Cake Pops!

Cake pops are AWESOME! I promise! And they are EASY!

I made cake pops for Everleigh's birthday party. I also made cupcakes and her smash cake. The smash cake came out only okay. The cupcakes were an utter fail due to a few different issues. I'll get to those later. The cake pops, however, were amazing. For me, there is a bit of finesse required to evenly coat them with candy coating and it definitely takes some practice.

The recipe/instructions I used are straight off of Bakerella.com (queen of cake pops). I have yet to try anything creative but I encourage anyone to GO FOR IT and SEND ME PICS! They are so fun! I used white candy coating (also called almond bark). I learned a few lessons from this. Not all candy coating is created equal. A friend told me she had no problem using Wilton's candy melts and next time I will definitely try this. My suggestion is that if you are going to use the almond bark kind, to buy the best quality there is. I used both Kroger brand and HEB brand and they were hard to work with. The HEB brand was darned near impossible to work with, actually. Many suggest adding a bit of vegetable oil to even out the candy consistency and make it easier to work with. It didn't make a difference for me. The Kroger kind worked okay once I got the hang of it, but if you are doing something more technically challenging than round balls, I'd say definitely get a higher quality candy melt.

Also, the amount of cake to frosting that you mix is really flexible and to your own taste. I used about 2/3 of a can of frosting to an entire cake. You could go more, you could go less. I love the play doh consistency that this mixture yields. When I have some free time and don't need to serve them to 30 guests, I might play around with shapes and designs. It really could be a lot of fun. Today is the first official day of fall. Fall is my favorite time of the year. Maybe in honor of Autumn I will practice with new cake pop designs for each upcoming holiday occasion. I'll let you know how it goes.

Cake Pops

1 box cake mix and it's required ingredients.
1 can cake frosting
lollipop sticks (1 cake makes about 75 cake pops)
Almond bark/ Candy coating/ Candy melts
Food coloring if neccessary

1. Bake your cake according to the directions. I used red velvet. Red velvet seems to be the traditional flavor of cake pops. You could use any flavor.
2. Once your cake is cool, crumble it up in a bowl. Like this:

3. Add about 2/3 to 1 whole can of frosting. I used cream cheese frosting, the traditional frosting paired with red velvet cake. You could use any flavor. 

4. Get your hands in there and mix it all up. It will end up like this:

5. Freeze mixture for about 15 minutes.

6. Channel your meatball making skils and make balls. A whole bunch of about 1 inch little balls. Like this:

7. Now they need to cool down. I put mine in the freezer for 15 minutes then in the fridge for 40 minutes. When you remove them don't remove them all at once because they will just warm up again while you are coating the others.

8. Heat up your candy coating and add food coloring at this time if necessary. Dip your lolli sticks in the candy about 1/2 inch and then stick into the cake ball as far in as possible. Repeat. Like this:

9. Once the candy sets up coat the entire cake ball in candy. Then stick the lolli stick into a block of styrofoam to dry. Like this:

The coating process may take a little trial and error. I found what worked best is to spoon the coating over the ball and spin it around until is was coated entirely. You may be able to dip the whole thing directly in the coating. My candy was cooling way to rapidly for that and would clump up and be so heavy on the cake ball that I would lose it when I pulled the stick out of the coating. I'm not sure if this is a candy coating issue or my own human error and lacking of technical ability. Regardless, I got them all done and think they looked pretty darn good. And they tasted even better.

10. Once the candy is dry you can put back in the fridge to totally set. Then wrap them up in fancy plastic bags with pretty ribbon and find a fun way to display them for your guests!

Pink Cake Pops



Orange Cake Pops

Orange, Pink and Blue cake pops. (The party colors!)



Smothered Pork Chops

This has been a lazy month for me. Both blog-wise and life-wise. I spent all August (and really July too) planning E's first birthday and now that it's over I just can't seem to get back in a routine. I am cooking regularly but not dieting so much. I am getting chores done, don't get me wrong. It just seems to be a focus issue. I think I am going to blame the heat. 100 degree and above temperatures have been the norm here in Houston for the last 6 weeks or so and it is exhausting. I just want to lay about in air conditioning as much as possible. I have TONS of pictures out there of her party and I can't wait to get them organized so I can make party posts. But, for now, I am going to post about last night's dinner.

It was really good. It is not low calorie, but I've put that on hold for the moment. Lately dinner's been about what food is in the pantry as it's too hot and too time consuming to do any big grocery shopping. I have been cooking a lot with condensed soup. Cream of Mushroom and Golden Mushroom are awesome! I added them to a pot roast with vegetables in the crock pot last Sunday and it was delicious and practically NO work. I have also used them to make a crock pot smothered chicken which I will probably post about sometime in the future. This pork dish, however, turned out the best! Maybe it's because I did not use the crock pot but cooked them on the stove. Or maybe it's because I fried the chops in butter before cooking with the soups. One will never know.

Smothered Pork Chops

Pork Chops - I actually used Pork Shoulder Steaks. I got 3 huge ones for about $4 on sale at Kroger.
2 Onions
Mushrooms
Cream of Mushroom Soup
Golden Mushroom Soup
Flour to dredge
Seasonings of your choice
1/2 C White Cooking Wine
2 TB butter

First I melted some butter in a dutch oven on med-high heat. Then, I salted and peppered both sides of my steaks (chops) then seasoned some flour with seasoned salt and paprika. I am not happy with how these pictures turned out. I really have some lighting issues in my kitchen! Anyway, then cover both sides of your meat with the flour mixture and place directly in your melted butter.

Seasoned flour.

One at a time, fry your chops. You may have to add more butter in between.



Melty butter. Careful, don't let it overcook before you get your meat in!

This golden brown color is perfect!

I only fried each side for about 1-2 minutes since they were a thin cut.

Prep your veggies while frying.

Slice yellow onions into rings. Mix your two soups. Half the mushrooms.

After the chops are done and set aside, deglaze your pot with the white cooking wine. Turn the heat off and carefully pour it into your pot and stir with a wisk to pick up and drippings and mix in any flour. Watch out for steam as you pour it into the hot pot. Turn the burner to medium. Once the wine is bubbling nicely, add everything back in the pot.

Place onions on the bottom.



Pile on your fried pork.



Pour on your soup mixture.



Finally, add the mushrooms.


Cover and let simmer for about 20-30 minutes. Since my Pork Steaks were so big that they were just piled on top of each other, I rearranged them every 10 minutes to make sure they cooked evenly. I kept the heat on a low simmer the entire time, so that the liquid was just bubbling.

Serve with white rice.

This dish turned out exactly as I'd imagined it in my head, which is rare, especially for something I do not cook often. My husband is not a huge fan of pork chops so of course, it's not something I make too much. I love fried pork chops with gravy and this is very similar to that. I am positive that the dish can be made without pre-frying, but you would need to adjust the cooking time. I also think that it would be a great crock pot dish. With either of these adjustments, however, I would not leave out the white wine, as it added a lot of the flavor I was looking for.