Cake Pops - A Tutorial

Cake pops are one of my favorite miniature treats. A few bites of cake, coated in chocolate, on a stick - super cute, delicious, and fairly easy to make.

Materials:

• Cake: any of your favorite recipes should work - though I will caution you, super oily cakes may be problematic - read, the oil may escape the chocolate/crack the chocolate, etc. I prefer using butter cakes for cake pops, or I'll cut down on the amount of oil in an oil-based recipe.
  
  
• Buttercream (or cream cheese icing, chocolate ganache, etc): keep in mind that frostings with perishable ingredients will need to be refrigerated. I've never had problems refrigerating cake pops.
  
  
• Chocolate: I love Chocoley chocolate. It tastes a million times better than candy melts. I use the dipping and enrobing formula for cake pops. Chocoley sells special candy coloring for chocolate as well, so you can get as fancy as you like with colors!
  
  
• Lollipop sticks
  
  
• Baking sheet, lined with parchment or a silicone mat
  
  
• Styrofoam block, or anything with lollipop stick sized holes in it. Be careful not to poke ALL the way through your styrofoam block; you want the stick to be able to stand up right, but not be so deep that the cake is too close to the styrofoam (it'll be really hard to place without disturbing wet chocolate).
  
  
• A small, deep, microwave-safe bowl. You need to be able to stick a cake pop into the chocolate straight and have it all be covered. Things turn into a mess quickly when you don't have enough chocolate in the bowl, and you need to tip it in order to cover your cake pop.

Steps:

1. Crumble your cake into uniform crumbs. A food processor can be helpful here, but it's pretty easy to use your hands as well.
   
   
2. Mix in enough frosting so that the cake holds together when squeezed. You should be able to roll a firm ball that holds its shape. I tend to add a different amount of frosting depending on what recipe I use; add slowly and test the consistency frequently.
   
   

3. Refrigerate the cake balls until firm, or place in freezer. A word of caution - you do NOT want to dip frozen cake balls into chocolate! The cake will expand as it defrosts, and it will crack the chocolate coating. Firm is ok - frozen is not. If you are having problems with cracking cake pops - they are likely too cold and/or your chocolate too hot.
   
   
4. Melt a small amount of chocolate, and dip a lollipop stick in about 1/2". Stick at least half-way into cake ball (make sure you don't poke all the way through!). Repeat with remaining cake balls.
   
   
5. Refrigerate until chocolate is firm around the lollipop stick.
   
   
6. Melt chocolate in your microwave safe bowl, according to package instructions. Make sure that you melt enough chocolate so that you can submerge the entire cake pop without tilting the bowl, and without hitting the bottom.
   
   
7. Dip cake pop into chocolate, so that it is completely submerged (make sure to cover the chocolate around the lollipop stick!). It's really important that the entire cake ball is covered with chocolate - otherwise, the cake will escape from any and every tiny hole in the chocolate (trust me, it's not pretty).
   
   

8. Once cake pop is completely covered, lift it out of the chocolate.
   
   
9. Once removed from the chocolate, excess coating will start dripping off of the pop. Hold the cake pop in one hand, and gently tap your hand to help remove excess coating, turning the pop as you go so the excess will come off evenly.
   
   

10. When you have no drips left, hold cake pop upside down for a few seconds to allow coating to dry a bit before inverting. If you are going to dip your pops twice, dip it again now. I do like to dip twice when using the Chocoley dipping and enrobing chocolate. If you are adding sprinkles, sanding sugar, or other decorations, wait until the cake pop is about halfway dry before you start. If the coating is still too wet, the weight of the sprinkles or other decorations may displace the chocolate.
    
    
11. Invert cake pop, and place in your stand to dry completely. Enjoy!!

For some amazing design ideas, visit Bakerella's blog, and check out her fabulous book!

Happy Birthday!

A pretty little cake I made this past weekend for a friend's surprise birthday party.   Happy birthday Carey!!!

Red Velvet Cake Pops

Chocolates and roses for Valentine's Day are just fine - but red velvet cake pops really get my heart fluttering!








Stay tuned for a tutorial later this week!

Chocolate Macarons

Chocolate macaron with Bailey's buttercream filling

Like many other bakers - I am obsessed with french macarons. The wonderful flavor combinations, gorgeous colors, the adorable feet - what's not to love? They are admittedly a little bit fussy, but once you figure out a method that works for you, they really aren't that difficult.

