Halloween Cake Pops

Are you scared, because that is one scary cake pop.

Okay so we finally have something to celebrate.  And by celebrate, I mean sit down and sigh and not move for like a year.  We finally got our car sorted out, and by that I mean we got a used car.  And it is not bad, it just isn't a van.  I am thanking my lucky stars we are going to be okay, so if it's not a van, I can deal.  Secondly, Pork Chops birthday is over, and by over I mean his party.  His birthday was actually yesterday, so Happy Birthday Pork Chop!!!  I cannot believe someone as hot and young as I am has an 8 year old.  Did I ever tell you how humble I am?  Well I am really, just ask Hubby.

Another blogger called this candy apple style, and I think that make perfect sense, so that is how we can call it now.

  So all that to say that life is sort of back to normal.  Well normal for us.  And that is great.  I don't think this year can end fast enough.  There have been some horrible times, but also some really great ones.  So I am focusing on the good times, it's what keeps me sane.

  So in all our craziness I didn't get to make any actual Halloween treats.  Which sucks, because I had plans people.  Like real honest to goodness Halloween treat plans.  And they never happened.  And this treat right here, well it was just an extra add on from Pork Chops party.

  I shared with you the marshmallows I made for his party, and I promise to share the rest soon.  But for now I want to share my one and only holiday theme treat.  Which is really just a spin off of the cake pops I did for his party.

I swear they were so cheap, and they are like a million a pack in the store.

  So I had to make pops for his party, and some for work ( because they have not gotten hardly any treats this month and I think some of them may be wasting away to nothing) and these ones that are holiday themed.  They are going to do double duty, they are for his hockey team to celebrate his birthday and Halloween.  So see right there I saved myself from having to make two treats.  I am smart.

See so simple!

   So basically I had hubby bake me four cakes.  I even let him use my new mixer.  He complained, said it was alright, said it was noisy.  But you know he loved it.  Then I got to work.  I did the usual, crumbled up all the cake, added enough frosting to get it to stick together, then I shaped the pops.  I really liked how large the pops I made last time were, so I used my cake pop mold from My Little Cake pop.  It is perfect, and no rolling.  So I did that, and I ended up with over 100 cake pops.  Now that was perfect I needed 20 for his team, and at least 60 for his party.  And then the rest for a friend of my sister and then my work friends.

  So once they were shaped I put them in the freezer as I was doing this all in one day.  And yes I was up super late and cranky when I was all done.  I melted my orange candy melts, and I finally have it figured out. Sort of.  I put my microwave on 40% and then melt it for 30 seconds at a time.  And I mix it up really well once I have done that about 3 times.  That way I get the melts nice and smooth.  I usually still add a little paraffin crystals to thin it out.  But seriously this sort of works.  And well, I don't hate it as much as I used to.  I don't love it, but at least I don't want to punch a kitten when I work with them.  ( and no I would not actually punch a kitten, I have Hubby to punch)

I have no idea why I put the plain ones in front, don't even try to figure it out, I give up trying to understand myself.

  And once I had finished dipping all the cake pops for Pork Chops party I had run out, so I just ended up melting more white candy melts and adding green candy colouring.  It was all good.

  So I dipped all the cake pops, these ones I just did the lazy way by placing them on parchment paper, stick up and let them dry.  If they cracked I dipped them again and then I just decorated them.  I got these Halloween decorations last year.  They are just sugar and really cannot go bad.  I got them for like $25 cents a pack at a warehouse.  I have seen them for up to $8 a pack in store, and even more.  So I just put a dab of melted candy melts on the dry pop and stuck a decoration on.  Then I bagged and tied them up.  That was it.

  Now if I was really crafty, or if I had time I would have made cute tags, but as it was, I was lucky to make these.  Hubby and Pork Chop had to hand them out at practice, as it was a 6am practice and there was no way I was getting up for that.  I love him, but not enough to get up that early.

And here is Pork Chop, he is so cute, and he loves hockey. He is the one in the yellow in the middle. I thin k this is called a face off.

  So there you go, the worlds longest post ever, just to show you how to stick a decoration on a cake pop.  Your welcome.  And happy Halloween, I have a few more posts from Pork Chops party, so I will share those soon.

  And I hope everyone is being safe as possible in this weather, it is not nice and I worry about everyone.

Cream Cheese Wedding Mints

Seriously this is the only good picture I took.  I am even ashamed of that.

Okay don't judge this post by it's title.  If you do you will miss out on one yummy treat!

