Almost Funfetti Cake Pops

Oliver was nice to all the kids at the park a few days ago, so Dad took him to the store and bought him cake pop kit! These poor kids have had it rough the last couple weeks. There have been many long hours of us working while the kids are left to play in their room. I feel awful about it, but the work is almost done (now we just need to get carpet installed...).

This morning, I told Oliver it was time to make them. He got so excited!

Oliver got to do the mixing. There's not that much cake, so it only bakes about 12 minutes. As it baked, Jo checked out the batter in the bowl. She even got a little taste and let me know it was pretty good stuff.

After it came out of the oven, we let it cool. Oliver then broke up all the cake with his fingers.

He mixed it with the frosting, and then I formed it into tight balls. We dipped the cake pop sticks in the melted chocolate and stuck them into the cake balls. Most of the cake balls held up for this part. Two broke a bit, and I had to use my hands to really mash them together over the stick.

After the cake pops cooled for a full half hour, we pulled them out of the fridge. I told Oliver that I'd dip them in the melted white chocolate, and he could put the sprinkles on. The cake pops did not hold up to dipping. Not even a little bit. After the second one bit the dust, I just spooned the melted white chocolate on. That ended up using too much white chocolate, and we started to run out near the end. I only lightly topped the last few with chocolate to stretch it out.

Of the 12 cake pops we made, four broke off. I used white chocolate to sort of mash them back together. They look like turds.

I poked holes into the box to hold up our pops. Pillsbury should totally do this as part of their kit.

It was still fun. I would definitely make these again with Oliver. He loved it!

The down-side to these were 1) they make a huge mess, 2) they take a long time, and 3) are very unpredictable. I would never make them for a birthday party or gathering just because there would be so much waste to get a few good quality ones. When we make them again, I might try freezing the cake pops solid before dipping.

My Attempt at the Baby Bump Cake

Once again, browsing Pinterest has be in over my head! I have so many things planned for the shower this weekend, and so little time to get them done! Heaven help me, I found a really cute "Baby Bump Cake" pin on Pinterest. I decided to tackle that project today.

I looked at craft stores for a half-ball cake pan but had no luck. I ended up ordering an 8" one from Amazon for about $8. I used two boxes of cake mix for this project. After mixing one box, I made two cupcakes and poured the rest into a 13"x9" cake pan. I used a full box of mix for the half-ball (make sure to grease & flour your ball pan really well!). In addition to boxed mix, I also just used a can of pre-made frosting from the store for the crumb layer.

Here's how I decorated mine:

Step 1: Spread a layer of frosting over your sheet cake.

Step 2: Arrange the ball cake and cupcakes on the sheet cake.

Step 3: Trim away the excess cake on the sides (don't discard or eat that cake yet!).

Step 4: Use the parts of the cake you cut off to fill in some gaps in the "body," using frosting as your glue. Below, you can see the cupcakes before and after I filled the gaps.

Before:

 After:

Step 5: Use the rest of your frosting to create a fairly seamless and smooth cake. The frosting can be very thin. 

Step 6: Use fondant to decorate! You can buy some pre-made at a craft store or cake supply shop. I made my own using this "Rolled Buttercream Fondant" recipe. Originally, I intended to use brown trim like in the original pin, but my brown fondant looked like turds. That wasn't very appetizing, so I scraped that and went with pink.

I have only worked with fondant twice before and still am not at master with it. The surface of my cake has some cracks and stretch marks, but I figure that's just more realistic, right? ;-)

With the cake done, there's not much left for me to do until the morning of the shower. Let's just hope the weather doesn't put a damper on our party... the forecast calls for 8 to 14 inches of snow!

America the Beautiful Cake

I did it!  It's Sunday evening, and I finished my fourth and final entry.

My vision for this cake was to be all about our beautiful country because Southwest Airlines flies domestically and covers almost all of the lower 48 states.  The United States is beautiful.  You can travel around our large country and see rocky beaches, sandy beaches, huge mountains, redwood forests, enormous freshwater lakes, large cities, and quaint towns.  I wanted to try to make my cake to reflect that.

On Friday, I re-purposed the classic birthday cake I'd made and carved it into a map of the United States.  I did it freehand, so it's not perfect, but there's no mistaking what it's supposed to be.

On Friday night, Oliver helped me make another batch of homemade fondant, and we dyed most of it green.   After the kids were in bed,  I rolled it out and did the difficult job of molding it around the cake.  Yup, i did that after working on the Baked Alaska.  I was busy, busy!

Then came the tough but fun part.  Last night (Saturday), I used fondant and made miniature icons to represent a handful of the cities that Southwest flies to.  These are the first four I made.  I made the seashell to represent Southern California (I put it where San Diego would go on my cake map).  I made a miniature hot dog to represent Chicago and a miniature ear of corn to represent Des Moines.  The sun, I used for Southern Florida.

By the time I'd finished, I also made dice for Las Vegas, a mug of coffee for Seattle, the Statue of Liberty for New York, and a Mardi Gras mask for New Orleans.  I added in yellow dots to represent the other cities Southwest flies to, and I made a Southwest airplane for the cake, too.

The cake was all about the beauty of our country's landscape, so I wanted to go somewhere beautiful to photograph it for the contest.  We decided to make the short drive up to Red Rocks Amphitheater and Park.  It's Father's Day, so I snapped a photo of my husband with our kids.  I couldn't have worked all of the hours on these cakes if it wasn't for their support, and I couldn't have had these beautiful pictures without my husband's involvement and help.  Thank you, Family!

Here is the photo I chose for my entry with my "America the Beautiful" cake.

