Cake Pops

I know, I know. I've been missing for a little while (okay, a long while)...BUT, I'm back.

I got a great new toy to play with for Christmas and I've been using it nearly everyday to test it and to try it out.

WARNING: When you see how easy and cool it is, you might want one.
Kohl's (my favorite store) sells this Baby Cakes Cake Pop Maker and right now it's about $25. I think some other stores (Bed, Bath, and Beyond) may also carry it.It cooks cake batter (made from scratch-which I prefer-or from a mix) into 12 round balls in about 4 minutes! I know some people really like the cake balls with cooked cake mixed with frosting (and I'll eat those too-I like any sweets!), but these are so much easier and cleaner (and WAY more sanitary than someone's hands in your food. Eww...)

I have tried several different kinds of cake pops over this last week and every one of them have turned out great!
So far I've made the recipe for chocolate cake balls from the instruction book it came with (substituting hot cocoa for the coffee and I even made the next two batches with just hot water).

I was trying out some different coatings with these and didn't have any candy melts, so I made some up. The ones with shortening (I remembered the next time I went to make cookies that the ones I labeled as 'with shortening' are actually chocolate chips with a little shortening) worked the best, but they all tasted delicious! I covered some fresh out of the cooker in powdered sugar (put the sugar in a brown paper bag, add 4-6 cake balls, and shake) and they were great too.
I made donut holes next with a recipe I found here. The middle part that sticks out is there because I put a little too much batter in the cooker. It looks like a planet.And I found a recipe for pizza balls here. The only thing I changed in this recipe was doubling the pepperoni and not adding sausage. We dipped these in pizza sauce and that was dinner!This blog gave me great tips on how to use the machine and a few tricks. I bought some chocolate candy melts at the store and tried them out. I cut the cake pop sticks that came with the machine in half because I knew they were mostly staying at home. The machine also comes with a plastic tray that the cooked cake balls can cool in and keep their shape and the stick fits into a hole at the bottom too.I'm getting better and better (I think) and I think they will be a HUGE hit at our bake sale (that I'm in charge of) at the school carnival this spring!

Most of the recipes I tested made between 3-4 dozen cake balls, which means at 4 minutes to bake a dozen, you are done baking them in about 15 minutes.

I think the ones I covered with powdered sugar this last time without sticks took me 20 minutes, including the time it took to mix the batter, bake the cake balls, shake the powdered sugar on while the next batch was cooking, and to put the plastic wrap on top before taking them to our friend's house to share. They might have even still been warm!

*I decided that I needed to have this fun toy because the health inspector told us last year that we needed to wrap each cupcake individually to sell them the next time we had a bake sale. The cupcakes were in large boxes or plates that were covered.

I was trying to think of how I could package cupcakes without the frosting being a giant disaster and thought cake pops would be much easier (cover with a plastic bag and twist tie) to package and sell. Some people put decorated cupcakes into cups to package or on a plate, but it still seems messy, especially with the hundreds of cupcakes we had to sell last year.

Super Good Chocolate Cake

I made an awesome chocolate cake that I've been wanting to try for a few months. I finally had the opportunity (ie: other people to eat the cake with me instead of me eating all of it) and it turned out great!If I had the patience to wait for it to cool before frosting it, it would have turned out ever better, but it tasted super good, and no one was complaining about looks either. I loved the frosting recipe. It was easy and way better than canned chocolate frosting (even though I do like chocolate canned frosting, just not vanilla. Eww.) It would probably do better with actual cake pans instead of pie pans too.
The recipe came from the Hershey website, so it had to be a keeper, right?! It really is!

