~18~ I Love you, I Love you more

Each night, Jake and I always say goodnight to each other by saying, "I Love You" and the other one saying, "I Love You More". (This being a shortened version of when we say: I love you, I love you more, I love you more than most, I love you most of all")  I love this little ritual and for Christmas this year, I asked for and got a necklace with that phrase engraved over and over on a Mobius Strip (which also appeals to the math nerd in me).  For those who don't know, a Mobius strip is a mathematical concept of a strip that has one single twist in it and then the ends are connected to form a circle-like shape.  The neat thing about it is that you can start at one point, traverse the entire surface (both sides) of the strip, and return to the starting spot. The inside of the strip becomes the outside, and the outside then returns to the inside.  I personally think it's even cooler than an infinity symbol.

While Jake and I celebrate our love everyday, we still like to do something a little extra special together and for each other on Valentine's Day.  This year, with it falling on a Tuesday, it made it a little harder since I usually have obligations after work M-Th.  I didn't need/expect any gifts from my beloved this year, but I knew I wanted to get him something.  After wandering around Scheels for a little bit, I found the perfect gift.  Now it's no surprise here that Jake loves the Vikings, and so a Coach's Vikings jacket was a very appropriate choice.  I was so excited to give it to him along with my "Prince Charming" card that I made!

  

My sweetie wasn't without surprises himself.  I got a call around 4 that day from my school secretary saying that I had a package waiting for me and that it was marked perishable, so I better come get it.  (I hadn't been at my building that day because I was an all-day district meeting).  Excited, I headed over to pick up and found a dozen HUGE chocolate covered strawberries! Do I have an amazing husband or what?!?  Because I had orchestra that night, and Jake wasn't feeling well, we decided to postpone our evening plans and make up for it on the weekend.  Instead, we enjoyed each others company, played a little Jeopardy (along with the contestants on the show) and had some great take out from Jethros.  Honestly, it really doesn't get better than that!

Now, Valentine's Day just wouldn't be Valentine's Day without a little crafting, and this year was no exception.  Jake's work was doing a little party and card exchange, so I agreed to create some treats and cards for him to bring.  I've been wanting to continue perfecting my cake pop techniques, so I made heart shaped ones from Strawberry cake and various colored candy coating-resembling the conversation hearts candy we all know and love.  To make the heart shapes, I used a small heart-shaped cookie cutter.  First I rolled the cake "dough" into a large ball and then flattened it out until it was about 3/4"-1" thick, then cut it with the cookie cutter.  Initially, this proved to be harder and more frustrating than the football cake pops I made a couple weeks ago.  The hearts were a lot more top heavy, so when I went to dip them, the weight of the heart along with the candy coating caused them to fall apart.  I had to throw away quite a few of them.  I soon enough realized that instead of dipping them, if I tilted the coffee mug full of melted candy coating on it's side, I could hold the cake pop horizontally to dip and then flip it to the other side to coat it completely instead of dipping it vertically.  Worked like a charm and I ended up with 40 beautiful hearts! Unfortunately, the Wilton edible writers totally STINK!  They did not work at all.  I was pretty disappointed because it prevented me from fully carrying out my creative vision.  However, I still think that they turned out pretty darn cute.

To package them, I put about 1/2 in the same styrofoam block I used for the football ones, except covered it in red paper this time, for Jake to take to work with him.  The other 1/2 I put into small cellophane bags in bunches of 3 and tied them with a silver twist tie for me to bring to work.  Cake pop batch #2=success.

Finally, I made 12 Valentine's Day cards for Jake to bring for his co-workers and ended with some that I really liked.  These were my favorites.

This Sunday, my Valentine and I are planning on going to dinner at Red Lobster (I've never been!) using some gift cards we got as a wedding gift-Thanks Uncle Johnny!-and then going to see the movie, "The Vow."  Should be a great way to end our weekend!

~14~ Who Wants Cake?

I will openly admit that I couldn't care less about the Superbowl.  I just can't for the life of me get into football, and I've honestly tried. (Though my husband, Jake, would beg to differ)  I didn't grow up watching football, never attended a single football game in high school (I always had swim practice and couldn't go, but from what I recall-I really wasn't missing much), and my college's team was a joke.  However, I did end up marrying a man who lives and breathes football.  Jake's HS football team were district champs, he was an All-State offensive lineman, and had he been just 3-4" taller, he most likely would have received several college scholarship offers to play.  Every fall, my Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays consist of football and I am frequently inundated with Fantasy Football talk.  You'd think with all of this exposure, I'd now be a football expert-but alas, this is not the case.

