Make it Pop Sweets

Black & White Wedding Shower

2013-06-03T16:19:00.002-07:00

The images are from my best friend's black and white wedding shower. This is almost a year overdue! The event was so much fun!

The dessert table was a group effort between my pledge sisters and I loved how it turned out.

White cake pops with black ribbon made with candy mold

Macarons filled with Salted Caramel & Lee's Coffee filling

Ube Macarons

2013-03-11T12:34:00.000-07:00

During a Christmas gift exchange, I was gifted Thomas Keller, Bouchon Bakery. I had this on my wish list for such a long time I squealed when I opened the gift. I LOVE the texture of macarons from Bouchon Bakery and was so excited to try his recipe. The macarons are made using the Italian method, heating up the sugar and water to a certain temperature before adding it to the whipped egg whites. As I was reading the instructions, I was thinking, crap, this is a lot of steps, can I do this? Maybe..? Yes? Do it!

I decided if I was going to make macarons the Italian method, I would go full force and make ube macarons.

I went to a local Filipino store and bought my ingredients which included powdered ube. I wanted to take pictures show you step by step how I made these macarons, but ain’t nobody got time for that! Just kidding, there is a great tutorial by Annie’s Eats using the same recipe. Why reinvent the wheel? Annie’s tutorial is excellent! I only made one alteration by adding a tablespoon of ube powder to the powdered sugar and almond flour.

Some notes: Buy a good candy thermometer, the one I had sucked, the top went flying off and I guesstimated when the sugar water got to 248 degrees when the thermometer still read 200. That thermometer is now in the trash.

Once the batter was all mixed, the texture was very marshmallow-y. This may be because I did not heat the sugar water to the correct temperature, or maybe I should have mixed it longer?

I piped the batter and it looked okay, but I had a feeling that something was not right. I shrugged it off and piped some rounds and some hearts.

For the rounds I added heart sprinkles.

I placed the first batch, which were the piped hearts in the oven.

Broken. Son of a *@&@)!

I lowered the temperature. I placed the second batch of round macarons in the oven.

Better. I did not throw the broken cookies away, they were still really good!

These are some of the pretty ones. See the purple goodness poking out? That's ube filling! The filling consisted of frozen ube, conconut and condensed milk.

OMGTHISISSOGOOD!!!

I used a recipe I found here. << How awesome is that Ube Ombre Cake?!

The filling is heavy and will make the cookie soften if you keept it in the fridge for a long period of time. If you are going to use this filling, I suggest you fill and serve the cookies within a day.

Happy Baking!

Gingerbread Macarons

2013-01-31T16:15:00.002-08:00

This post was supposed to be published a month ago but I never got around to finishing it. Oops!

My friend's family host a Christmas cookie exchange every year and it is a lot of fun to participate in. Last year I was ambitious and wanted to make pretty red and green macarons. My attempts for red macarons are here. I ended up bringing just a few Peppermint Oreo Pops.

The cookie exchange has become pretty competitive with awesome categories and prizes. There is a prize for best hoilday cookie, best non-holiday cookie, and best in show. This year I wanted to start early and stick to one flavor so I made gingerbread macarons.

Check out the competition.

I talk a lot about how I’m not one for subtle flavors, so I wanted the gingerbread flavor to be really strong, boom, bam, pow, that is gingerbread!

I used my favorite macaron recipe by Jill Colonna and added the following spices:

1/4 tsp of ginger
1/8 tsp of nutmeg
1/8 tsp of cinnamon
1/8 tsp of cloves
*chocolate brown food coloring (just a few drops)
If you are making the recipe using 150 grams of eggs, double the spices

I paired this with a Gingerbread Swiss Meringue Buttercream, I used the basic Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe and added the same amount of spices to the buttercream.

They were a hit, and I ended up winning Best in Show!

The cookie also pairs really well with a Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Not Turkey Cake Pops

2012-11-20T18:12:00.000-08:00

Turkey cake pops are all over the blogs, facebook and Instagram. I bought a bag of candy corn last year with the intention of making turkey cake pops for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving came and went and I didn’t have any turkey cake pops to present for dinner. This year I really wanted to use that bag of candy corn and make turkey pops. I scoured the web for cute images for inspiration.

Last night I got my supplies ready to make turkey pops. I had the Oreo balls, and peanut butter candy melts ready.

I had the eyes.

I had the hearts.

I had the noses.

I had the feathers.

I had no patience.

