Zebra cake! And cake pop horrors

So remember my cake pops post? How I was all "yaaaay, cake pops, they're so cute, I can totally do this!"

Um.

So, actually, cake pops are WAY harder than they look and I want to send out some mad props to the people who do them for a living. You guys are awesome.

I will now share with you the awesomeness that is the zebra cake I made tonight for Princess P's jungle party, and the major league disappointment that is my cake pops attempt. I think I know where I went wrong, and I think I'd tackle them again - after all, like anything else, it's a learning curve.

First off, the good news. I found a way to make marshmallow fondant without using butter or shortening, and reducing the amount of icing sugar that goes in. I used about 1lb of icing sugar (instead of the usual 2lbs the recipes call for) and just topped up with corn starch as I let the Big Mama (a.k.a. my kitchenaid stand mixer - Boy Wonder named it) beat it into submission. I liked the corn starch variety WAY better - significantly less sweet, but honestly, haven't we all been grossed out at some point by icing that was too sweet? And given that I can't use fondant without a crumb coat (in this case, chocolate) I think pouring all that sugar on top of melted marshmallows is just overkill and more money in your dentist's pocket.

So given all my soapboxing about icing, here are the steps I followed to do the cake.

- 1 bag of good quality marshmallows - I have been cheap on this before and paid for it. Spend the extra buck for the Jet Puft.
- 2 tbsp water
- 1lb of icing sugar
- a full box of cornstarch - honestly I have no idea how much I threw in. A cup? Maybe?

Nuke the marshmallows & water in a microwave safe dish for 1 min. Stir. If they aren't all melted, give it another 30 seconds. Stir. Keep going till they're melted.
Pour melted marshmallows into your greased Kitchenaid mixer bowl (I used Pam spray.)
Add 1lb icing sugar and turn on low. Use the paddle attachment at this point.
Once it's mixed, switch the attachment to the dough hook and throw in some cornstarch. Let it combine and look at the consistency - if it's still runny, throw in some more and give it another shot of mixing. Carry on until it looks like dry peanut butter.

Wrap in saran wrap and throw in the fridge for an hour. This is the part where you get to bake your cake and let it cool to room temp. I have no good cake recipes and I just used boxed mix.

Once the cake is out and cool throw on a crumb coat - this is your regular icing, buttercream, the premade kind from the store, whatevs. It's what your fondant will stick to. After the crumb coat is on, coat your rolling pin with cornstarch and your countertop with cornstarch. Get ready to get a workout and roll the hunk of fondant from the fridge to 1/4" thick. Keep rolling.

When you have a big sheet of fondant, lay it over your cake and press into the sides to stick it to the crumb coat. Use a pizza cutter to trim the fondant off. If you get any cracks, get the tip of your finger (or a pastry brush) a little wet and just rub along the crack to seal it. If you get any color on the fondant you don't want, a wet paper towel should take it right off (but you should get to it quickly.)

And here's the cake! I used the Dala cake pan from Ikea, Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix, Betty Crocker milk chocolate icing as a crumb coat, and my homemade MMF on top. I iced it by hand using glitter icing gel I found at Michael's.

Aww! It's a little stumpy, and thick set, but hey, it's clearly a zebra, and it has a cute tail. It's going to look super cute when we stick a '1' candle in it and give it to Princess P.

On the downside, since we have nearly 20 people at her birthday (and it's JUST family! Crazy!) this stumpy little zebra isn't going to be enough to feed everybody. So in a moment of inspiration I said "hey! Zebra print cake pops! Perfect way to make sure everybody gets a bit of a treat at the party!"

Fool.

I even made a pretty cake pop box (cake pop cake?) to showcase my pops. I had worked on them all afternoon. They look... well, the cake pop box looks cute, and if you squint, the whole effect is pleasing.

Right? Cute pink flowers? Pink stripes on white, black stripes on white, white stripes on black. Sounds SO promising.

Until they give up the will to live, like this one:

(These photos were taken in my beer fridge freezer - I was so desperate for at least SOME of these things to survive till next weekend that I practically threw them in there.)

Stupid cake pops. Whatever. I'm still going to serve them at the party. I'll just make sure there's a huge pitcher of sangria next to them. Food on a stick + booze = party!

Hyacinth flowers from cardstock - with tutorial!

Okay, here's a tut on making your own hyacinth flowers from cardstock. Like the wine bottle palm trees, these guys are awesome for a beach party/safari party/jungle party/hawaiian party/etc. As always with my party decorations, they're quick & cheap. You can get everything you need for this at Wal Mart or a dollar store.