  I have heard about these mints a few times, and then a little while ago the ladies on a board I chat on had brought them up.  I had not heard of them before that board, and from what I could gather in parts of the states they are the one thing that every celebration has to have.  Like their name, they are for weddings, you make them in the bridal colours.  Usually in a flower and leaf shape, to be all wedding like.  And apparently no party is a real party without these.

At this point, I was thinking it looked gross.  But I kept telling myself, it's just a big batch of really thick cream cheese icing.

  Now I say they are from the states, but I googled and there looked to be a few different versions, all with slightly different recipes.  I think I narrowed it down to Nebraska being the centre of it all.  And by that I mean I saw the name Nebraska and just stopped looking any farther.  So I may be totally wrong.  I don't know, but I have been wrong before.  Like once before.

I had visions of making all these different shapes and stuff.  Then I gave up and did just pumpkins.

  So in looking it up all the recipes had the same basic ingredients. Cream cheese, icing sugar and mint.  Some called for vanilla, others for some butter and some even left the mint out and used other flavors.  So I did what I always do and did the easiest thing I could.

  And these mints are usually shaped or even rolled into pillow like mint shapes.  I even read that there are special molds for these.  And since here in Canada they have probably never heard of these, I just used what I had.

  I was going to make tiny little mints, but then once I mixed it all together and noticed I had a lot more dough than I expected,I used a bigger mold.  I also like mint, like a lot, so I wanted them bigger.

That is a ball o' wedding mint stuff, in a bowl of sugar.  I know, amazing right?

  So here you go, how this Canadian girl tried cream cheese wedding mints, and is now going to make them again.  Maybe.

 Cream Cheese Wedding Mints
I sort of just went with the least amount of stuff, so it's by me, sort of:

-1 8oz block of cream cheese
-2 kg of icing sugar, I did not measure, I just used the whole bag I had, sorry
-1/2 TSP peppermint/ mint extract ( you can add more or less, I might up it to 3/4 TSP next time)
-food colouring paste if you like

See I have all these super cute silicon baking things, and I swear I never use them until after the holiday they are for.  But this time I was way ahead of the game.

  So basically you mix it all together.  I started by creaming the cheese, then adding the mint and food colouring.  I used my scrapper paddle to start, but then switched over to the metal paddle as this is one thick dough.  Once it was almost all together, the machine was having a hard time, I took it out and mixed it by hand.

This is all I got out of that batch, but seriously these are huge mints.

  Now this was a huge pain in the butt for me.  I have these nail stickers on that are sort of flaking off, but not enough that I want to take them off.  But enough that I didn't want to chance it, so I had to wear plastic gloves, and the ones I have are really loose, so it was a pain.  Anyway, I started kneading it all on parchment, but got annoyed and just did the rest on the table, until it was all together, it was still a little sticky, but not that bad.

  So I got started, set Pork Chop up with his own little bit to do.  And then he started screaming "this is cheese!!!! I can smell the cheese!!!"  Which is not as funny as it sounds when the whole table was covered in stuff and he was doing this, like the "cheese" was going to kill him.  I had told him it would be like play d'oh, well it wasn't so he wanted nothing more to do with it.  This is why I cannot bond with him over baking, unless he can sniff the flour, he is out.

  And just so you know, I had talked this up for a few days, how we were going to make play d'oh you can eat and how fun it would all be.

  Yeah well, whatever, I give up!

I really liked the skulls, those in plain white would be really neat.  And that blob to the right was half a bird.  The tail broke off, so I ate it.  And I even tried to do some super man and bat man ones, because if there is one thing I know.  I need to justify the comic molds I bought.

  So according to what I read you take a bit of the dough and roll it into a ball, then roll the ball in regular white sugar and push it into the mold you want to use.  They usually use one mold and pop the mint out right away.  Well my mints were big and I figured they needed a few minutes to set up before popping them out.  So I used a silicon mold I have, it is pumpkins and I bought it to make cake balls.  I will soon, I promise.  Anyway I filled the whole mold then popped them all out and put them on parchment in a cake pan in a single layer.

  Now from reading some people leave them out to dry anywhere from an hour to forever, like they never refrigerate them.  I don't know how I feel about that, as there is cheese in them.  So I let them set to dry for about 1 hour or so and then packed them up and into the fridge.  I am paranoid that way.

  I also tried a few smaller molds and what not.  I found then too detailed to be any good for this.  So I stuck with the larger ones.  I like easy people.

I don't know how cool Bat man and Super man would feel being immortalized in cheese and sugar, but I bet they would love it.

  So I ate one, and I was all " I  don't know how I feel about that"  I mean you can sort of taste the cream cheese, it was almost like a really dense cream cheese icing, but with a hint of mint.  So I ate another, then another.  And then I had diner, then I ate another.  I have no control.  But I think they were really good.