I made one cake pop, and gave up. I thought of the other stuff I could be doing, like sitting on my couch watching Gossip Girl. So I decided to just dip the Oreos in the peanut butter candy melts and make Peanut Butter Oreo balls.

But ugh, they kind of looked like poo. I did rush through these but I wanted to make them pretty. I put the melted candy melts in a piping bag, and using a #2 tip piped the peanut butter over the cake ball to disguise the messiness of it.

I topped it with a heart, and put it in a mini cupcake wrapper. They are not turkey pops, but I loved how this came out.

I think this turkey feels the love. You can turn something oogly, to something lovely. Happy Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Macarons II

2012-11-18T09:45:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is 5 days away! This year is really flying by! I’m especially excited for Thanksgiving this year because I’ll be celebrating the holiday with my boyfriend and his family in Las Vegas. I’m known to my friends, family and coworkers as the cake pop and macaron girl, so of course I will be contributing one of the two for Thanksgiving this year. I may do both, but pumpkin macarons are a must bring.

From Trader Joe's website

Have you seen this at Trader Joe’s?

Pumpkin butter. Get in the car. Drive to Trader Joe’s. Buy it now!

This was a main ingredient for the filling in my pumpkin macarons this year. It did not disappoint.

I used my favorite macaron recipe from Mad about Macarons by Jill Colonna (the one with 150 grams of egg whites) I added 2 teaspoons of pumpkin spice and a few squirts orange gel coloring to get the dark orange fall color.

The filling for the pumpkin macarons is super easy! So easy, I didn't take any pictures of it. It only requires two ingredients, three if you really want it to be super pumpkin-y.

Pumpkin Filling
8 oz of cream cheese
Jar of Trader Joe’s pumpkin butter
Teaspoon of pumpkin spice*
Cream the cream cheese with a paddle attachment until smooth, add the whole jar of pumpkin butter, whip. Taste. Add additional pumpkin spice as desired. Continue whipping until smooth.

Fill your pumpkin macarons, eat and let the pumpkin flavors explode in your mouth.

The pumpkin butter has a slight tartness to it that I prefer over the filling I made last year. You can find the recipe here. I’m all for macarons with lots of flavor. I like to bite into a cookie and know the flavor right away. I’m not one for subtle flavors. You can adjust the amounts of pumpkin spice based on your own preference.

Don't have time to make your own? Trader Joe's has pumpkin macarons this year! A dozen for $4.99 What a deal!

They can be found in the freezer section.

Enjoy!

Wax Paper vs. Parchment Paper

2012-11-16T09:48:00.004-08:00

Wax paper vs. Parchment paper. Is there a difference? YES! I thought they were the same thing! How come no one told me? Maybe I should have asked...

Last night I made a batch of pumpkin macarons and used parchment paper for the first time. It was in the holiday aisle at Target.

When I took the cookies off the paper, I had ah-ha moment! WTH? Why have I not used this earlier? Doh! They work as well as a silpat!

Rule: Don't use wax paper for macarons! Use parchment! Works as well as a silpat!

Lesson learned.

Pink Parisian Wedding Dessert Table

2012-11-10T19:08:00.000-08:00

On June 1st my sorority sister Jackie married her best friend Samuel. They had a beautiful wedding in Newport Beach. Jackie is an event planner extraordinaire, so I knew her wedding was going to be nothing short of exceptional and impressive.

I was happy to contribute macarons and cake pops to her gorgeously styled dessert table.

The wedding theme was romantic, soft, ethereal elegant and Parisian. I think the table captured the theme beautifully. The colors were pink, blush pink with touches of gold. I love the petal table cloth, flowers, and of course the sweets!

I made three different types of cake pops to go with her theme. I made simple round cake pops with three different flavors using the mini bow candy mold, mini rose candy mold and and a soft pink cake pop with white non-pareil sprinkles to differentiate the flavors. Jackie purchased the cake pop stand to showcase the cake pops.

I made three macaron flavors, pink with chocolate ganache, light pink with a Swiss Meringue Strawberry Buttercream, and Salted Caramel Macarons. All the macarons were brushed with luster dust to make it look elegant.

Other mini desserts included fruit tarts, mini cupcakes, and candy purchased by Jackie.

All photos by Bret Cole Photography.