Here is my entry pin on Pinterest:  http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066809900/

I've really had fun with this contest.  I'm a competitive person, and I get really excited about contests.  This contest was an absolute blast.  I got to be creative, and I got to bake a ton with my kids.  The photo shoots were the best part, though, because that's when I felt like all my hard work was coming together.

No matter how the contest turns out, I'm glad I spent this week giving it my all.  Happy 41st Birthday, Southwest Airlines!  Thank you for letting me celebrate with you!

#HappyBdaySWA

Baked Alaska with LUV to Southwest

As you might recall, the first cake I tried to back for the Southwest Airlines birthday cake contest was a flop.  The cake collapsed.

I left the cake out all day, wondering what to do with the thing.  Andrew wanted me to slather it in Nutella.  I finally decided on a better idea: Baked Alaska.  As much as I love to bake, I actually don't really enjoy eating cake very much.  Ice cream is another story.  I love ice cream.  Indeed, every year on my birthday, I get an ice cream cake.  So good.

I took my sinkhole cake, and I sliced it up.  I set a few layers on a bake dish and smothered it in a quart of ice cream.  I used the rest of the layers of my cake failure and finished wrapping the ice cream so that the ice cream was completely covered.  I drizzled a few tablespoons of leftover coffee over the cake, and I stuck it in the freezer.

That's when it occurred to me.  I just put a cake in the freezer.  Hello, wasn't I trying to come up with unique ideas for the cake competition?  Why wouldn't I decorate it for an extra entry in the "Baked with LUV" contest?

I started brain storming.  My plan quickly became to make the Baked Alaska look as fancy as possible.  On the side, in large lettering, I would write, "SWA," for Southwest Airlines.  I started to get really excited.  I could visualize the photo I'd put the Baked Alaska into.  Andrew and I would dress up.  I'd get some champagne flutes.  I'd put the dessert between the two of us at our kitchen table.  Maybe I'd light it with candles.  It would be a snapshot into a romantic evening shared by my husband and me and our Southwest Airlines Baked Alaska.  Surely, no one else would think to do the same thing!  Points for originality.

On Wednesday, Andrew stopped by his parents' house to borrow champagne flutes.  After dinner on Thursday, I made the meringue, which is used to decorate the Baked Alaska.  Oliver helped, as he was so excited to use the mixer again.  I pulled the Baked Alaska out of the freezer and frosted the whole cake with meringue, and then I piped designs all over it.  On the side, I wrote, "SWA," just as planned.  I stuck it in the freezer to set, waiting to bake it when the kids went to bed.

As soon as the kiddos fell asleep, I preheated the oven and ran upstairs to get ready.  I put on a dress and tied my hair into an up-do.  Andrew put on a dress shirt and pants.  I love that man.

After the Baked Alaska was done baking, Andrew lit candles on it.  I got the camera set up for self-portrait, and we took a few photos before digging into the dessert.  If the judges could taste the various cakes, the Baked Alaska would be the winner, hands down.  It was so good.  I devoured two slices.

Here's my Baked Alaska submission for the "Baked with LUV" contest:

So good...

#HappyBdaySWA

Gingerbread Cookies

Would the holidays be complete without some gingerbread cookie decorating with the kids? I don't think so!

Oliver loves baking and using the mixer, but I could not fathom making dough, letting it refrigerate, rolling it out, and decorating a million cookies with a two year-old. So, I took the kids out to the grocery store for refrigerated dough. I had the choice between a giant package of Pillsbury or a smaller package of all-natural cookies by Immaculate Baking Company. They were the same price, but I didn't want to be overloaded with cookies anyway. I went with the natural cookie dough. As a bonus, it came with a packet of decorating sugar, which we sprinkled on the icing later.

I worried the cookies wouldn't work because they were pre-formed into drop cookies for easy baking. I just took the lot of them and mashed them together into a ball for rolling. It wasn't a problem at all! Here's my helper rolling out the dough. Take note that my other helper is snoozing in the chair behind him:

Then came the fun part: the cookie cutters! We picked these up from Hobby Lobby yesterday. Their Christmas stuff was on sale for 50% off, so we bought a package of two gingerbread men cutters for $2.

Oliver thought the cookie cutter part was OK. He does it a lot with Play-Doh, so it's kind of lost its luster. As I punched out most of the cookies, Oliver stole little tastes.

The cookies swelled a lot during baking, and their shapes were pretty unrecognizable. I've had that happen with rolled cookies before, but it might have happened with the refrigerated dough because they were made to be drop cookies. No matter! I went back over them with the cookie cutters. It worked like a charm!

Once the cookies were cool, Oliver and I got busy decorating. I took the shortcut again and bought pre-made icing in a decorating bag. It was a little pricey at $3, but, sometimes, it's worth it to pay for conveniences. This was one of those times!

Oliver paused to sample a cookie:

The bag was difficult for him to squeeze, so I squirted a small amount into a bowl for him to use to decorate.

Decorating with one hand and eating a cookie with another:

Back to the squeeze bag:

Oliver decided to sample the icing, too. No wonder this kid wouldn't nap again today! I'm pretty sure 80% of his diet today was sugar.

Our finished cookies:

I have to take a moment to rave about these cookies. Their flavor was out of this world. I could taste the molasses. They really, truly tasted homemade. I don't think we would have made a better finished product if we went through the effort of making them ourselves. I decided they were good enough for gifts! We made tags for four of them to give to each of Oliver's grandparents. I let Oliver color the tags. He's pretty good at that stuff.

The final product:

Parents of toddlers, if you have loads of patience and deal well with messes, I highly recommend taking a few hours for some cookie makin' and bakin'. We had loads of fun!