While watching and talking about football isn't exactly my favorite activity, I do enjoy tailgating and the food that comes with football, because let's face it-I like food. A.LOT.  Of course, the Superbowl just wouldn't be the Superbowl without lots of great food.  This past Christmas, my in-laws got me a Cake Pop book to feed my love for baking and I was very excited to have a reason to make my very 1st batch of cake pops.  These weren't just going to be any cake pops, but FOOTBALL cake pops!  I also figured that it's about time I have a baking-related post since that's what 1/2 my blog is supposed to be about, so here's a chronicle of my adventures in cake pop making.

Materials:
*Boxed cake mix (I chose funfetti)
*Canned Frosting (I usually make my own, but for the purpose of these decided to use canned)
*candy pop sticks
*Wilton Melts (You can also use chocolate or almond bark)
*12"x4" styrofoam block
*Green cardstock
*White out tape (or a pen will do)
*White Crayon
*White Sharpie paint pen

I started by making the cake the day before assembling my cake pops as recommended by the book and a friend.  The next day, I cut off the brown layers of cake (top/bottom/edges) with a bread knife.  Then, in a large mixing bowl, I crumbled the cake into very fine crumbs.  Once there are no large pieces of cake left, I added the frosting, mixing it in with a metal spoon.  I used about 3/4 of the jar like the instructions stated, but I think it ended up being a little too much frosting.  The next time I do it, I will use just a little bit less.  After all of the frosting was mixed in, I started to form my footballs.  I started by rolling a ball that was a bit smaller than a golf ball.  Then, I rolled it into a cylinder shape and pinched in the ends to make it look like a football.  Once each one was formed, I laid it on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper.  I also made any adjustments to the shape then. After all of my dough was used up, I covered the tray with seran wrap and placed it in the freezer to set.

While my footballs were in the freezer, I made my base to hold the pops in when they were done.  Altogether, I had 23 pops, so I decided to put them into 3 rows-2 rows of 8 and 1 row of 7.  To go along with the football theme, I wanted my base to look like a football field.  I used a 12"x12" piece of green cardstock, which fit perfectly.  To hold it around the styrofoam, I just taped it (step 1).  I didn't want to glue the paper on so that I can reuse my styrofoam block for a different project. I had originally planned on using my white paint pen to draw in the field lines, however I quickly learned that they don't work on paper since they are water-based; the ink seeps into the paper and the pigment doesn't show up.  Luckily we had some whiteout tape which worked perfectly for drawing the lines.  I started the 50 yard line right in the center of the block at 6" and then marked off each of the other lines 1" apart.  (step 2)

To do the numbers, I knew that I couldn't use the whiteout tape, so I came up with an idea that would allow me to use the paint pens after all.  Since the paint pens were seeping into the paper, I knew I needed something to hold the paint up above the paper.  To fix that problem, I used a white crayon to write the numbers, in the hopes that the paint would sit on top of the wax.  Worked perfectly! (step 3)

The last thing I needed to do to get the base ready was mark where the sticks for the pops would go.  I didn't want them to be too close to each other, so in between each yard line I made a mark at 3/4" from either side  and at the 2" mark. Then, I used a pen to poke through the paper and into the styrofoam at each mark.  This made it easier to poke each stick into the block. (step 4)

By the time I finished my pop base, the cake molds were ready to dip.  Before I took them out of the freezer, I got my coating ready by melting it in the microwave on the "defrost setting" stirring every 30 second until completely melted.  On the counter where I was dipping I also had my sticks ready along with a bunch of toothpicks.  While dipping, I only had about 5 cake molds out at a time to prevent the rest from getting too soft while sitting out.  The dipping process was a little harder than I anticipated because my pops were so large and hard to coat completely in one sweep.  I ended up having to use a spoon to pour the coating over the cake to ensure that it got covered completely. I used the toothpicks to help smooth out the coating, pull off any excess, and help make sure that there was coating connecting the stick to the cake.  (Note: before dipping, put the tip of the stick in the candy coating and then push it into the cake piece not quite half way through).  The coating dries VERY, VERY quickly, so I didn't have to worry about it dripping onto my base and ruining my football field, but I had laid wax paper over it anyway. Once they were all dried, I took out all of the pops and put them on a plate to decorate.

To do the laces on the footballs, I used the left over canned frosting and added a little bit of milk to get it to a consistency that's good for piping and filled a disposable piping bag using Wilton Tip #3.  While the final product doesn't look as polished as I had hoped, I think that for my first attempt they turned out pretty well.  And holy-cow did they taste good!

Now that I've gotten my feet wet-I am very excited to try new designs and 

work to perfect my cake pop techniques!  

There are so many possibilities out there-what do you think I should do next?

Until next time,