Materials
1 large sheet of posterboard in a bright color
1 8x10 sheet of bright green
1 8x10 sheet of bright yellow
hot glue gun
scissors

Steps:

Cut five teardrop shaped petals from the posterboard. I like to fold mine five times and then cut so I know they're the same size.

2. Fold each one in half but only to the middle of the petal. Make sure the rounded end stays flat.

3. Roll the first inch or so of the flat end of the petal around a pen or something small and skinny to get curve to it.

4. Now put a dab of hot glue at the other end of the petal, in the middle of the fold. Pinch the fold shut over the glue. Repeat for all the petals.

5. Now put a dab of glue on one side of the folded end and press another petal to it. Pinch to seal them together using the glue. Repeat with another petal so that you have three petals glued together - it will look something like a cloverleaf.

6. Fold a V shape in the ends of the remaining two petals.

7. Put hot glue inside the V, then pinch it around the three petals you have glued together, like this:

8. Repeat with the fifth petal and glue it on. Once you've got it attached and pinched, it should look like this:

9. Dab hot glue on the two open sides of the flower (where you just pinched) and then put your hand inside the petals and pinch them together. You want to open up the petals and seal the spot you used to attach them.

10. From your yellow paper, cut a small piece and fold it five times.

11. Cut a stamen shape from the paper so you have five identical stamens.

12. Roll the stamens around the pen to get them to curl a bit.

13. Dab hot glue inside the petals and glue the ends of the stamens inside.

14. Add some green leaves and you're done! These guys are heavy so beware if you want to hang them.

CAKE POPS!!!

Cake pops are super trendy right now and you've probably seen the cake pop pans you can buy to make the little balls. If, like me, you're too cheap to buy the pan, follow these steps to make your own at home! I'm going to tackle these and make zebra cake pops for Princess P's party. Big shout out to The Speckled Freckle blog in Australia, where I found these directions. Their link is:http://www.speckledfreckle.com.au/blog/?cat=5

Now... cake pops!!

Cake Pop Recipe

Sunday, April 3rd, 2011

I made some cake pops this weekend for my daughter’s birthday party. I thought I would share the recipe and tutorial that I followed to make them. Cake pops are perfect for kids parties and they are yummy! They were a hit with the kids and they gobbled them down faster then I could serve them.

Ingredients
Cake mix {and ingredients listed on box}
1/2 package of chocolate frosting
White Chocolate Candy Melts
Candy sticks ( available on Ebay!)
Styrofoam or Oasis
Gel Food Coloring {NOT liquid}
Shortening {large spoon full}

Follow the instructions on the packet and bake your cake. I used a BASCO Gluten Free chocolate cake mix as I had children with coeliac disease attending the party. Allow the cake to cool.

Put your cake mix in a large bowl.

Use Your hands to crumble the entire cake.

Add about 1/2 – 3/4 of the tub of Betty Crocker Chocolate Frosting. The frosting acts as a glue to hold the cake balls together.

Use your hands to mix the frosting into the cake until all the cake mix is moistened.

Your cake mix should be moist enough to shape into a large ball and keep it’s shape.

Your hand should now look like this! �

Roll your cake balls into 1 inch balls using the palms of your hands.

You should get 35-40 cake balls per batch.

Now we prepare the chocolate shell. Pour one entire package of white chocolate candy melts into a microwave safe bowl. Follow the melting instructions on the package. *Be sure not to burn the candy melts or they will taste super yucky*

Pull out your melted white chocolate and stir thoroughly with a spoon until COMPLETELY smooth. Once smooth, add a large spoon full of shortening {Crisco} to the white chocolate to thin out the consistency a bit. Stir thoroughly again. We don’t have this shortening in Australia so I used a small amount of Crisco vegetable oil. If I had had Copha in my fridge I would have tried that first, The vegetable oil worked though.

Take a cake pop and dip into the white chocolate about 1 inch.

And then place it into the center of your cake ball. This will act as a glue keeping your cake pop and stick attached.

Then place your cake pop in the Styrofoam to harden. Continue with the remaining cake pops.

Now you are ready to coat your cake pops in the delicious white chocolate. This is the most tricky step of the entire recipe. It took me some practice before I was good at evenly coating the chocolate on the pop.

The key is to place the pop in the chocolate at a sideways angle with one hand. Using the other hand, spoon the chocolate mixture all around the pop. Try to do this as quickly as possible before the chocolate begins to harden and get lumpy.

