my party and in effort to go with the trends and impress my friends with my SKILLZ, I decided I was going to make Bakerella's signature "Cake Pops"...
*photo from Bakerella's site.. and will click you to her cake pops..yes, everything she does is perfect and wonderful
Take a look at those, so perfect on the stick.. just beautiful and delicious. And PINK, the exact color I want. The recipe doesn't look too hard - and it involves cake from a box! That's SO how I roll. When things call for a "sifter" I immediately glaze over.
Making My Cake And Eating It Too
Luckily, and because I'm smart, I decided to do a test batch.
I thought it would be a fun birthday dessert for the family on my actual birthday. And don't think that I didn't have this vision in my head of me serving these beautiful cake creations to my happy, smiling, recently bathed and cozy in their PJ's kids, while Jason and I, 20 lbs lighter (me) looking perfectly causal in the perfect jeans and a simple t-shirt with long flowing blond hair (also me) sip champagne and toast my birthday in a perfect remodeled kitchen... Oh, these visions of grandeur!! They will kill me in the end I swear.
So I make a cake (and almost under cooked it - then forgot about it in the oven. Thanks to Jason for paying attention when I bake. ;0) ), let it cool, add the frosting and mushed up cake in a bowl, squish it all together, make beautiful little balls placed perfectly on wax paper, chill, add sicks... chill... all is going so well! I DO have talent! I rock.. let's dip these babies in the chocolate... Oh, what???
Okay, so that one didn't work.. hmm.. neither did that one..maybe if I try this? maybe.. Oh, crap*
(*not really the actual word used)
After a while, and way after bedtime, I did get a few of them to work... then I remembered the black edible glitter that I bought (remember: visions of grandeur! beautiful round pops of delight decorated perfectly!) and decided to add those to a couple of the non-deformed balls. While I was thinking BLACK GLITTER = FUN! The result was a little, um.. well, not really intended.
Hey! Who ashed on my cake pop?!
I did manage to rescue a few lone cake pops (16 of the original 54!), and after talking to a friend who made these before, I am thinking of attempting another batch..
because, you know, I'm insane!