C is for Cake Pops

One thing I've mastered in the past few months is cake pops.  It wasn't easy and it took quite a bit of time (and a dozen or so boxes of cake mix), but I've finally reached the status of Cake Pop Master.
   

My first batches were a struggle for me because they would crumble and fall off the lollipop sticks or they'd drop into my bowl of dipping chocolate, leaving a delightfully chunky mess.  Sometimes the chocolate coating would be gloppy and uneven or incredibly thick despite my constant reheating.  I tried the double boiler approach as well as the microwave.  I tried bars of chocolate, chocolate chips, and finally candy melts. Many times, after I'd successfully dipped them, my cake pops fell over or the chocolate cooled in a way that the pop looked crooked.  The storage of cake pops is a little tricky, what with all the poking out lollipop sticks and the need for drying time.  For just two bites of gooey cake and chocolate, what a high maintenance dessert!  

In addition to all my procedural issues, I was also dealing with color concerns.  My friend Julia asked me to prepare about 100 cake pops for her dessert reception and she wanted the colors to match her adorable vintage scheme.  I hoped to dye white chocolate a peachy pink color and a turquoise color, but white chocolate doesn't always accept dye and maintain color in the same way frostings do.  My experience with cake frosting did not transfer to cake pop dipping!  The peachy color I concocted would look wonderful in the bowl and then cool and harden as a vibrant orange or once it even developed into a lovely flesh shade.  As you can imagine, they were incredibly appetizing.  

Time after time, my cake pops tasted great, but they looked awful.  They were my nemesis.   

I've come a long way in my cake pop journey and now I can even say I've reached a state of cake pop enlightenment.  It took quite a bit of googling and research to become a pro.  If you're working through your own cake pop battle, I'd suggest the blog Bakerella.  The author even has her own book, Cake Pops, in which she shares recipes and tips for creating some over-the-top desserts on a stick (imagine snowmen, owls, robots, and teeny tiny ice cream cones!).  I'm not into characterizing my cake pops like Bakerella, but it's not difficult for me anymore to create a batch.  It is and always will be a time-consuming endeavor though.  Cake pops are a real treat and they're so gosh darn cute that everybody loves them.  Even anti-cake people, like my husband Peter, enjoy eating cake pops.  I'd say that they're worth all the trouble for events like weddings, showers, tailgates, and birthday parties.

I decided to photo document my most recent batch of cake pops so that I can share my vast and significant knowledge with you.  There's no reason to keep all this wisdom to myself!


Cake Pops According to Rachel

Step 1.  Bake a cake.
It's easiest to use a store-bought cake mix.  Just follow the directions on the box and bake for the shortest amount of time recommended for your pan size.  I prefer Pillsbury over Duncan Hines and I recommend using a glass or light-colored 13x9" pan to avoid getting dark crusty edges on your cake.  Crusty edges don't crumb easily.

Step 2.  Turn the cake into crumbs.
After the cake has cooled completely, you have two options.  You can either break the cake up into pieces and crumb it in the food processor, or you can toss chunks of cake into your stand mixer and then pick out any large pieces that fail to break apart into crumbs.  Think about your audience.  If you're serving five-year-olds at a birthday party, just use the mixer to break up the cake.  If you're preparing a wedding dessert, maybe you should use the food processor for a fine and consistent crumb.

Step 3.  Mix the cake crumbs with frosting.
My favorite tub of frosting is Duncan Hines buttercream, but I also use Duncan Hines classic vanilla.  Stick the frosting in the microwave for a few seconds before you add it to your cake crumbs.  This will help it distribute more evenly.  I use my stand mixer and a spatula to add a glob of icing at a time until the mixture smooths out and thickens.  I almost never use the whole tub of frosting because you don't want the batter to be too thin.

Step 4.  Chill the cake and frosting mixture.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it chill in the refrigerator for a few hours or up to a day.

Step 5.  Roll out the cake balls.
After using a cookie dough scooper for uniform size, I hand-roll the balls of cake and place them on sheets of wax paper lining several cookie sheets.  The dough is much easier to work with when it's cold, so work quickly.  I can generally roll 50 to 60 1-inch cake pops from one cake mix.  If you make the cake pops too large, they fall off the sticks much more easily during the dipping process.  