Cake Batter Ingredients:
2 cups Sugar
1 3/4 cups Flour
3/4 cup Baking Cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
2 Eggs
1 cup Milk
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 cup Boiling Water (I just heat water in the microwave for 2-3 minutes)

"PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING:
1/2 cup (1 stick) Butter or Margarine (melted)
2/3 cup Baking Cocoa
3 cups Powdered Sugar
1/3 cup Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Instructions:
Mix dry ingredients for cake together well before adding eggs, milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla. Mix well for a few minutes (I use my kitchen Aid with the wire whisk). Add boiling water and mix slowly (so you don't burn yourself). The batter will be thin, but don't worry! Pour batter into greased pans (I don't bother flouring) and bake at 350 degrees for the time needed for the pan size listed below.
Makes: One 9x13 pan (35-40 minutes), Two 9 inch pans (30-35 minutes), 24 cupcakes (20-25 minutes), or One Bundt cake pan (50-55 minutes). You know it's done when you jiggle it a little and it doesn't jiggle back or when you put a toothpick in and it comes out clean. If it seems to be getting brown around the edges, but not done in the middle, turn the oven down to 325 degrees and cover the cake with tin foil checking it every five minutes.
While the cake bakes, make your frosting. Melt the butter. Mix in the cocoa. Then add the powdered sugar and milk in little bits (1 cup powdered sugar-mix-1/3 cup milk-mix-repeat until you have used all that the recipe calls for). I used my small hand mixer for this because it's supposed to make two cups of frosting and my big mixer is a little overkill for that.
I still don't understand how you put in 4 1/2 cups of ingredents and end up with two cups of frosting....It must be all those taste tests... Frost when your cake is cool and your frosting won't just melt into the cake like mine. I think raspberry jam would be a yummy filling in this too. I added chocolate sprinkles on top and then covered the whole cake with my largest bowl to protect it from hungry eyes and fingers (ie: kids). I did end up taking half of the cake home and ate all the rest in a few days. I love desserts! Obviously. Look at the majority of my recipes...

Rainbow Cupcakes

Maybe you've heard of these. I saw them a while ago on Our Best Bites and decided that they would be perfect for a party I was hosting for House Party with Expo Washable Markers. It was a fun party with all their new washable markers and House Party sent me 15 sets of markers and dry erase boards to give away to people who came to my party. It was fun. Anyway, these cupcakes were delicious.
I used a from-scratch recipe for the cake mix because I didn't have any white cake mixes and I wanted to try this recipe. I ended up making the yellow cake mix since I used the yolk of the eggs and it didn't matter because I was dying the layers in the cupcake anyway.

For the cake batter I doubled the amounts below to make 24 cupcakes and then looked at the recipe again and realized that the recipe below was already doubled, so I guess I used twice as much batter as I should have. This recipe should still make 24 cupcakes, but they won't be as overfilled as mine were.

Cake Batter Ingredients (or you could use cake mix-whatever makes 24 cupcakes):
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

I mixed the dry ingredients in my mixer and then added the shortening. I mixed it in until it was all crumbly and then added the eggs and milk and vanilla and kept mixing until it was all uniform and didn't have any big clumps.

I liked this recipe. It was simple and I knew for sure that I wasn't adding any ingredients that my friend's kids would be allergic to.

After it was all mixed, I pulled out six of our big cereal bowls and added 1/2 cup of batter to each bowl so I would have the same amount of each color. I made Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue, and Violet (Purple). ROY-G-BIV. I left out Indigo. I think it's kind of made up anyway. I used gel food coloring. I think you know how to make orange, green, and purple without help, but if you don't, leave a comment and I'll help you out. =)

I wanted red on top of the cupcake, so I started with purple on the bottom and worked my way up. I used too much batter at the beginning and by the time I got to red, the batter was just about to the top of the muffin liner. I recommend about a Tablespoon of each color.

ONE GREAT TIP: TO SPREAD COLOR TO EDGE OF LINER, GET A CUP OF WARM WATER AND DIP A FINGER IN IT AND THEN SPREAD BATTER OUT TO THE EDGE. REDIP YOUR FINGER WITH EACH CUPCAKE AND EACH LAYER. I also spray my liners so the cupcake comes out easily.It's kind of time consuming, but these cupcakes are so fun and delicious, it's worth it.