Pistachio Macarons

2012-10-09T20:43:00.001-07:00

I started to get back in the baking mood once October hit and the weather started cooling down. I thought about what flavor macarons I wanted to make for fall and an obvious one is pumpkin, but I also wanted to do something different and experiment with other nuts and went with pistachios. The green colors really remind me of fall.

I used my favorite macaron recipe from Mad About Macarons by Jill Colonna. If you want to make perfect macarons each time, get her book! I also like her recipe, because compared to other macaron recipes I see online, her recipe requires less sugar.

So for pistachio macarons, I used Jill’s basic macaron recipe replacing half of the almond flour with pistachio flour.

From Trader Joe's website

I bought a bag of dry roasted/unsalted pistachio nut meats from Trader Joe's, and blended it to a flour mixture using my magic bullet. Tip: For those who'd like to make pistachio macarons, make sure you take the skin off the pistachios before grinding. I figured the skin was already off but it was not, and if you blend pistachios with the skin on, it leaves a gritty texture. This bag was just enough for the batch of macarons and pistachio buttercream. I did have some left over. (I used 75 grams for macarons).

I also added a bit of green gel food coloring to the macaron batter make it a bit more green. Once mixed, I piped them.

I let the macarons sit for about half an hour and let them form a skin before I put them in the oven.

While the macarons were chillin, I started on the pistachio buttercream. If you follow my blog, you’ll know my go to filling is usually always a Swiss Meringue buttercream. I didn't set any eggs out so I went with a Pistachio buttercream I found here. I changed it up a bit because her recipe used grams and I did not feel like measuring out the butter. It worked out really well. I didn't take pictures of the pistachio buttercream process but the link above has great images.

Pistachio Buttercream
1 cup of butter
1 cup of pistachio paste*
*I made my own. I blended a cup of pistachios in the magic bullet, once it becomes as powdery as you can get it, add 4 teaspoons of simple syrup*
*Simple syrup – In a small sauce pan boil 3 parts water and 1 part sugar on high. Once it boils, lower the temperature until the sugar dissolves and the syrup is clear. This should only take 3 minutes. I used a small amount and it only took a minute.
1 ½ cups to 2 cup of powdered sugar*

*I didn't really measure, I just added enough until it was sweet enough. There is already a lot of sugar in the macarons.

Using my Kitchen Aid mixer with the paddle attachment I mixed the softened butter until it was whipped, I added the pistachio paste until it was well blended and slowly added the powdered sugar until I got it to the sweetness I wanted. The mixture was a muddy brown, so I added a bit of green gel coloring until it turned to a beautiful olive green.

I set the filling aside, and baked the macarons at 320 degrees for 12 minutes. Right out of the oven.

Once cooled, I peeled the macarons off the wax paper, and matched them up by size.

For large batches (this one made 9 dozen 1 inch rounds) I prefer wax paper to silpat, only because I can get an extra row of macarons on the sheet.

I piped on the filling, using a 1 inch tip. I love the olive green color!

And sandwiched!

Aside from the gritty texture, these were delicious! (I’m not biased at all).

Also, I know I’m years behind but I finally got an iPhone! I got the iPhone 5 and I love, love the camera on the phone.

Also, I’m now on instagram. You can expect to see macaron images like these, sweets, friends, babies and weird randomness. I'm m0kavelli.

Blue & Yellow Macarons

2012-10-09T20:33:00.000-07:00

I'm back!

2012-08-31T17:42:00.001-07:00

I was on a hiatus for a while. My laptop shut down and it has been sweltering hot. Too hot to bake! With the weather slowly cooling down I'll be back to baking up a storm soon. I made desserts for some lovely weddings this summer and am excited for new events this fall.

Check out photos from my friend Amy's beautiful wedding to Matt in Santa Barbara!

Her photographer featured it on their blog here: http://www.cameronleungphotoblog.com/2012/08/30/chase-palm-park-wedding-santa-barbara-ca-amy-matt/

Happy Labor Day!

Adventures in Cake Decorating: Green Ombre Cake

2012-06-17T18:25:00.003-07:00

I took a Wilton basic decorating class a few months ago at Joanns and I really enjoyed it. I may take more in the future, but for now I'll practice the basics until I get better.

If you have seen my 'cake inspiration' board on pinterest, you'll know I love ruffles, petals and ombre! The latest pin is a Pastel Swirl Cake from Sweetapolita. She has a great video tutorial on how to make this beautiful cake here. I had the weekend off and decided to try and make this same cake but use an ombre effect. It was perfect timing for father's day. My sister had to work, so I made a cake for her husband for her.

