No coffins.... but cake pops are on the rise

Well, I didn't get to make the Coffin Cake. That's OK. I'll save the idea for Halloween.

I get to make some cake pops for a friend for the Fourth of July.

I'm thinking about adding some red, white, and blue colors somehow.

Coffins... In June?

My sister-in-law turns 40 this weekend. My family has a bit of a sick sense of humor. My brother wants a cake in the shape of a coffin for her birthday party.

I don't exactly know what I'm going to do, but I believe I will put a smaller coffin, in the classic Dracula shape, on top with a few gravestones scattered around. Perhaps I will make an overall graveyard with the coffin right in the middle.

Baking again

I know I'm on a pop sabbatical, but I still have baking to do. A wonderful lady in my church is leaving us and returning to her family in Ohio. We are having a little gathering for her Friday night to say goodbye. 

Giving is part of who I am. I told the "party planners" in my church that I would make a cake for any event that they planned. So, there are two this weekend. One is a potluck, so I don't really have to make anything, but I'm still going to make a cake, although it won't be a huge one. I don't want to bring it home. 

My plan for the goodbye cake is a two tiered chocolate/raspberry cake. I am going to cover it in chocolate butter cream. In my cake decorating class, I am learning how to do the basket weave (although I already know it, I want to make sure I am doing it correctly), and I will cover both layers in basket weave and fill the "baskets" with the Spring flowers we have learned in this class. I am very excited because I will be decorating the cake in my class on Thursday night. Unless I finish the two tiered cake before Thursday. Then, I will prepare the Father's Day cake in class and make a cake in blues for the Fathers. 

I will post pictures of the cakes I make this week. 

My pastor's wife returned from an extended stay in Alabama (where they are from) and I wanted to welcome her home. She is gluten intolerant, so I prepared her a gluten free cake. 

It is a two layer cake with chocolate ganache filling. The frosting is chocolate butter cream. The roses are white and pink butter cream, and I'm getting better at them, thanks to my decorating class. The chocolate butter cream was so thick that I had a hard time smoothing it, so I used parchment paper to smooth it down. The result was kinda cool. The cake looked like smooth suede. I think it turned out pretty neat.

Cake Pop Vacation

Well, I had an event Saturday night. I sold 96 cake pops. I made over 600. I am on vacation from work this week, so I won't be making anymore pops until I run out. Thankfully they freeze well.

On a sad note, my long time boyfriend is moving away for a year to finish his bachelor's degree. I am extremely sad about it. He loves cookies, so I am currently baking cookies for his trip. He will be on the road for a couple days. I already miss him horribly.

Last night I made the classic chocolate chip cookies. I'll post my adapted recipe here. Makes the best fluffy cookies ever. Today, I'm making snickerdoodles.

I love snickerdoodles. I hope they make it on the road.

Michele's Fluffy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Follow the classic Nestle Toll House recipe or any other chocolate chip recipe with the following adaptations:
Reduce butter to 3/4 cup.
Increase Vanilla to 2 teaspoons
Add 1/4 cup extra flour

Bake as directed.

The recipe is slightly dryer and causes the cookies to puff up more rather than spread out. There's nothing worse than a chocolate chip cookie that's so thin the chocolate chips stick out.

Enjoy!

Cake Pop Arrangements.

A friend from work asked me to make her a batch of 100 cake pops. She and her daughter are graduating; her daughter from high school, she from college. She had four flavors she wanted: Java Pops, Joyful Almond, Butter Pecan, and plain Chocolate.

I asked her how she would like to present them. They were to be used in place of an actual cake. She said I could do whatever I wanted, so I chose to make "flower" arrangements. They turned out absolutely adorable.


Her daughter's colors are red and white:

Her colors are blue and yellow:



This was a really fun experiment. I think they turned out pretty darn cute.



I dream of Cake Pops

About 375 made, roughly... Another 225 to go.

Caramel Macchiato is a hit... I like it a lot.

Tomorrow: Rocky Road, if I have time. Busy, Busy, Busy day... I may not get to make anything.

Flavor Explosion

I have so many ideas floating through my brain about Cake pop flavors. It's very thrilling.

Some flavors I am going to attempt this week are:

Caramel Macchiato
Rocky Road
Caramel Apple
Cherry

I hope they turn out. I'll post some pictures today. It's a decent day finally, and I can take some pictures outside. Which is what I've been waiting for. The weather has been so crappy that it's dark in my house.

Amazing

I didn't realize what 100 cake pops really looks like. It's a lot of cake pops. I have an event next week that I want to make about 500 cake pops for. I have been making them all week, wrapping them, and preparing them for next week. I've put them into the freezer so they do not go bad. I had them all in one box and it was full.

I decided it would be more efficient if I separated the flavors and counted them, so I know exactly which flavors I need to make more of. I have approximately 209 cake pops. It's a lot of pops, so I could be off by a few. Tomorrow, I have plans to cut one of my dog's hair, thoroughly clean my kitchen, and reorganize it, then bake 2 batches of gluten free cake pops, and finish the ones that still need to be shaped and dipped.

I also need to go get some more supplies at the store and start making some new flavors. I also need to make a batch of strawberry.

Cake pops are an interesting creature. They are time consuming to make, but still fun because there are so many flavors and decorations. So much that can be done with them.

And, although they are a strange little concoction, they are scrumptious.

I'm loving the cake pops.

Furthermore...

Now that the wedding cake is complete, and the bride absolutely loved it, I can move onto other things.

For now, that means cake pops.

Most of what I find on the Internet focus on the outside of the pop. Colors, designs, decorations, etc. I like to focus on the overall pop. I love to play with flavors, so I have a few flavors I am trying out.

Mocha - which is now called the Java Pop. This is going to be my signature flavor. It is extremely popular and essentially, energy on a stick.

Oranges and Cream - this one is in the testing phase.

Cocomond - A cake pop adaptation of the classic Almond Joy candy bar. This one is also still in the testing phase.

I will also be perfecting Gluten and Sugar free flavors. Those are always a work in progress. With both, I must be super careful about cross contamination. Which means, I can not make any other flavors while I am making these. I also must use fresh, right out of the package chocolate almond bark. Both types are in the testing phase.

I'm sure the future holds many new flavors for me. It's been suggested that I attempt a pineapple flavor. However, I believe that will have to be a special order only flavor. I can't see that one selling more than one or two per week. It's a specific taste for a specific person.