See? I filled them way too full. The muffins grew into each other and the tops were trying to fall off when I took them out of the muffin pan. I think both orange and red were over the tops of the muffin liner. Still---delicious, moist, not too crumbly, and devoured.
See the pretty layers?
I was going to make some thick frosting, but decided against it when I saw how huge these were and remembered that it would be mostly kids eating them anyway and that I only had half a bag of powdered sugar! Opps. I dipped them when they were still warm too and lost a few muffin tops before I finally started frosting them. I kind of like the glazed taste.

The frosting/glaze was 1/2 cup butter, 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar, with 1/4 cup milk.
Like I said, they were delicious and they were devoured and they didn't leave crumbs all over or stain any kids.
This little guy liked his. They still ate the frosting first, but they all finished the whole cake part too. That's saying a lot for kids. Most just eat the frosting.
I made it in my bundt cake pan this week as well. It turned out great, but it had to cook for about 40 minutes to be done in the middle. When the edges were turning brown at about 20 minutes, I turned the oven down to 300 degrees to finish it off.

Here is what it looked like. I only used four colors instead of six this time too. I could probably do a double batch of batter (or two cake mixes) in my pan.
Still delicious. =)

Pineapple Bundt Cake

I got a silicone pan from a company a while ago and finally thought of a way to use it. I made a pineapple upside-down cake in the microwave. Yes, the microwave. The cool thing about these pans is that you can put them in the microwave to cook cakes quickly.
I actually didn't "buy" the pan. I got a notice from a friend that they give their pans away and you only have to pay shipping (about $8.00, but less than a whole pan would cost, I think). Here's the site to get a free pan from the company. Go to their freebie section, and if you don't want to sign up for anything else, just pay shipping. They have all kinds of other dishes and tools too if you don't want a "fluted cake pan".
AND my cake slid right out too! I know some of these pans say they are easier, but this one seems to be!I found a pineapple upside down cake recipe online, but it only used half a cake mix, so I doubled it and I didn't use Maraschino cherries because I didn't have any, but feel free to do that too and I didn't have rings of pineapple, just chunks, so that's different too, but it will all taste the same.

Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons Butter, melted
1 cup Brown Sugar
20 ounce can Sliced Pineapple (Reserve juice)
1 box Cake Mix (I used yellow, but you could use white)
2 Eggs

Instructions:
Spray a microwaveable bundt cake pan with non stick vegetable spray.
Melt butter (in a different dish) and pour into bundt pan.
Spread brown sugar over butter in bottom of pan.
Place pineapple around the pan on top of the sugar and butter. Save the juice!
(If you want to add cherries, you can slice them and spread them around the pineapple here.)
Mix remaining pineapple juice and eggs in with the cake mix.
Pour mix over pineapple in pan.
Bake in microwave on high for 15-18 minutes on a turn table. If you don't have a turn table, rotate every 4-5 minutes. Take out when top looks spongy, and has holes, not dough on top.
Let cool for 5-10 minutes before flipping onto serving dish. (Otherwise, you might do what I did and miss part of the plate and have to slide it back on. Good luck with that.)
I'm taking it to a family BBQ tonight to share. I'm so excited to try it!

Oh, it would probably work fine to cook it in a glass baking dish too. I would probably take less time to cook though, so check on it often.
Update: Everyone liked it. They were all impressed with my cooking skills. It went so fast some people didn't even get to try it and they were bummed.

Microwave Fruit Cake

This ends up kind of like a cobbler, but doesn't take as long.

Ingredients:
Yellow Cake Mix
Peach Pie or Apple Pie Filling or what ever flavor you desire
1 1/2 sticks of butter (or margarine)

Instructions:
Place Cake mix in bottom of baker, layer with Pie Filling, 1 1/2 sticks of butter pats. Put lid on and cook in the microwave for 10 minutes. Then stir up and cook 3 more minutes. Serve hot with vanilla ice cream.
Don't use butter recipe. Use Yellow cake mix, or Devils food with Cherries
Butter recipe is too buttery and takes longer to cook in microwave
You can try different cake mixes and pie fillings.

