All booked up

One of my co-workers is retiring. She is the librarian for our Assistive Technology-Instructional Materials library at the Special Education collaborative I work for.

Not only is my friend super amazing, we spent some fun times outside of work going swing dancing so I wanted to do something extra, extra special for her retirement. It helped that we had two parties for her.

Our first party was at the office. I made her a Kransekaka (I have made it before, see the link here for Rings of Glory for more information). I tried a different recipe, nearly identical to this link from Artic Grub.

The difference from the online recipe is that I made chocolate icing and put on little flower shaped sprinkles. Traditionally you put a bottle of wine inside. But I didn't want anyone to get in trouble at work, so there is a small bottle of lemon flavored Perrier inside.

Later in the month we had a party outside of work at a local bar and grill. Here is where I got more creative. Since she is a librarian, I made books on a stick!

Here is how I made them:

1. I made a from scratch, yellow cake in a cookie sheet (or jelly roll pan, which is what we called them growing up) and cut them into rectangles




2. I melted a few candy melts in a bowl. I dipped the sticks into the candy and then poked
the rectangles. I froze the cake pops for 30 minutes.
 

3. I dipped the cake pops in white candy melts and let them dry. Sorry no picture of that.

4. Then I cut the sugar sheets into rectangles with a kitchen scissors.


I wrote on a few of the sugar sheet rectangles with Wilton writing pens (food coloring). Treating the candy melts like glue, I spread a little of melted candy on the cake pop. I wrapped the cut sugar sheet around the cake pop like a book cover.

 

5. Then I rolled out some shape-n-amaze edible dough and cut out book mark shapes with a knife. I used a little melted candy as glue again to keep the bookmark on the cake pop.

Ta-da!

Then I ran out of sugar sheets! Here is the bad part about baking at 11pm at night. No store with sugar sheets would be open. So I had to improvise. I rolled out some of the shape and amaze and used it as book covers. I used scraps of yellow sugar sheets to make yellow bookmarks.

The best was that my friend LOVED the the cake pops and they were completely personalized to her.

Now Bake That!

Be a cake pop head hunter!

My last two posts I talk about making cake pops for my kid's birthday parties. My oldest asked for a Lego birthday party. After more web surfing I was inspired by Living Locurto who made Lego head cake pops with marshmallows. To get that lump-on-the-top-of-the-head look, she used pieces of marshmallow. However, I wanted to still use cake. Another blogger got me on the right track: The Frilly Apron. 

Here are the happy Lego head cake pops:

I also made him a Lego brick cookie cake.

 
What I did:

• If you read my posts in March, you would learn that the favored cake pop method was using a cake pop pan instead of the crushed cake style. That brought a problem for me. Lego heads aren't round! I decided to make a sheet cake and do a biscuit style cutting method to make cylinders. I went through my kitchen, brainstorming different household items to be my cake cutter. No luck. Then I went to Bed Bath and Beyond. AAAAAA! (angels singing). I found a solution! Even better? My solution was less than 5 bucks! I used a cupcake plunger that you use with cupcakes for filling. 
• I used smarties candy for the bumps on the cake pop heads.
• Instead of using decorating icing in a tube, I purchased a bottle of black food coloring and I painted on the little faces with a paint brush.
• Like my golf ball cake pops, I used Barefoot Contessa's birthday sheet cake recipe for the cake pops.
• The bumps on the cookie cake was actually cake. I used the parts of the sheet cake that were pretty thin and made the "bumps" on the brick.

What not to do: 
Don't try to make your own yellow candy coating by using food coloring in almond bark. It turns it into frosting. Darn chemistry. I ended up buying Wilton candy melts at a craft store in duck yellow.

Comments:

The kids loved the cake pops, though one wouldn't eat one because he claimed he wasn't a "cannibalist". Um, okay.


Now Bake That!