birthday prep

all I wanted for my birthday was to make a bunch of desserts that I had wanted to try for a long time

(including coconut, caramel, coffee...sorry Peter)

I made a Starbucks copycat pop with homemade chocolate espresso cake, dipped in cappuchino chips, and topped with a chocolate covered espresso bean

 

making my favorite sweet potato cake recipe (thanks Nicole)

 

a mound of mint oreo truffles

 

making cookie stuffed cookies

chocolate chip cookie stuffed with a mini oreo

 

pistachio cake baked in cones...not quite how I envisioned them

 

but they still tasted good

mom made me a little cakepop bouquet for my birthday - too cute 

samoa cookie pops

samoas are my absolute favorite girl scout cookie, and I wanted to put them into pop form

I used a bag of chewy caramels

and some homemade shortbread cookies

then crumbled up the shortbread into the bowl of melted caramels

using my hand,s I rolled the mixture into balls and inserted the sticks

forming the balls was a little difficult due to the sticky caramel

I dipped the pops in dark chocolate and sprinkled toasted coconut flakes on the top

these turned out great - they might be my favorite pops to date!

chocolate espresso cake

since the groom's cake had three tiers, I wanted to do a different variation of chocolate for each tier

for the second tier, I tested out a chocolate espresso cake recipe

this was my first time using my new 6'' cake pans

the cake was a success...now onto tier 3

devil's food cake

I was asked to make the groom's cake for Emily & Justin's wedding

besides a detailed drawing of how he wanted the cake to look,

the only direction I received on flavor was he likes chocolate cake and raspberry filling

so for the bottom tier I tried a devil's food recipe from David Lebovitz

must not have greased the pans well enough, because they would not come out

so I just cut it down the middle - which explains the crater

the flavor of the cake was great, regardless of what it looked like

and in between the two layers was a raspberry filling

Chelle was coming up for her birthday, so I made it into a bingo b-day cake

chocolate cakeballs w/vanilla coating and edible black pen

 B3 and B13 because her birthday is March 13

I23 since she was turning 23 years old

still need to find the right frosting for tier one of the groom's cake

tier one cake and filling recipes were a success though - now on to the next two

happy birthday chelle!

st. patrick's day

st. paddy's day desserts...yum

cakeballs w/green-colored yellow cake inside

shamrock-shaped gingerbread and sugar cookies w/green vanilla frosting

 

used decorative bags filled with cakepops, cakeballs, and cookies as gifts

nothin' better than washing down tasty treats with

whiskey gingers, whiskey diets, and whiskey shots

starbucks petites

starbucks introduced three cakepops to their menu in March

I refused to purchase one cakepop at $1.50, but was curious to try them

turns out they gave out free petites the first few days they came out

so I tried all three cakepops and here's what I discovered

birthday cakepop

Vanilla cake and icing, dipped in a pink chocolaty coating with white sprinkles.

first thought was these pops are nearly double the size of my cakepops

the coating is softer, so it doesn't crack or break when you bite it

cake is very dense and the flavor is so so

rocky road cakepop

Chocolate cake and icing dipped in a dark chocolaty coating, with mini marshmallows and roasted almonds.

enjoyed finding marshmallows mixed into the cake

though the pop as a whole was way to rich

I liked the nut sprinkles, but the marshmallow sprinkled on was unnecessary

tiramisu cakepop

Vanilla cake and Starbucks® coffee with vanilla icing, dipped in mocha flavored chocolaty coating, with a chocolate coffee bean.

enjoyed the coffee flavor of this pop, however the soft texture of the coating turned me off

this cake was the most dense of the three

I was excited for the chocolate-covered espresso bean

only to find out that it was just chocolate in the shape of a coffee bean...boo!

 I did love the little box the individual pops came in
with the clever little slot for the stick to rest in

my recommendation:  try making your own at home
you'll have a fun time doing it and they will likely taste better
or just ask me - I always like an excuse to make cakeballs

homemade mcgriddle

I threw together my own version of a mcdonalds mcgriddle

scrambled egg, corn, ham and cheese sandwiched between two pancakes

made the pancakes fairly thick to hold everything together

pancakes were slightly larger in diameter than an english muffin

hearty, a bit sweet, yet savory...a great breakfast

after making these I found out that the mcgriddle comes with maple syrup nuggets

so I'll work on that for next homemade mcgriddle session