  So the next day I took them to both works.  I also had one for myself, and I liked it even more when it was firmer and cold.  So I think they were so good, but I might up the mint just a tiny bit.  Also when I gave them to the elevator guys one of the guys said he had those mints before in the states, because I had to explain what they were. He said he liked them, but you know they could just be being nice.

  And my other job, they seemed to be trying to be nice and not say what they really thought.  I said I want to know, so they said it was not one of the better things I have made.  So I said I may have to dip them in chocolate and try again, that sounded good to them, so we will see.  And just so you know it is like 3 weeks later and they are all almost still there, so I have to throw them out.

  Not one of my better treats.  Oh well, at least I tried.


I am linking up HERE

Birthday cupcakes, Zombie style!

Happy Birthday?

  My little man turns 7 next weekend.  And I was so lucky to have an almost Halloween baby.  It is my favorite holiday, which really isn't a holiday in the total sense of the word, but you know what I mean.  So I knew from the day he was born that I would be having all these Halloween themed birthdays for him.  Up until this date I have had 0 Halloween themed parties for him.  Darn kid has his own ideas, I will have to work on that.

  Anyway, this is to be the first year since he turned 1 that we are having an at home family only party.  The first year we did it at home with family and friends and I said never again.  I had to clean, and when I say clean, I mean tidy up, because I never really clean.  Not even for family.  So every year since I have rented out a play place, a community centre or what ever.  Anything not to have to clean.

  Then this year, I thought I would ask my son if he would like to go to Great Wolf Lodge instead of a big party.  I thought, less hassle, no planning and I get to wear a bathing suit.  That last part was really a con to the whole thing, but you have to do what you have to do to get out of cleaning.  So that is what we are doing, going away and having just a small family party at home.  So there will be some cleaning.  Oh and baking, lot's of baking!

  So since his birthday is the weekend of Halloween I thought we would make treats for his hockey team the weekend before.  I found this really cute zombie cupcake set at winners.  Because nothing screams happy birthday like zombies. 

Zombie cupcake kit.

  So I made regular old chocolate cupcakes from a mix, because I like the taste, and it was easy.  Most kids don't know the difference between a mix and scratch, or at least mine can't so that is how we are going to do it.

  I made the cupcakes smaller, so I got a full 24 out of the mix and then made my own frosting.  I love butter cream to decorate cupcakes with. It is simple and it requires very few ingredients.  Also I never measure, I just know what I am looking for. So I will tell you approximately how I do it and you can go from there.

My super easy butter cream icing.

Approx 1 cup butter
Approx 3/4 cup shortening
2 TBS of vanilla *
Approx 5 cups of icing sugar
milk as needed


So I start by creaming the butter and shortening.  Once they are mixed I add my vanilla* and some milk, maybe 1/4 cup of milk to start. Then I add the icing sugar a cup at a time until it gets too thick to mix, then I alternate milk and icing sugar until I get the amount of icing I want and it is the consistency I like.  I like it thicker so I can pipe it on and it will hold a nice shape.  Thin it out a little if you are using it for a cake or filling.

*if you want to be fancy you can use vanilla bean paste instead, it adds a stronger flavour I think, and it makes white icing look neat with all the bean flecks.  Since I usually colour my icing I don't use it, only for white icing.  Just my preference.

All set to decorate.  If you have these cupcake wraps, put them on before you ice the cupcake, less mess.

  I coloured mine green with Americolor soft gel food paste in electric green. ( this is the store where I usually order mine from.) Then I used a large fluted tip in a disposable piping bag.  I use disposable bags so I don't have to wash the real bags and couplers.  It is just to save time, and I am all about the time saving.  I start on the outside of the cupcake and make a spiral towards the middle.  You sort of overlap the icing to get it to look like it is rising.  Hope that makes sense.  Then I took these cute Wilton bone sprinkles I found at winners and sprinkled those on.

From the Wall O' Sprinkles.

  The kit had all these zombie parts, I waited for the icing to crust a little so if the paper parts touched they would not get too greasy.  My kid put the parts in and I made up the cupcake sleeves.  And there you go.

A simple swirl and sprinkles.

My son putting the body parts.  He complained there were not enough heads.

  Since I had to hand them out at hockey I packed them in these little boxes I got at the warehouse.  They are a little pricey, about 75 cents each for the box and insert, but it makes for an easy delivery.   I think the kids really liked them and it was easy to make for him. 

  Next week for his actual party I have cookies, cake pops, cupcakes and a mini cake to make.  So I will share those after it is all said and done.