I've had the most success using the French meringue method. This method does require a little bit of advance planning (your egg whites need to "age" for at least 12-24 hours), and the shells need to sit for 30-60 minutes before baking - but I've had very consistent results.

A few must-haves:

• Kitchen scale: carefully measured out ingredients are a key to success
  
• Food processor: most almond flour isn't finely ground enough; you'll need to pulse it in a food processor (with confectioners sugar, to avoid making nut butter!) in order to get super smooth shells. I like to buy whole blanched almonds and grind them myself (make sure you grind the nuts with confectioners sugar, in order to avoid making nut butter!).
  
• Silpats (or parchment paper): I like using silpats the best - but parchment will work as well
  
• Oven thermometer: you'll want to make sure that your oven is at the right temperature!
  

Developing a hard shell, waiting for the oven


Just out of the oven - look at those feet!


Cooling (fortunately they don't take long!)


Yum!

Chocolate Macarons with Espresso Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients:
110 gm blanched almonds (or almond flour)
200 gm minus 2 tbsp. confectioners sugar
2 T cocoa powder
90 gm egg whites (about 3 eggs), aged at room temperature for 12-24 hours
25 gm granulated sugar

1. Pulse almonds, confectioners sugar, and cocoa powder together in food processor, until finely ground.
2. Whip egg whites on medium speed using an hand mixer until foamy (you can use a stand mixer as well; I prefer a hand mixer here).
3. Slowly add granulated sugar to the egg whites, and continue beating until a smooth, shiny meringue with stiff peaks forms.
4. Add the nuts and powdered sugar to the meringue, fold the mass carefully until you obtain a batter that disappears back into itself after counting to 10 (ie - if you drop a small amount onto a plate, the batter should flatten out in about 10 seconds, with no peak). The whole process should not take more than 50 strokes. Go slow here - the difference between just a few strokes can be the difference between perfect macarons and a flop!
5. Line 2 baking sheets with silicone mats. Transfer batter to a piping bag fitted with a large plain round tip. Pipe 1 1/2 inch rounds, spaced about a inch apart. Let sit at room temperature for 30-60 minutes to allow shells to harden.
   
6. While shells are hardening, preheat oven to 290 degrees F. Bake for 12-15 minutes depending on size (shells should lift easily off the mat when done; if you try to remove one and the top pulls off, bake for a few minutes longer). Let cool completely before assembling.

To assemble:

1. Match up similarly sized macarons
2. Pipe filling onto one half of the cookie, and gently press the halves together
3. Enjoy! The macarons are deeeelish right out of the oven, but even better if you refrigerate them overnight. Try it - it's totally worth the wait!

Espresso chocolate ganache:
½ cup heavy cream
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 tbsp. granulated sugar
4 tbsp. semisweet chocolate, chopped
1½ tsp. espresso powder (or instant coffee)

1. Place chocolate and butter in a medium-sized bowl.
   
2. Combine cream, sugar, and espresso powder in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to simmer, remove from heat, and pour over chocolate.
3. Let mixture stand for 3 minutes, then whisk until smooth and shiny. Let cool and thicken to a good piping consistency before assembling macarons.
   

Source: Adapted from Annie's Eats

Angry, angry birds

It seems that many of my most recent posts start with something to the tune of "so sorry for the lack of posts!". Last year was incredibly busy, and while I made a lot of cakes and cupcakes, I was really terrible at sharing them. All of that is about to change - this is going to be the last time I apologize for being MIA. I have big plans for this year, and a lot to share - stay tuned for lots of sweet treats.

So without further ado - my most recent cupcakes!

If you haven't played Angry Birds yet - you are certainly missing out. It's a super addictive game, in which you slingshot a variety of birds at different structures, trying to destroy evil green pigs that stole your eggs.

The idea for angry birds cupcakes came about back in November, while at a tech conference with two of my friends. Someone posed the question, "Hey, wouldn't it be awesome if we had angry birds cupcakes for our next major release?!" Umm, totally awesome!

The birds were made completely out of fondant, and sat on top of vegan cinnamon smores cupcakes with vanilla buttercream (also vegan!).


Angry birds, in progress



Finished, and looking mighty angry (and the pig, looking terrified)


All together, now


The idea guys, Jeff and Dave