Once you have evenly coated the pop, gently tap the stick on the side of the bowl to get off any excess chocolate that would drip.

Now its time to make your cake pops look extra pretty. Use the remainder of your white chocolate for the drizzle. If you run out, make more following the steps above. Add the GEL food coloring of your choice until you receive your desired color. The liquid food coloring will immediately harden and ruin your chocolate.

Fill a Ziploc bag with your colored white chocolate. Cut a small hole in one corner of the Ziploc back so that you can drizzle the colored chocolate over your pops.

Now let your cake pops dry and then you are done! Cake pops taste great after they have chilled in the refrigerator.

Happy Baking!!!

The Speckled Freckle Party Place thanks Ashley Stock for this great recipe

DIY party invitations

I use GIMP to make party invitations for my kids' birthdays. I'm too cheap to buy Photoshop, but I bet if I had it, I'd love it.

I'm not even going to begin telling you or writing a tut on how to make your own invitations. There's a bajillion out there, and believe me, there are people who are WAY more talented with it than I am. To inspire you, though, I'll tell you that I'm self taught (aside from following tutorials) and I just played around with it. A good trick I have learned is to make sure you change your image settings before you start to a high DPI (dots per inch) to avoid being pixelated when you go to print.

Here's the invite to Princess P's birthday in a couple of weeks:

And here's the invites to a jack-and-jill bachelor/ette party Scruffy and I organized last summer.

Honestly, this stuff is cheap and easy. It takes a bit to get used to it, but it's fun. Anybody can do this.

If you decide you want to tackle this kind of stuff, I HIGHLY suggest checking out www.digiscrapdepot.com and taking a look at their freebies. You can pay for a kit or design elements that you are crazy about, or if you're planning to do commercial work with it someday, but if you're just looking to have fun or do some personal stuff like cards, freebies are a great place to start. Have fun.

wine bottle palm trees

I just finished doing a couple of wine bottle palm trees for Princess P's birthday party in a couple of weeks and thought I'd share them here! They turned out really great so if anyone's considering, say, a monkey party (or a jungle party, or safari party, beach party, whatever) these might be something you want to try!

Materials:
1 wine bottle, rinsed clean with no cap or cork
scotch tape
3-4 lunch size brown paper bags
1/2 sheet of green poster board (I guess you could use a lighter paper but I don't think the leaves would stand up so nicely)
hot glue gun - you could try white glue but you'd be there forever waiting for it to dry

Here is what we're going for! They are really sturdy too, which is especially nice for a kids' party!



Steps to follow:
1. Cut out six leaves from the green poster board. Make sure they are gently arched and cut triangles from the bottom part. Don't worry about making them identical - it's better to have a variety of lengths & degrees of arch in them. Keep one end of the leaves a bit wider than the other. While you're at it trim the bottoms from the paper bags so they are tubes instead of bags.

2. Slide the paper bags over the wine bottle and crumple as they reach the bottom, like this:



3. When your bottle is covered with bags, take a strip of scotch tape and wrap it around the paper at the mouth of the bottle so it's tight. Don't cover the mouth of the bottle.



4. Take two of your palm leaves and cut a 1/2" strip in one end but don't cut it right off - just make it a slit that covers about 3/4 of the leaf. Layer the leaves over each other so the strips line up, and glue them together, like this:



5. Insert the glued strips into the mouth of the bottle. If it's a little tight, you can either fold the strips a bit to make them fit, or do what I did and just jam 'em in there. Be careful not to rip the leaves off at the top of the strips.



6. Now fold a tab into the wider ends of the remaining leaves. Folding on an angle will affect which way the leaf hangs from your tree - if you want them perfectly symmetrical fold them all straight, if you want them to be at different heights, fold in different places and on different angles.



7. Put hot glue on the folded tabs and glue them to the bottle. Space them evenly around the mouth of the bottle.



8. Now your topper leaves: cut out two symmetrical leaves from the green poster board.



9. Fold them in half and trim triangles (you want triangles on both sides of the leaves when they are unfolded.)




10. Roll these leaves around whatever you have handy (a rolling pin, a water bottle, a glass... I had a paper towel roll) to get a nice gentle arch to them.



11. Dab hot glue on one end and stick into the mouth of the bottle. You'll have two leaves sticking a bit higher up than the other ones - you can curl them a bit more if you need to have them hang a bit lower. You can also recrumple the paper bags to make sure you like the how bumpy the trunk looks. I'm pretty happy with how these turned out! Quick & not too expensive, either! (Assuming of course you have as many wine bottles lying around the house as I do, lol!)