I started by baking a dark chocolate cake in two 8" rounds. I used my favorite cake box mix. While the cakes baked and cooled I made two batches of American Buttercream and split them into three batches. I decided to go with the color green and used leaf green gel coloring to get the colors I wanted.

I did a quick crumb coat with the lightest color. It looks like mint chip ice cream. I let it sit in the fridge for about half an hour to set. I love baking but I hate washing dishes, so during my "wait time" I'll wash dishes right after or I'll never get to them.

The cake cooled and I used the technique from the Sweetapolita video tutorial to start frosting the second layer.

I love the green pastel colors. I did a quick thick coat and smoothed it out. It looked great but I wanted it to have a bit more texture. I have a cake comb and used it to add some texture to the cake.

I liked the added texture on the cake because it adds depth to the color. My niece and I made a quick banner to put on top of the cake and she wanted to add blue sprinkles to make the green pop out.

I need to work a bit more on my frosting technique, but I'm happy with my first ombre cake!

Happy Father's Day!

Thick Lemon Curd Filling

2012-06-11T18:26:00.000-07:00

I have a pet peeve. I hate biting into a macaron and the filling oozes out, and gets all over the place. Macarons are supposed to be fancy and delicate, not like a Carl’s Jr. Burger.

Before I made the lemon curd for the superhero lemon macarons, I scoured the Internet for weeks to find the perfect thick lemon curd filling. I made three batches of lemon curd before finding the right one.

The first recipe I made tasted great, perfect amount of lemon but it was too thin. Here is my peeve in pictures. See how it oozes out of the cookies? Blah!

Picture taken using my blackberry phone.

These were still eaten! I took them to work for my co-workers to enjoy. They’re not too picky and I don’t let my cookies go to waste!

The second recipe was fine. I added a tablespoon of corn starch to it to thicken it up, so the consistency was perfect, but I wanted to make another batch because I didn't like the dry aftertaste it left in my mouth. I thought the dry aftertaste/starchy taste came from the corn starch.

I redid the second recipe without the cornstarch and the consistency was super thin and it still had a dry aftertaste. What? Why? The dry aftertaste/starchy taste actually came from the tartness of the lemon. I’m glad I saved that second batch! The curd stayed in place and didn't ooze!

The sweetness from the cookie and the combination of the curd was perfect. No dry aftertaste. Here is the recipe I used. I found it on a blog comment during my search for thick lemon curd filling/lemon macarons but now I cannot find the link to it. If this is your recipe, let me know so I can credit you.

Thick Lemon Curd
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
½ Cup of Sugar
½ Cup of Lemon Juice (I used Sunkist lemons, I’ll try Meyer Lemons next time)
As much zest as I can pull off the lemons that made of ½ cup of juice
5 T of cold butter
1 T of cornstarch* (I added this and it does make the curd thicker)

Putting together the lemon curd is similar to making a Swiss Meringue butter cream. Because I love video tutorials, here is a great one on how to make lemon curd from the Joy of Baking.

Superhero Party!

2012-05-29T22:35:00.001-07:00

If you have seen my boards on pinterest you'll know that I'm obsessed with ombre cakes, ruffle cakes and Jacob's superhero party. When my nephew Jacob was born I could not wait to plan his dessert table, within the first month I thought it would be great to have a superhero party for him.

There are some great superhero parties out there! I was truly inspired. I worked on some macarons a week before the party, and I wish I started earlier. I had problems with getting the coloring just right. I made macarons and colored them blue, red, and yellow.

I started with the blue first.

I used navy blue gel coloring for this batch. I was pretty happy with the color because it was the superhero blue I was looking for, not too bright, not too dark.

Here is a close up compared to the blue paper I had. Once it was baked, it turned into something different.

See the difference? I bought sky blue powder coloring the next day with the intention of redoing the cookies, but didn't have time.

My next macaron was the red macaron. I was nervous about this batch because I have been struggling with getting red macarons super red. I used what was left of my fired engine red powder coloring and some super red gel coloring and prayed it would work.

My prayers were answered. Mixing the food powder coloring into the powdered sugar and almond flour mixture and the gel coloring into the meringue mixture worked perfectly! This was the super red that I have been trying to achieve. I always worry about putting too much food coloring (especially gel) into a batch, because when I put too much food coloring it always effects the cookie in a negative way.

The last batch of macarons I had to make was yellow.

