Easter Cake Balls & Cake Pops

Hannah wanted to make some Easter cake pops this week. Of course, after I start making them, she went outside to play with friends!

I made the little chick ones from Bakerella's Cake Pop Book.

I used a lemon cake for the cake pops. Lemon yellow chicks just sounded right. I made cake balls last year, but this was the first time I had ventured into the cake pops. My coating was not as smooth as I would have liked. I will definitely need to work on my technique.

I also had problems finding something for the eyes. We went to a couple of different stores in search of the perfect eyes. I ended up finding an old food marker at home, but it was barely working.

I stuck some styrofoam in the bottom of a basket and added some Easter grass to display the little guys.

I only made a dozen cake pops. There was only so much room on the styrofoam block! I made cake balls with the rest of the lemon cake. These were much easier. I think I may just stick to cake balls in the future.

The lemon was a nice flavor. Last time I made chocolate ones which were good, too. I used a variety of spring sprinkles to decorate the cake balls.

Cupcake Wars - Battle 1

Last night was the big Cupcake War that my friend Sue hosted. I had been practicing for the last few weeks. And to be honest, I am SICK of cupcakes! OMG! I could not even taste any of the cupcakes last night.



The rules: no cake mixes and no premade frosting. The theme was summer.



Here is my entry. I ended up with Butter Beer cupcakes. I got the recipe from the Cupcake Adventures blog.


Lemonade cupcakes made by Sue

Blueberry-Lemon cupcakes

S'more cupcakes


Corn on the cob cupcakes


Peach Bourbon cupcakes

A Day at the Beach cupcakes - pumpkin with orange cream cheese icing.

The judges had the fun job of tasting each cupcake.

Hannah & Tyler were special "kid" judges.


The kids choice award went to Jennifer for her S'mores cupcakes.

The winner of the "Best Tasting" cupcake went to me & my Butter Beer cupcakes!

Best Cupcake Appearance & Overall Cupcake winner went to the host, Sue

Sue graciously gave up one of her prizes so it was given to the 2nd place winner which was the Day at the Beach cupcake made by Susan. I didn't get a picture of Susan with her prize.

It was a fun evening! Though I am in no hurry to make any more cupcakes.

More Cupcake Practice

This evening I am going to a "Going Away Bash" for a neighbor. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for me to try out more cupcake recipes! And more importantly, get them out of the house!

The first one I did was a Mimosa cupcake from the Betty Crocker "Big Book of Cupcakes". It used real champagne in both the cupcake and the icing. It also used orange juice and orange peel in both parts.


Here is the finished Mimosa cupcake.




The other recipe that I tried was for a Pina Colada cupcake that I found on the Confessions of a Cookbook Queen blog .



Now here are the cupcakes all ready to go to the party tonight!

Lemon - Blueberry Cupcakes

So next Saturday is the "Cupcake Wars - Summer Theme" event that my friend Sue is hosting. The cupcakes are to be judge on 50% taste and 50% appearance/presentation. The rules are that you cannot use a mix or prepared frosting.

I've spent hours and hours trying to figure out what kind of cupcakes I am going to make and I've scrapped my cupcake ideas multiple times already.

I recently purchased the Betty Crocker Big Book of Cupcakes for ideas and inspiration.

James and I made a batch of Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes from it. We put the batter into the muffin liners. Then the blueberries get floured up and then dropped onto the top of the cupcake batter. We weren't very careful about how we placed the berries. Next time I would try to put them in the center.


After they cooled, we tasted the plain cupcakes. They weren't lemony enough for me. They tasted more like blueberry muffins with a hint of lemon. They were good, but next time I think I would add some lemon juice. The lemon taste was grated lemon peel.



Then came the icing. I did end up adding fresh lemon juice to it and the results were delicious! The recipe called for coarse salt (such as Kosher) and I LOVED how that worked with the flavors.

I still need some more practice with icing the cupcakes. These turned out alright, but not as nice looking as I wanted. They were yummy, though. Still not sure what I'm going to do for the Cupcake Wars. I have a few more recipes to try out.

Blueberry Peach Crisp

Hannah and I were picking up a few things at Publix today. I always spend more money when I take her to the store! She noticed that blueberries were on sale, 2 pints for $5, so she asked if we could get some. Since she was asking for fresh fruit and not candy (she asked for the candy later), I smiled and said "sure". Then we passed by some more fruit. It was a display of the most fragrant Georgia peaches. They were on sale, too, so we selected a few peaches, too.

Later, when we got home, I started thinking about what I could do with those peaches and blueberries. We only eat dessert twice a week, on Fridays and Sundays, and today was Sunday, so I started looking for blueberry/peach recipes. I personally prefer crisps to cobblers, so I gravitated toward those recipes.

I found one on The Sisters Dish blog which sounded good. Click on the link for the recipe.


You start with blueberries.


Peel the peaches and chop into small, bite sized pieces.


Add cornstarch & sugar.


Add some lemon juice & lemon zest. I didn't add the zest - I was in a hurry and I have never zested before and I didn't want to take the time to learn how. Mix ingredients together.



Spread the mixture into a baking dish.


For the topping, combine brown sugar, sugar, flour, oats, cinnamon, nutmeg, chopped walnuts, and butter.

Cover the fruit mixture with the oat/flour mixture.





Bake.




Eat. This was absolutely delicious! We ate it while it was still nice & warm. Yum!


I added the The Sisters Dish to my Google Reader. They won me over with this Blueberry Peach Crisp recipe!

Cupcake Wars - Kid Edition

With all the hype about the upcoming "Cupcake War" that my friend Sue is organizing, the kids were getting really excited and wanted to have their own "cupcake war". So I volunteered to host a "Cupcake Wars - Kid Edition" at my house. It was more of a cupcake decorating party rather than a contest, but they all got into it and had an "epic" time. (Epic has been my 13 year old son's favorite adjective this summer.)

The kids all started with plain cupcakes and then were given icing, candies, and tons of decorating supplies.



I gave Hannah a lesson on using fondant icing. She caught on quickly and used fondant on most of her cupcakes. It must have been all that time I let her play with play-doh! Come to think of it, I didn't let her play with play-doh a whole lot because I didn't like the mess it made.

The boys took this very seriously.

James is using some edible spray paint.




Creating a masterpiece out of chocolate.


Creatively working with fruit roll ups.


The kids with their finished masterpieces.





And for those interested (I know my mom will be), here are close ups of the James & Hannah's finished cupcakes.


Here are James' cupcakes. He made the sea shells out of candy melts. He also played around with the fondant. The yellow duck was left over from his friend.


Hannah's fondant creations. She has a taco, volcano, bird's nest, watermelon and a lady bug on a leaf.

I was so impressed with all the cupcakes! James & Hannah decorated cupcakes a few months ago and they just poured on all the sprinkles they could find. They were really a mess! This time, all of the kids took their time and carefully thought out what they were going to do.