Cake Balls

Anyone who has ever looked up baking on the internet knows about Bakerella. She's fun, fantastic, and makes a mean cake pop. Tomorrow is a church luncheon day, so my mum asked me to make a dessert. I've been dying to try this recipe, so I thought this would be a wonderful time to try it! Also, I had nothing to do all day. So, process shots and everything!



Cast of Characters: Cake mix. Can of frosting. Chocolate Chips (Bakerella encourages you to use chocolate bark; if my grocery store had had any, I would have). Eggs, Oil, and Water (those are what the back of the cake box told me I needed to make the cake).

Bake cake according to box directions.


Let the cake cool completely, then crumble up the remaining cake into a bowl (aka the most fun I've had in a long time).

Add entire can of frosting into the crumbled up cake. Mix it all up.


Use your hands (or a mini ice cream scoop, but who needs one of those?) to form the cake batter into balls. Rinse your hands as needed (seriously, the balls roll much better when your hands aren't covered in gunk). I don't have a shot of this part of the process because of the aforementioned dirty hands.

Refrigerate the balls for several hours (I did 4, and it went along swimmingly).

Melt the chocolate (I used a double boiler, because our microwave sucks). Since I used morsels, I had to add oil to mine to make the chocolate nice and smooth for dipping. Then dunk the cake balls into the melted chocolate, using a spoon to evenly spread the chocolate and get the balls out of the bowl. Tap the spoon on the edge of the bowl to get off the excess chocolate. Let the chocolate set.

Eat your weight in them. So delicious.


Also, don't be fooled if you taste the cake/frosting mixture before you add the coating on. That part is only okay. The chocolate coating makes all the difference. Seriously.


UPDATE: They taste even better after having sat in the fridge for a day. Also, all 30 balls were gone within 15 minutes of being put out at the church luncheon.

Lemon Blackberry Scones

Tonight, I am going over to my friend's house for new years. There will be lots of fun times, so I will be (responsibly) spending the night. My friend, a younger girl who just moved into her own apartment, was really worried about what we were going to do for brunch the next day. I told her not to worry about it.

I've made these scones before. They were, for lack of a better word, ehhh. Not great. I figured out the problem, though! The batch was HUGE. The scones were huge. They had to be in the oven for over an hour and a half to get them to an edible state. It was just bad times. They tasted just fine, but by the time I got around to being able to taste them, I was frustrated with the whole project.
This time, I was determined to avoid the whole thing. I divided the dough into two discs. And I must say, that has improved this recipe by 1000%. Instead of 80 minutes in the oven (seriously not kidding), it took 30 minutes. And they are so good, and wonderfully sized. Seriously, if you need a sweet, moist scone recipe, try these. You won't be disappointed.

Caramel Corn with Salted Peanuts

Something that will become extraordinarily clear as this blog continues: I don't really bake for myself. I really, really enjoy baking things for other people.

My mom and my step-dad (G) love caramel corn. You know those giant tins with three types of popcorn in them? Mom and G could take out the caramel corn in one sitting.

For new years, Mom and G are having a few friends over. Since my SIL gave me a candy thermometer for Christmas, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try out a recipe that I've had my eye on. I got the recipe from here.


It came together really fast. Like, REALLY fast. The caramel is good; not necessarily the best I've ever had, but for a first try? Very good. Buttery. The popcorn is wonderfully crunchy (which was a worry for us; the popcorn we have on hand is NOT a high quality corn).


Yum.

Lalala Bake!

Reasons I created a foodie blog:

• Because I think baking is super fun.
• Because I need a way to share my domesticity with SOMEONE. Hopefully someone who likes it as much as I do.
• Because I'm the kind of person who lurves to share recipes with everyone!
• Why not?

This is gonna be fun :)