Cake Pops

Thanks to Bakerella, I have a new obsession.


Have you heard of them? Apparently, this craze is sweeping the nation. I made cake balls last Christmas based on a recipe on AllRecipes.com. People loved them. When I heard about the cake pops, where you take the already-delicious cake balls and put them on a lollipop stick, I was sold. Within a few weeks of making my first batch of actual cake pops, I started seeing cake pop ads everywhere. My whole office went from not having a clue what I volunteered to bring for the Thanksgiving luncheon to being inundated with ads for cake pop makers lol. The pops are soooo cute! How could anyone resist?

Lots of people stand their cake pops up in decorated styrofoam. In the past week, I've seen way overpriced custom built cake pop stands but just the other day A.C. Moore had a cardboard cake pop stand for around $5.99. You can also set them up on your grandma's finest serving platter or on a silver (colored) tray from the Dollar Store and they look just as classy ;-)

 Too pretty to eat? No such thing lol.

xoxo Von

Catching Up... Lemon Cake!

I'M BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I missed y'all! How was your Thanksgiving? We have so much catching up to do. Trust me, even though I wasn't blogging, I was baking. Let's start with my Lemon Whipped Cream Cake. The cake (originally dubbed 'Science Cake') was a request from my brother. He wanted a cake that combined lemon, whipped cream AND cream cheese. 

How could I combine freshly made whipped cream, cream cheese and real lemons? What would the flavor be like? Wouldn't the fresh lemon juice just obliterate all the hard work my hand mixer did to fluff up that heavy whipping cream? Science cake, indeed.

Also, I'll note that my brother couldn't care less about the decorative elements on this cake, be they excessive or none at all. Maybe I went for excessive lol.

The end result: a deliciously light, fluffy cake with subtle hints of lemon and cream cheese. The cream cheese helped stabilize the whipped cream and brought the flavors together.

Donald, cutting into the cake. Nonverbal for "you have taken enough pictures".

Sorry I couldn't get fancier shots of the sliced cake, but these pics are making me drool... the icing was light, tart, and surprisingly luscious.

Have you ever made a science cake?

xoxo Von

Halloween Cupcakes

I made these babies for the cast of a play I'm in. Somebody decided to bring home made lasagna last night, somebody else brought salad and garlic bread, so you know I had to bring something scrumptious!

Orange icing is probably not a typical request at my local Walmart, so.. I used some Halloween magic to turn my store-bought buttercream a nice shade of Jack-o-lantern orange. Check out my magic ingredients.

I also added a few drops of orange extract to the batter and to the icing. Not enough to scream orange, but enough to add a yummy hint reminiscent of the color.

Add a dash of sugar crystals and a sweet treat on top!

Happy Halloween!

Blooming Onion

The fair is coming, the fair is coming! I'm so excited, I'm like a kid when it comes to stuff like that. We didn't really go to amusement parks growing up, but we went to the fair every year. Even though I'm all grown up, it still holds the same allure. Aside from the rides, the lights, and all the happy people, I look forward to the fair food! With that in mind, I felt compelled to tackle the Blooming Onion.

In an effort to keep my house from smelling like fried onions, I decided to "oven-fry" my little blooms.

I loosely followed a few recipes I found online. Step one is to cut the onion.

Wrap in foil, crimped at the top.

Note: If you try this, I suggest either poking a hole in the foil or maybe leaving it open at the top.

While the onions bake at 425 for 20 minutes, combine melted butter and maybe some seasoning for additional flavor.

Onion's ready!

Baste your onion petals with the herb butter.

Sprinkle on the breadcrumbs...

Bake for 20 minutes or until the petals look crispy.

 Oh - while your onions crisp up in the oven, don't forget to make your sauce. You could always just use ketchup, but why? I made a sauce consisting of mayo, brown mustard, salt/pepper, heap of basil, heavy dose of Italian seasoning, cayenne, and garlic powder. Have fun with it and play around! Then let your sauce chill in the fridge so the flavors develop.

Done!

Although the breading didn't stick like it would fried, this little blossom was sooo tasty. Are you going to make one?

xoxo Von

Blondies!

Happy October, yall! The season of warm and yummy is officially here - and I have blondies! Warm, golden deliciousness.

Take a bite!

Yum.

xoxo Von

Blondies?

I have been wanting a Blondie for some time. In an effort to save some cash, I have decided NOT to go to Applebees and get one already perfectly made, sizzling on a hot dish, with a scoop of ice cream.. *drool*

So I made it myself!

Sorta. :-\

I'm almost too ashamed to show you.

Should I be brave? Woman-up, you say?

Ok...

I think eyeballing my measurements did not work. It appears I was just a wee bit short on flour. And yes, I did taste it. Meh. The flavor was okay.. but maybe a second cup full of flour would have absorbed some of this butter! Lol I tried, yall. I certainly did try.

I'm off to the dollar store to get me a measuring set. Whose up for a trip to Applebees?!

xoxo Von

Cupcakes: Philosophy & Fundamentals

So in the first post I made reference to a few cupcakes I had in the oven. Here are those precious little gems!

Mini cupcakes!

These were pineapple cupcakes, and they took me two rounds to get right. I neglected a fundemental rule of adding fresh fruit to a batter.. use. less. liquid! Fruit has liquid in it already and it will jack your batter up if you dont start out with less liquid. If I didn't already know that I would have learned it the other night. Thank God for the second box of cake mix and some good ol' ingenuity. Second batch was beautiful!

I made these cupcakes for my church's BBQ. So tasty, so pretty. So fragile. I could have added a dash of patience to the mix, because I was just a little bummed about how my cupcakes were handled on their way from my carrier to the serving tray. All my pretty flowers looked more like spikey fireworks - I couldn't watch as she (unintentionally!) mangled the second set of cupcakes. Sigh.

My lesson: lighten up, they are just cupcakes! They ended up being a lot of work but they were delicious and they put smiles on lots of faces. And that's the point, right?

xoxo Von

Fridge Pizza

I am running out of groceries. If you saw my fridge, you might be sad for me.

Somehow... I have eaten all the food I want to eat... and am left with veggies. Veggies I bought a week ago. Veggies just about on their last leg. What to do??

Make Pizza!!

I already had the pizza crust (the 98 cent mix from Walmart), but my inspiration was an article in a food magazine. The fresh corn is what did it for me.

So easy. Follow the directions to bake the crust, add sauce, cheese, toppings (more cheese, more toppings, more cheese!), bake, eat. I think that 78th layer of cheese is what held that corn on there :-).

You likey? What kind of interesting toppings do you like on your pizza?

xoxo Von

Welcome!

I've got something to share with you... it's the inspiration that finally got me to START this little blog... these cupcakes!!

I am super proud of them. This is the first time I've done a real icing design on my cupcakes, used icing tools and everything. I think I have been bitten by the cupcake bug. In fact, I just pulled another batch out of the oven for an event.. ahh, cupcake love. Have another look.

Some are vanilla Funfetti with confetti-inspired sugar crystal sprinkles. The others are Oreo cupcakes! Yes - with real Oreos. Yum! I made these cupcakes for my acting class and as a thank you to our dear teacher. She's given us soo much these past 10 months, I had to give a little something back. One more look!

Tell me what you think!

xoxo Von