Ace of Cakes

So school has started once again. Sigh. I do love the routine of it all, but I so miss our fun summer. I thought while I had a relatively quite Sunday afternoon I would update a little bit. If you know me very well, you know that I am a huge fan of the Food Network. I love all the creativity that people can have with food. I don't have to worry that there will be a lot of swearing or other smut to watch. However watching yummy food being made may be the reason I feel like eating all the time (I can blame in on that right!) In any case I especially love watching the cake challenges. I have always wanted to be able to decorate a fun looking cake but have been left to watch other people do it. Until this summer. I was looking at a friends blog and a saw a link to one of the funnest sites called Bakerella. I fell in love. She has so many fun ideas and includes great instructions and fun pictures. I especially love the cake pops she has and I finally found an excuse to try them out. I signed up to bring dessert to an enrichment party. This is how they turned out. I don't have the best pictures, but it was so fun.
First you bake a cake. After it cools, you crumble it up and mix it with a can of frosting and then form them into balls and cool them. This is what they look like.

Then you cover them in a candy coating and decorate them and then put them in styrofoam to dry. This was trickier than I anticipated and I made a gigantic mess, but it was fun.

I struggled with how I was going to get them there, but ended up just putting them in cups with some tissue paper to hold them. They turned out so cute and SO YUMMY!! I highly recommend looking at Bakerella's site. I need to try the cupcake pops now. Any parties you want to invite me to????

So once I was in the decorating mood, I got really into Jon's birthday cake. I decided I wanted to try making a checkerboard cake. I got the special pans and they turned out OK, but I think I'm going to make them a little differently next time and it should turn out a lot more clean. So on top of the three layer checkerboards, I made a ganache frosting (oh so rich and yummy) and then made a candy topping to look like the bat signal. I also had to make more cake pops. Such fun.


So now on Tuesday I am staring with Kristen to take a cake decorating class. I am really so excited. Who knows, someday you'll be watching me on Food Network too :)