I added about a teaspoon of yellow gel coloring to the mixture because I wanted the yellow to be really bright. I cooked the first batch and once they came out the oven the yellow cookies looked more mustard. For the second batch I took the cookies out a little bit earlier and they were undercooked and hollow and I had to redo them. I used less coloring the second time around and they came out fine.

The cookies do brighten a bit when you put them in the freezer. Here is the end result, which I am very happy with!

I filled the yellow macarons with lemon curd (I made three batches before getting it right.) For the blue macarons I made a swiss meringue buttercream and mixed in blueberry jam. For the red macarons I used a swiss meringue buttercream and mixed in raspberry jam.

Here's a close up of the macarons. The blueberry was really subtle, I'd like to try and make it again with blueberry pie filling.

I also made Oreo cake pops.

Oreo pops are always a hit.

And so are superhero dessert tables. This table was really nice and simple. I also made the smash cake in the back. I need to work on my frosting! Jacob's aunt Anita made the cupcakes. Orange creamsicle, salted caramel, and nutella cupcakes. My sister ordered the birthday cake from a local bakery and they did an excellent job! The cake was also delicious and moist. At the end of the party all the kids suffered from a sugar crash. And when I say kids, I mean my friends and I.

Macaron and cake pop factory

2012-05-13T18:38:00.001-07:00

No, I don't actually have a macaron or cake pop factory, I wish I did because it would sure come in handy! Here are some things that I have worked on this month.

Chocolate red and yellow cake pops with white sprinkles for my brother's baby shower. My nephew Ethan was born on May 4th!

Red Macarons filled with raspberry filling. This was also for the baby shower. This is the red that I have been trying to achieve. I used a LOT of red powder food coloring to get it to this color. I notice that if you let the macarons sit in the freezer for a day, it enhances the color.

My favorite color is purple! I made purple macarons filled with chocolate ganache and the popular salted caramel macaron for a quincenera. The color theme of the quincenera was purple. I hope everyone enjoyed these!

These macarons look big, but but they're about one inch rounds, which is a perfect bite sized treat!

Eek!

2012-05-06T09:05:00.000-07:00

It's been such a long time since my last update! I have a few events planned this summer that I'm excited about! It will involve a lot of cake pops and macarons, for sure!

Macaron Day

2012-03-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

Did you know March 20 is Macaron Day? I didn’t either until I read about it on MACTWEETS. I’ve been following MACTWEETS blog for a while now. Jamie and Deeba have monthly challenges highlighting macarons. This month's challenge is, MacAttack #27 Macaron Day Macarons.

In honor of Macaron Day, and my first entry in the MACTWEET challenge, I’m showing you my version of the Salted Caramel Macaron.

I’ve been to a few different macaron bakeries and I always check to see if they have salted caramel macarons. They are my favorite because I love the combination of salty and sweet and I want to find a perfect one to try and recreate.

A friend had macarons all the way from the Ladurée in Paris sent to her and she was kind of enough to share. My favorite salted caramel macaron comes from this bakery, and salted caramel macarons from lette coming in a very close second.

Making my own salted caramel intimidates the hell out of me, and I didn’t have a candy thermometer yet so for my first attempt, I went the Sandra Lee route and did a semi-homemade salted caramel filling.

Have you tried the Salted Caramel Sauce from Trader Joe’s? If you have not, you must. It’s delicious. During the holidays I finished a whole jar in a few days, by myself. Don’t judge me.

For the macaron cookie I followed the recipe from Jill’s Mad about Macarons cookbook adding a bit of brown gel coloring to the mix.

The TJ’s salted caramel sauce is a bit runny for the macaron. I don’t enjoy eating a macaron and having the filling spilling out. I tried to thicken it using cornstarch and cream, a technique I found here, but I may have done it incorrectly because the consistency was not where I wanted it to be.

I decided to mix the TJ salted caramel sauce with Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Once the buttercream is nicely whipped, I slowly added the salted caramel sauce. I didn’t measure how much I added, I just kept adding more and beat it in my mixer until I got the flavor and consistency I liked. Make sure the caramel is at room temperature.

The cookies came out great and they were part of the dessert table for my boyfriend's birthday.

Don't forget to have a macaron for Macaron Day!

Cheers for Beer!

2012-03-09T19:20:00.002-08:00

My friend Sha and I helped our boyfriends celebrate their 30th birthday this past weekend. We planned a casual beer tasting party with lots of beer, tacos, snacks and sweets. I got the idea for the Beer Tasting Party from seeing it here on Hostess with the Mostess Blog.

