You might've heard of these. They were all over the place about 2 years ago. I came across them on Bakerella while planning for a friend's baby shower and thought they were too cute not to make. Since the shower gave me a perfect excuse to do it I went ahead and made the little cupcakes. The cupcakes have a lot of steps to them and took a long time to shape and dip. We put some on sticks and did some without. I think they turned out perfect but if I ever have the occasion to make them again, I think I'll try something a little different. Most of the rest of my ideas came from a post at Little Birdie Secrets.
A few ideas for next time:
-Make cake balls instead of cupcakes. They will take a lot less time to form and dip.
-Eliminate the stick. Unless I'm going to wrap them individually to give away, the stick was not necessary and made it difficult to display without buying foam to stick them in. For a party platter, balls will be much easier to serve.
-Try a different cake/frosting combo. I found this list on the post at LBS:
- Lemon cake/butter cream frosting with dark chocolate shell
- Strawberry cake/strawberry frosting with white chocolate & dark chocolate drizzle
- German chocolate cake/coconut pecan frosting with milk chocolate shell
- Carrot cake/cream cheese frosting with white chocolate shell
- Chocolate fudge cake/chocolate frosting with milk chocolate shell & white chocolate drizzle
- Vanilla cake/vanilla frosting with dark chocolate shell
- Red velvet cake/cream cheese frosting with milk chocolate shell
Besides cake pops, I have a few other cute treats that would be fun to try or that I have already tried and were fun. Like this one...
At Easter time, I found this really cute idea to take marshmallows and spread the top with peanut butter, then dip them in chocolate and decorate. You were supposed to use egg-shaped ones but I couldn't find them so I used normal ones. (Sorry no picture and I can't find the blog it was on to credit the idea.) I made them for some friends and now that I've tried it once, I have so many more ideas on how to improve them. That happens to me a lot. The first time around is usually a flop (and when I say that all it means is that it wasn't Martha Stewart perfect) and I learn a lot of things as I go. One of the major things I learned is that your final result only tastes as good as the ingredients you use. I have used a certain dipping chocolate for a while and it's been fine until I did these marshmallows. I've learned that when doing candy, you want to use the really good stuff like Ghirardelli.
Little Birdie Secrets had this idea that would be even easier to do with marshmallows.
Cookie pops are such a cute idea that I've been meaning to try for a long time. Little Birdie Secrets sends you to Parents Magazine but unfortunately the link is outdated when you click on it. I will try and explain how they did it to the best of my memory but please remember that I read this 2 years ago. Basically, you take 2 Nilla Wafers and some caramel (I would probably use the candy caramels, like Brach's) or I guess you could do other things like peanut butter or marshmallow creme and make a sandwich cookie sticking the sucker stick in between the wafers. Then you dip them in chocolate and sprinkle. I love these! When I try these, I will probably also leave out the stick only to save money but if you have them on hand, they would be some much cuter. Don't you think?
Along the lines of cookie pops comes a family favorite. These are some of the easiest things to throw together. Jared was in charge of the March Madness prize at work and this was the prize. You take 2 Ritz crackers and sandwich them with PB. Then you dip them in vanilla/white chocolate. We did orange instead for the occasion and melted milk chocolate for the lines. They are so yummy and so addictive. I love them!
At Easter time, I found this really cute idea to take marshmallows and spread the top with peanut butter, then dip them in chocolate and decorate. You were supposed to use egg-shaped ones but I couldn't find them so I used normal ones. (Sorry no picture and I can't find the blog it was on to credit the idea.) I made them for some friends and now that I've tried it once, I have so many more ideas on how to improve them. That happens to me a lot. The first time around is usually a flop (and when I say that all it means is that it wasn't Martha Stewart perfect) and I learn a lot of things as I go. One of the major things I learned is that your final result only tastes as good as the ingredients you use. I have used a certain dipping chocolate for a while and it's been fine until I did these marshmallows. I've learned that when doing candy, you want to use the really good stuff like Ghirardelli.
Cookie pops are such a cute idea that I've been meaning to try for a long time. Little Birdie Secrets sends you to Parents Magazine but unfortunately the link is outdated when you click on it. I will try and explain how they did it to the best of my memory but please remember that I read this 2 years ago. Basically, you take 2 Nilla Wafers and some caramel (I would probably use the candy caramels, like Brach's) or I guess you could do other things like peanut butter or marshmallow creme and make a sandwich cookie sticking the sucker stick in between the wafers. Then you dip them in chocolate and sprinkle. I love these! When I try these, I will probably also leave out the stick only to save money but if you have them on hand, they would be some much cuter. Don't you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment