Bakerella #FAIL
Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 2:40PM I read at Bakerella regularly, lusting after her perfect macaroons, delicious cookies and being super jealous of her amazing creativity and skills. For Lucas' party I attempted, and was pretty successful with, the brain cake, chocolate lollipops and also chocolate covered marshmallows.. so I will admit, I was feeling a little cocky. Can I actually be the girl that decorates AND bakes with Pizzazz?! Can I lose myself in the joy of perfectly decorating a cupcake and the table to go along with it? A girl has to have goals.
I have this vision for the dessert table at my party and in effort to go with the trends and impress my friends with my SKILLZ, I decided I was going to make Bakerella's signature "Cake Pops"...
*photo from Bakerella's site.. and will click you to her cake pops..yes, everything she does is perfect and wonderful
Take a look at those, so perfect on the stick.. just beautiful and delicious. And PINK, the exact color I want. The recipe doesn't look too hard - and it involves cake from a box! That's SO how I roll. When things call for a "sifter" I immediately glaze over.
Making My Cake And Eating It Too
Luckily, and because I'm smart, I decided to do a test batch.
I thought it would be a fun birthday dessert for the family on my actual birthday. And don't think that I didn't have this vision in my head of me serving these beautiful cake creations to my happy, smiling, recently bathed and cozy in their PJ's kids, while Jason and I, 20 lbs lighter (me) looking perfectly causal in the perfect jeans and a simple t-shirt with long flowing blond hair (also me) sip champagne and toast my birthday in a perfect remodeled kitchen... Oh, these visions of grandeur!! They will kill me in the end I swear.
So I make a cake (and almost under cooked it - then forgot about it in the oven. Thanks to Jason for paying attention when I bake. ;0) ), let it cool, add the frosting and mushed up cake in a bowl, squish it all together, make beautiful little balls placed perfectly on wax paper, chill, add sicks... chill... all is going so well! I DO have talent! I rock.. let's dip these babies in the chocolate... Oh, what???
Okay, so that one didn't work.. hmm.. neither did that one..maybe if I try this? maybe.. Oh, crap*
(*not really the actual word used)
After a while, and way after bedtime, I did get a few of them to work... then I remembered the black edible glitter that I bought (remember: visions of grandeur! beautiful round pops of delight decorated perfectly!) and decided to add those to a couple of the non-deformed balls. While I was thinking BLACK GLITTER = FUN! The result was a little, um.. well, not really intended.
Hey! Who ashed on my cake pop?!
I did manage to rescue a few lone cake pops (16 of the original 54!), and after talking to a friend who made these before, I am thinking of attempting another batch..
because, you know, I'm insane!
Reader Comments (8)
Beth, I'm a pretty good baker and I failed miserably at the cake pops. They are much harder than they look! You'll have to share your friend's tips if they work.
Happy birthday!
Nancy - it was Tiff's tips! ;-) I'm trying again and freezing the balls overnight, using the double boiler instead of the microwave to melt the chocolate, and just going to do mainly cake balls. Wish me luck!
I was thinking those looked like tricky little bastards. HOW does that Bakerella do it?? Good LUCK!! You can do it.
You do it to become the master of domesticity! I'd do it to. Tame that cake pop, girl!
The rescued ones look great, Beth!
I have tried the cake pops a few times. First time was just okay. Second time much better. I learned that I had put too much frosting in the cake when I tried to make the cake pops. Also, you have to keep the icing super warm and thin to get it to cover the pops.
One trick is instead of dipping them, just pour the icing over the pops with a spoon.
Also? You can cheat by using plain donut holes instead of cake. They are firm and hold up pretty well to the icing. Just sayin' ;)
After drooling over your cake balls for sometime now, I decided to make some. I went to Bakerella and got the basic idea. I used cherry chip cake and covered them with chocolate. Yummy..... but I want to know what you use to cover them. Is it straight frosting or is it some type of chocolate. What flavors do you use?
So I have to ask WHY were you adding the black. Note to self: Cake pops are never a good idea to make
I thought black edible glitter would be cool. Alas, I was very wrong. And I've never made cake-pops again. LOL