We wanted to keep it manly and going with the beer theme went with the colors brown, tan and touches of red.

I took over the dessert table and created desserts based on the theme colors and the boy’s favorite sweets.

Salted Caramel Macarons - I made a Swiss meringue butter cream and added Trader Joe's Salted Caramel Sauce to make this. The salted caramel flavor was really light. I'm going to add more salted caramel the next time I make this.

Red Velvet Cake Balls. I flew to Las Vegas and had these cake balls already in the mini cupcake liners. They got screwed up during the travel. Next time I travel with cake balls, I would wait until I prep the table to put the cake balls on the mini cupcake liners.

I love these.

I used Martha Stewart's Cream Cheese Brownies Recipe found here. Delicious.

This cake was bought at a local bakery in Las Vegas. It was sooooo good!

My friend Gee made an awesome banana pudding. I'm sad we didn't get a picture of it on the dessert table.

I told my boyfriend we should have a faux photo booth area in his backyard, where people could take pictures with their camera phones. He thought it was a bit much, but Sha loved the idea, and being control freaks we are, went ahead with it. :P

Pinning!

2012-03-01T19:45:00.004-08:00

I know I’m not the only one, but I am addicted to pinterest. I love finding inspiration through others and checking out awesome baked goods. The only problem is I now have a difficult time not wanting to bake and EAT everything I pin, and I can't stop pinning. Here are two things I have made so far, I’m sure it’ll be two of many to come.

Slutty Brownies

Source

I eat with my eyes and I wanted to make this based on looks alone, and it looks so decadent and delicious. Cookie dough? Check. Oreos? Check. Brownies? Check! Glass of milk… oh no, that’s what I was missing! I’m not a regular milk drinker, but you definitely need to have a glass of milk on hand when you’re about to eat this!

I followed the recipe exactly, except I used unsweetened cocoa powder instead of regular cocoa powder the recipe called for. I’m not sure if it matters and I’m still trying to figure out if there is a difference, but I’m going to assume the unsweetened cocoa powder used in the brownies helped cut the sweetness. As decadent and sweet as it looked, it was not tooth aching sweet. It was perfect. It would be delicious warm with some vanilla ice cream on top.

Here is my version. I got eager and didn’t wait for it to cool all the way. If you let it cool all the way you can get a nice pretty cut like the picture above. I plan to make more and just store in the freezer and warm up when I’m in need of a sweet fix. Which is like, everyday.

Smores Cookies

Source

I love smores! I can’t get enough of it. I love the mini Hershey bar on top of the cookie. Again, I’m eating with my eyes. I have tried other versions of smore cookies, and my advice, don’t skimp on the graham crackers when making these. I used Target brand graham crackers and the taste was just of the graham cracker was, eh. I blame the brand. Don’t get me wrong, it is a REALLY GOOD cookie, but I think it would have tasted better if I used a different graham cracker. I like Honey Maid Graham crackers.

Here is my version I like my cookies soft and I thought the graham cracker cookie would soften from baking (like the Oreos from the slutty brownie) but they remained crunchy. This is great if you love a crunchy cookie.

I wanted a thicker cookie so I did not flatten the dough that much. Using my Goldtouch baking pans I made 24 cookies on one sheet and made about 18 cookies with the remaining batter. That’s a lot of cookies!

Baking these cookies and brownies was a nice break from my regular weekend of cake popping and making macarons. My next goal is to tackle cakes, wish me luck!

Find me here on pinterest!

Star Cake Pops

2012-02-26T13:27:00.000-08:00

Star cake pops for a Cailou themed birthday party.

I was shopping at the dollar tree and found a star ice cube mold like this one from Wilton. The one from the dollar tree worked fine, I bought it last year close to 4th of July. I prefer the mold over the mini star cookie cutter because I could mold in ten at a time.

The blue star is my favorite. I have a hard time finding dark blue candy melts so I bought dark blue candy coloring and mixed it with some baby blue candy melts. I used quite a bit to get it to the dark blue.

Sweetie Pie

2012-02-13T22:59:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to make these for a while now.

I baked them for a bit too long, but they're just so cute!

Seeing Red

2012-02-13T18:55:00.000-08:00

I've had a busy month! A lot of birthday parties and experimenting with red macarons.

