My parents always told me I could do anything I put my mind to. Well, they never told me about cake pops.
DISCLAIMER: All pics were made with the iPhone.
After stewing over what to give my husband (he is, after all, the most thoughful gift giver I have ever met), I decided that the normal father's day gifts would not do. He didn't need another tie, or a coffee mug (he loathes coffee), or custom labeled beer, or an engraved plaque or something. So I started thinking about what he loves. Mysteriously, BOTH pairs of his good leather sandals have disappeared since we married...so we gave him a nice pair of leather slide on sandals. He Loves them. (Thank God)
He also loves red velvet cake.
Now, understand, this man HATES chocolate cake. I mean HATES it. But red velvet cake IS chocolate cake. But dyed red. Yes. This is true. I didn't know this til I was
an adult about 18. (eh, ok...I was about 32). I KNOW it has to be the chocolate mixed with cream cheese icing. I mean, who doesn't like cream cheese icing. It's amazing. Yum.
But I digress.
Since we are doing bootcamp, I decided having an entire red velvet cake around this house would NOT be a good thing for our diets/workouts. So. I got ambitious. I decided to make...du-da-du....CAKE POPS!
Yeah...cake pops. One, MAYBE two bites of yummy goodness. AND I could take some to his dad and my dad and his papa. Yeah, CAKE pops.
So I did like any other do-it-herself crafter extraordinaire and went to
Bakerella's website. She is, after all, THE expert on the subject. I found these UBER cute Superman Cake Pops! They look easy enough, RIGHT???
Well, let me just tell you. I almost lost my religion making these suckers. I'm pretty crafty AND I am a good cook. But I STINK at making these. Start to finish it took about 8 hours and 3 days to make these. He better appreciate them! (I'll report back later on my findings!)
I was going to make a homemade red velvet, but after reading her blog decided that it was too moist. (I wanted the blue velvet cake instead of red.) I decided I'd rather have cake that stays on the stick and not just pretty cake.
So I baked a boxed red velvet cake, and made homemade cream cheese icing ::swoon::
I crumbled the cake into a fine mess...then added enough icing to make balls.
I then rolled them and placed them on a tin-foiled cookie sheet and placed them in the freezer to harden a bit, and let a handsome young man
devour lick the bowl.
Meanwhile, my friend Gina (aka a baking diva) came over to help me make marshmallow fondant (or Fawn-dahnt as the Cake Boss calls it.) Boy that stuff is an icky-sticky-ooey-gooey mess. But it tastes SO. MUCH. BETTER. than traditional fondant. (I hear Buddy saying it in his Hoboken, NJ accent every time I type that word.)
I made the mistake (well, multiple ones, really...but I digress...again...) of having her help me make it two days before I needed it, which made it REALLY hard to roll out later. She was gracious enough to come back over yesterday to help me roll them out and after HER day at bootcamp, her arms were like jelly and rolling them out simply exhausted her. So,
when if I ever do these again, I'll make the fondant the day OF the ball assembly. We stored it in an airtight container:
So here's where things get
stupid complicated. Yesterday (remember, Father's Day is the next day) Gina and I got to work...she rolled out the fondant and after realizing I had NOTHING to cut cute little shield shaped pieces, we decided on rectangles:
And while she did that I got to work on melting Almond Bark (since I couldn't get candy melts in the city of Perry and running to Warner Robins with four children for only candy melts was NOT an option.) My theory was I'd melt the bark then add the gel blue food coloring (since following instructions is NOT my strong point). Well. Let me tell you. THAT doesn't work. It turns into a globby mess because it cools the bark too quickly. So
failure theory number two was to melt the bark WITH the food coloring IN it. It LOOKED like it was going to work. For about 2 seconds:
Then it globbed up again in a nasty mess. I called Lacy, our ever available sitter extraordinaire, and she ran over while I ran to Wal-Mart for MORE Almond Bark. After discussing the bark plight with Gina, we decided since we couldn't have lovely blue candy melts...I'd just do Almond Bark (which is white) and blue sugar crystals (can you say diabetic COMA????).
Off to Wal-Mart I go...and in my ADD stupor (which happens daily) I get everything BUT almond bark including rotisserie chicken and broccoli and cheese and croissants for a lovely chicken wreath for dinner. I got home with no almond bark so my cake pop assembly comes to a screeching halt the day BEFORE father's day. ::sigh::
I was broken-hearted. Publix (2 miles away) doesn't carry it except during the holidays (jerks) and I was not about to run back to WM since we had to leave for bootcamp in less than an hour...SO I decided to stop BACK at WM on Sunday after I drop Matt to work AFTER church. Sheesh. DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA....I have to do EVERYTHING the hard way, it seems!
SO. I get something different called candy something or another right next to the Almond Bark thinking that the candy melt gods would smile better upon me with that and Alex and I start assembling.
I must say that when I pulled the balls out of the freezer, they had flat tops. SO...I just went with it. It was stressful enough trying to finish these things, so I wasn't ABOUT to add an extra step.
Pure and simple, they are an ugly mess. I used a red food coloring marker to write dad on the FAWN daunt.....and, in all their blockhead glory, stayed on the stick like good little cake pops should.
I never said I focus on perfection in baking...but I am SUCH a perfectionist in my other crafts. Go figure:
They took forever and I MAY try them again but with real candy melts and a not so moist cake. We'll see. But ugly or not, they were made with a lot of love. I hope they taste good...
Happy Father's Day!!