It's always nice to have a fast and easy cake recipe.

Oreo Fudge Ice Cream Cake

I found this recipe in Kraft Foods Magazine. There's a video on their site as well if you need extra help. Also, if you sign up, they will send you email recipes and a FREE magazine every month with great ideas to use their products. (Total advertising, but who doesn't like Kraft products?)
This is the finished cake. I put some sprinkles on it to make the grass for Elizabeth's Pet Shops to sit on for her special cake.
This is how the cake looks underneath the whipped topping frosting.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup fudge ice cream topping, warmed (a great homemade recipe below)
1 tub (8 oz.) Cool Whip Whipped Topping, thawed, divided
1 pkg. (4-serving size) Jell-O Chocolate Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling
8 Oreo Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
12 vanilla ice cream sandwiches (or you could use Neapolitan)

Instructions:
1 Pour the fudge topping into a medium bowl. Stir in 1 cup of the whipped topping with a wire whisk until it’s well blended. Add in the dry pudding mix; stir 2 min. or until well blended. The consistency of fudge topping can vary depending on what brand you purchase. If your fudge topping mixture is too thick to spread easily, stir in 1/4 cup milk.
2 Chop the Oreo cookies roughly into chunks. They don’t all have to be the same size. Stir into the pudding mixture.
3 Prepare a cookie sheet or cutting board with foil covering it. Arrange 4 of the ice cream sandwiches, side by side, on foil. Top sandwiches with half of the pudding mixture. Repeat the layers.
4 Top the pudding mixture with the remaining 4 ice cream sandwiches. The layers create a neat striped effect when sliced.
5 Frost the top and sides with the remaining whipped topping. It doesn’t have to look perfect.
6 Bring up the foil sides. Double fold top and ends to loosely seal the packet or cover with wax paper after letting set in the freezer for 10 minutes. Freeze at least 4 hours before serving. Let stand at room temperature to soften slightly before serving. Store leftover dessert in the freezer.

This can easily cut into 24-30 pieces. We have served our whole extended family with it a few times.

HOT FUDGE SAUCE
Hot Fudge Sauce (Ellen Bailey-one of my mom's good friends)

Ingredients:
2 cups Sugar
4 Tablespoons Flour
4 Tablespoon Cocoa
1 can Evaporated Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla
½ cup Butter

Instructions:
Mix sugar, flour, and cocoa together until smooth. Stir milk in gradually–keeping smooth. Add vanilla. Put butter in. Microwave 1 minute and stir until butter melts all the way (4 minutes). Then continue to microwave and stir occasionally until the mixture is thick. Microwave 2 minutes at a time and then stir. Use a wire whisk. Pour over ice cream or brownies.

Chocolate Microwave Mug Cakes

One of my friends posted this on her private blog, so I'm going to post it here for all of you. Her family did it for FHE and the kids really enjoyed it.
I just made it tonight after the kids went to bed for Andy and I to enjoy. It was yummy, but you might want to split one egg between two mugs.
It was cool to watch the cake rising over the top of the mug while it cooked in the microwave and then fall when the microwave stopped.

5-MINUTE MUG CAKE RECIPE
4 TBSP flour
4 TBSP sugar
2 TBSP baking cocoa (dry powder)
1 egg
3 TBSP milk
3 TBSP oil
3 TBSP chocolate chips
a small splash of vanilla

Instructions:
No need to spray or grease mug.
Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.
Add the egg and mix thoroughly
Pour in milk and oil, mix well.
Add chocolate chips and vanilla, mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for THREE minutes @ 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, don't be alarmed! Dump out on plate if desired after cooking (it will almost split in half, so you could share it with another person if you wanted). We sprinkled ours with powdered sugar.