Here are some things that I have been working on that has me seeing red.

Elmo cake pops! I loved making these! They were for Andrew's 1st birthday party. I was hesitant to make them because they are time consuming, but some great things about these pops, if they crack, you can easily cover the cracks up with fur. Also, there is something relaxing about adding "fur" to these pops.

They look so happy! I used candy melts for the mouths, if I ever have to make these again I would use something thinner for the mouths, because the candy melts were thick.

Cake pops for a Mickey birthday party. I didn't have a lot of time to put together the cake pop stand, so ignore the scotch tape :P

I love the polka dots.

Remember those red macarons that I have been trying to make?

I finally got them to the red I wanted. I stirred almost 2 tsps of red food coloring in to get it to the red I wanted. I used Christmas Red food powder coloring by CK products.

Just in time for Valentine's day! I over mixed it a bit so when I finished piping the heart shaped macarons, they spread and a lot of them ended up as triangles.

Have a Happy Valentine's Day! <3

Mad about Macarons!

2012-01-07T19:20:00.000-08:00

These last few weeks have flown by, remember those red and green macarons I was supposed to make for a cookie exchange? I never got to them...

But, I got some great gifts this year!

I had my five year anniversary at work and was gifted a digital scale (yes, I picked this).

I also was gifted the Mad about Macarons book for Christmas. This has been on my wishlist for months!

http://madaboutmacarons.com/

I used Jill's recipe and technique and the macarons came out great! I used the basic recipe, and added a little red food coloring. It does not really show in the image but the macarons are a light pink.

For the filling I made a Strawberry Swiss Meringue Butter cream. Here is the recipe I used, adapted from this site.

2 large egg whites, at room temperature for 30 minutes

1/2 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup of strawberry puree*

*I used a bit more because I wanted the filling to be more tart.

Make buttercream:
Vigorously whisk together whites, sugar, and salt in cleaned mixer bowl (I use my KitchenAid bowl) set over a 4-quart pot of barely simmering water until sugar is dissolved and mixture is warm.

Using my KitchenAid mixer, put bowl in mixer and beat with cleaned whisk attachment at medium-high speed until whites hold stiff, glossy peaks. Continue to beat, scraping down side of bowl with a rubber spatula, until meringue is completely cool to the touch, about 5 minutes.

Switch to the paddle attachment, and with mixer at medium speed, gradually add butter 1 piece at a time, beating well after each addition until incorporated. (If buttercream looks soupy after some butter is added, meringue is still too warm. If so, briefly chill bottom of bowl in a large bowl filled with ice water for a few seconds before beating in remaining butter.) Add the strawberry puree, and keep blending until smooth. If it starts to separate and look like cottage cheese, keep beating! It will smooth out.

Jill says to wait 24 hours before eating the macaron, so the filling can infuse into the shell, since I just made these, I can't wait to try them tomorrow!

Snowmen :)

2011-12-15T20:20:00.001-08:00

Peppermint Oreo Pops!

2011-12-07T22:03:00.001-08:00

I can't believe Christmas is just a few weeks away. I've been thinking about the different kind of cake pops I wanted to make for Christmas since October, so when when I was at my local Trader Joe's and spotted Candy Cane Joe-Joe's I bought them right away!

Oreo pops are my favorite to make because it doesn't take up as much time as regular cake pops.

I used my magic bullet to crush the candy canes, for the topping. I wanted them a bit chunkier but I love how they look.

The candy canes I bought were from the Dollar Tree and they were more pink than red.

These are my new favorite pops in looks.

I may be biased but I prefer my Candy Cane Oreo pops over the Starbucks version :D

Red Macarons

2011-12-04T19:47:00.001-08:00

I have been trying to make the perfect red macaron for a while now. I have a Christmas cookie exchange coming up in a few weeks and I want to make red and green macarons. Getting the perfect red has been a pain in the @$$!

I have used regular food coloring, gel and powder food coloring. I was hoping to have better luck with the powder, using 1 1/2 tsp of red powder... but I think I added a bit too much and it turned burgundy.

I wanted them to be as red as my nail polish. I was hoping once it baked it would turn a bit more red. Fail. It was still burgundy.

I made a white chocolate ganache because I was going for the burgundy and white Christmas. White chocolate ganache was way too sweet and overpowered the taste of the cookie. I'm just happy I did not make too much.

Though the macaron was not as red as I wanted, it was still a very tasty cookie. Back to the drawing board!