Step 6.  "Glue in" your lollipop sticks.
Put a handful of candy melts in a microwavable bowl and melt them in the microwave using 30-second intervals.  Stir frequently.  Dip lollipop sticks into the melted chocolate and then immediately stick them into the cake pops.

Step 7.  Chill the cake pops.
Set the cookie sheets filled with cake pops in the refrigerator for a few hours or up to a day.  You can also freeze the cake pops at this stage, but you must defrost them in the refrigerator before dipping them in chocolate, otherwise each pop will crack as the chocolate hardens.  This is the voice of experience.

Step 8.  Melt your chocolate coating.
Don't use chocolate chips because they won't melt down properly.  I recommend Wilton candy melts.  You can buy them at craft stores like Michael's, but most grocery stores also carry chocolate that is meant for melting down.  Put half a bag of candy melts in a microwavable bowl and melt them in the microwave using 30-second intervals.  Stir frequently, adding 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil (or canola oil) at a time until the mixture is very smooth and silky.  It should slowly drizzle off your spoon.  Add any food coloring that you need to.  Make sure you use a bowl that is small enough that you'll have an inch or more of chocolate to dip into.

Step 9.  Dip the cake pops.
Cold cake pops are the best for dipping because they hold together and stay on the stick.  Holding the cake pop by the lollipop stick, dip it into the chocolate mixture and spin it around to coat it on all sides.  Then tap the stick against the edge of the bowl while turning it so that the excess chocolate drips off and the coating becomes smooth and even.  I generally take 4-8 cake pops out of the fridge at a time and then after I've dipped them, I put them on a separate cookie sheet lined with wax paper.  After dipping 20-30 cake pops, you'll probably need to melt the remaining candy melts.  I normally need 1 and 1/2 bags of candy melts to coat all the cake pops made by one cake mix.      

Step 10.  Decorate the cake pops.                        
The chocolate coating hardens pretty quickly, so be sure to add any sprinkles or dragees immediately after dipping.  If you want to add a chocolate drizzle or some other design, spoon some of the melted chocolate into a small plastic bag and use scissors to snip the corner.  While working over a plate, I like to hold the cake pop in one hand and run it under a slow stream of chocolate to create smooth, thin lines that appear to wrap around the pops.

Step 11.  Admire them!  Share them!  Eat them!
 

              

                     

R is for Resilient

I've been away.  And by that, I don't mean that I've been traveling.  Wouldn't that be exciting?  Nope.  I mean that I've allowed myself to become fully consumed by my work as a teacher and my responsibilities as a student at UVA (again).  What started back in September as a feeling of regular busyness has spiraled out of control.  I haven't been paying enough attention to myself nor have I saved time for my most favorite hobby.

For those readers and friends who've always wondered if Peter and I "really do eat like that," the answer is yes.  Or, well, we used to.  I used to cook at least three nights per week and spend hours in the kitchen on weekends when I tackled larger projects such as making pasta or painting sugar cookies.  I loved it.

I still cook to put dinner on the table, but things have felt different over the past few months.  We've eaten some nice meals and I've prepared some old favorites, but I feel like my creativity and energy have been "used up" at school before I ever make it home.  I haven't been keeping my camera in the kitchen and sometimes I avoid my laptop for a few days at a time.  I haven't been reading my favorite blogs or sticking post-it notes all over my cookbooks!  My kitchen hasn't served as my place of solitude.  Frankly, no place has.

For lack of better words, I'm in a funk.

I know that things will improve gradually.  Maybe working conditions will become less stressful as the year continues or perhaps I'll just become more capable of handling the burden, but I know I'm on the way back up.  I am resilient and strong.  Hardy and irrepressible!  And I vow to make time for myself and my own interests this winter.  I'm going to can jams and conserves.  I want to make a sourdough starter and create loaves of sourdough bread.  I'll bake pieces of gingerbread to build a house and whip up my own royal frosting.  I'm going to make pumpkin granola and jalapeño stuffing, peppermint bark and carrot soup.  I will!  Not because it's on my to-do list or because anyone is expecting me to, but because I want to and because I love it.

"Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life."  - Wayne Dyer

G is for "Gobs"

Grandmothers teach us all sorts of lessons about how to behave, how to play, and how to learn.  My paternal grandmother taught me how to enjoy the little things in life.  She made me appreciative for things like warm buttery toast, a corn maze, a hand-written note, and the great potential in a deck of cards.  She modeled humility and selflessness.  She valued friendship and love over any material object and showed us how to put family first.  She could put together an expansive Thanksgiving feast for twenty while laughing away in the kitchen.  And let me just add that if canning were an Olympic sport, she'd have a lot of gold medals.  For the homemade bread, the potato salad, the savory venison sandwich spread, and the myriad of desserts, I must get my hands on her recipe box!          

Sadly, my beloved Grandma passed away after a serious stroke during the last week in August.  She spent her last five years in a wheel chair at a nursing home, but she didn't let these obstacles hold her back.  She was the president of the residents committee, visited with loved ones daily, wrote letters regularly, and remained eternally optimistic.  She was a strong, admirable woman and lived a happy, fulfilling life.  

I've cried all over my keyboard just typing these two paragraphs because I can barely begin to explain how much I will miss my Grandma.  I can, however, bake.  Sometimes when words escape me, my mind is racing, and my emotions are running rampant, I find it very comforting to spend a while in the kitchen.  

This week I made one of my Grandma's most famous desserts: gobs.  You may know them better as whoopie pies, but to me and my cousins, they will always be gobs.  Grandma made these treats for us every summer and stored them in the chilly coal bin in the basement.  My brother and I would emerge from the basement with a gob in our grasp and Grandma would pour us big glasses of milk.  We ate those sticky sandwiches while sitting next to her on the glider out on the front porch.  It was unforgettable.      

   

Grandma Diehl's Gobs

1 c. cocoa

1/2 c. hot water

1 c. butter

2 c. sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

4 c. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

Mix together all the ingredients in a mixer.  Grease cookie sheets and drop mixture in equally sized blobs.  Take the back of a spoon, dipped in hot water, and smooth each clump out.  Bake 7-9 minutes at 350 F.  Cool the gob pieces and ice with white frosting or vanilla ice cream to make little chocolate sandwiches.  You can sprinkle a bit of salt on top of them if you like.  Freezes well.  Makes about 30 gobs.

Grandma's Vanilla Icing

2 c. confectioner's sugar

1/2 c. butter, room temperature

1 tsp. vanilla

milk

Mix together in a mixer with enough milk to make a consistency like cake frosting.  Add milk 1 Tbsp. at a time.          

P is for Peanut Butter Cookies

Although summer seems the perfect time for desserts like ice cream, sorbet, peach pie, popsicles, and berry cobblers, I tend to make a lot of cookies.  Maybe it's because they're so portable.  I can toss a few in a bag and bring them along for a picnic or a boat ride.  No refrigeration required.  In fact, if the chocolate chips have melted a little in the summer heat, the cookies will be better!  Maybe I make a lot of cookies because they're a small dessert.  You can pop one as a snack, crumble them over ice cream, or dunk them in milk for the full experience.  

Maybe it's because everyone loves cookies.  My father-in-law adores cookies.  I would go so far as to say that cookies are his achilles heel.  He gave this recipe his stamp of approval, so I know they're good enough to recommend to you.  Enjoy!  

For this recipe, I used unsweetened peanut butter from Whole Foods- the freshly ground variety that tastes dramatically different to those expecting Jif or Peter Pan.  It made the cookies taste a little less sweet but still positively delicious.

Peanut Butter Cookies

from Williams-Sonoma Baking

1/2 c. unsalted butter, melted

1/2 c. firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1 c. creamy peanut butter

1 large egg

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 1/3 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

In a mixer on medium speed, beat together the melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, peanut butter, egg, and vanilla.  Sift together in a medium bowl the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Once the peanut butter mixture is creamy and light, slowly add the dry ingredients, blending on low speed.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Spray cookie sheets with non-stick spray.  Use a cookie dough scoop or a tablespoon to measure out the dough in equal quantities and then roll the dough with dampened hands into 1-inch balls.  Place the balls on prepared baking sheets.  Use a fork dipped in flour to lightly press each dough ball and flatten slightly.  Bake the cookies 12-15 minutes and let them cool briefly on the pans.  Use a spatula to move them to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely.