Babycakes Cake Pop Maker

Kristi and I exchanged Christmas gifts last week before she left to visit her family in OH. I thought that I had given her some pretty spot on gifts... until I opened mine. Homegirl knows meway too well!

She gave me a Babycakes cake pop maker, a double tier collapsible cake/cupcake carrier, a cupcake/cake decorating icing kit (with tons of tips, etc. -- pic to come later), and a giraffe wisk!

(Can you guys tell that I like to bake?)

While Kristi is away, I am watching her furry child, Carter.

Sir Carter

Anyways, since it was cold and I didn't really want to do much, I decided to crack into the Babycakes box and make some treats for my coworkers. And boy was this an adventure! I will preface this post by saying that the cake pop making was the easiest part of all. The maker really does make it so quick and easy.

The maker came with a recipe book (other recipes are also found online) and I, of course, chose to make red velvet cake pops. The batter was simple to make and yielded about 3 dozen pops. I also made some chocolate pops but those weren't as tasty as the red velvet, in my opinion.

Chocolate balls, post baking.

Red velvet balls cooling in the tray.

Red velvet balls preparing to be stuck!

Balls become pops.

Notes:

1. It says to place one tablespoon in each divot. I found that to be a little too much so don't go crazy with the batter in there. If it overflows, that is ok. As you can see from my pictures, the overflow easily detaches from the balls.

2. I highly recommend using the removing tool that comes with the kit! It's a little wired prong instrument that doesn't look like it can do much but trust me - it does!

3. In order to get the sticks to stay inside of the balls and not move around when icing (more on that in a bit), dip the sticks in melted chocolate/icing before placing the stick in the ball. Once you have a few balls with sticks, place them in the fridge/freezer for about 5 minutes.

Now, on to the icing...

You can make your own icing if you want. If you're crazy. Or you can just buy the Wilton candy chips and melt them like I did.


In sticking (haha, no pun intended) with the holiday theme, I chose green candy melts (vanilla flavored) to coat my red velvet pops. I placed about 1/3 of the bag into this small little pot that came with my larger crock pot. I'm not even sure what it's called but I know that it was made specifically for me to melt chocolate and candy. It's just so cute!

This pot only has one setting but it doesn't get too hot; just hot enough to melt the candies and keep them melted. I do, however, recommend stirring this occasionally - especially if you're not going to use it right away. Also be sure to keep adding chips as you use the icing. I found that when you only have a few chips in the pot that it gets too hot. DUH.

So now you can remove your pops from the fridge/freezer and dip them in the icing/melts that you have in your pot. Because the sticks are frozen into the cake balls, you won't have to worry about the sticks spinning inside of the balls while you're trying to coat them.

I also added sprinkles to my pops just for giggles. Plus it made them prettier :)

Then I decided that I needed to package these suckers if I was going to distribute them to coworkers. I took pieces of saran wrap and cut them into 4x4 inch squares and wrapped the pop in them. I then took some thin red ribbon and tied a bow at the base of the pop.

Now, aren't those just the cutest things that you've seen in your entire life?!?!

No? Ok, well, I bet they're at least close.

I've only talked to one worker about these pops and she was pretty excited about them. I don't think she ate it yet but she at least liked the packaging. If I weren't such a dessert fanatic, I would think that they were almost too pretty to eat.

Tonight I plan on icing the chocolate cake balls with white Wilton candy melts. I'll be sure to let you know how those turn out (because I know you'll be up all night wondering...).

Happy holidays, y'all!

Found: Black Wedges. Lost: Fashion.

Y'all.

I have bad news about the shoes I wrote about a few weeks ago.

Ok, so maybe not about those shoes specifically. But I do have bad news about the black ones I was yearning to find.

Kristi and I were at The Target in Myrtle Beach a couple weekends ago, and they had the black pair in my size! It's like it was meant to be, right?!

WRONG.

Those.sandals.were.hideous.

Clearly, I won the lottery by selecting the brown ones.

I did, however, find a lovely pair of black wedges from Nine West. I can't seem to find a picture online so I'll have to post one when I get home.

Hold please...

randomness aka the story of my life

I feel that, after this week, bullet points and/or numbered bits of randomness are necessary for this particular blog post. I think that "To Do" lists were the only things helping me survive this week so I decided to continue the list-like trend. If you don't like lists (and why would you NOT like lists, by the way?!?!) then you can go ahead and stop reading this now. Begin list:

1. I am currently watching The Golden Girls for the first time in months. This is unheard of! Not a day used to pass when I did not spend quality time with The Girls. That is just one example of how insane my life has been as of late.

2. Speaking of friends, I just received in the mail today a postcard from an old high school friend. So, thank you Jeannie for thinking of me! (And I'm not saying that you're old, just that we've been friends for a while :)) For those of you who love humor, check out her blog here. Jeannie does improv on cruise ships and is honestly the funniest person I have ever met. I know that my readers think that I'm funny but I think that she's funny so you know she must be really funny. Right?!

3. I was attempting to remember everything that happened to me this week while sitting in an 8 a.m. accounting class. But I couldn't. I walked into my office around 11 (after that one class and then multiple meetings) and a co-worker came to visit. He gave me one look and I instantly knew that he was feeling the same as I was. It was just one of those weeks where I didn't know which way was up - both at work and in the classroom - and today was just a Godsend. It truly is a miracle that I made it through the day, let alone the week. I'd like to thank Sarah and Michele for inviting me to lunch today and offering tons of belly laughs.

4. I would also like to thank Kristi for meeting me at 8 p.m. (as I was leaving work, mind you) to have a few beverages and slices of pizza. Sometimes a girl just needs a grape vodka sprite! Tonight, I was that girl.


5. If you're all looking for some extra reading material, check out my bff Cassie's blog about e-dating. She is also hilarious.

6. For some reason, I allowed myself to pick up my Kindle again while waiting between meetings this week. I am now absorbed in another non-fiction book written by a lawyer who somehow gets caught up in conspiracy or something. It sounded interesting when I purchased it on Amazon and it's still holding true. Once I have the energy to hold my eyes open to dig the Kindle out of my purse, I'll give you all the title of the book. Until then, you'll just have to remain on the edge of your seats.

Snowboarding Adventures

This past weekend, Kristi and I went snowboarding at Sugar Mountain Resort near Boone, NC. Kristi's birthday was on Friday so this was our attempt at celebrating it. She had been sick all week and I was starting to feel bad towards the end of the week, but we muscled through it!

We both left work early on Friday and made the trek over to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The weather was disgusting the entire time - cold and rainy - which meant that people were driving even more erratically than normal. I saved us from getting in one accident on the way there. Kristi was impressed while I was just seething with anger.

Anyways, we got there around 9 pm and were starving so decided to eat at Woodlands BBQ. That restaurant served THE best pulled chicken BBQ that I have ever tasted in my entire life! We both got a "tray" that came with slaw and hush puppies - and it only cost 5$. I mean really... I could eat there 3 meals a day! They sold bottles of their sauce and I'm really kicking myself for not purchasing one.

The next day, the weather was still iffy so we decided to go shopping in the downtown area of Blowing Rock. We also had to search for ski pants because... ding ding! I left mine at home. (They were anxiously awaiting my return on my bed.) There was a Tanger Outlet Mall conveniently located about a mile from our hotel so you know I had to stop in and say hello. We got a couple of good deals but didn't go too crazy.

Once the weather cleared, we headed up the mountain to ice skate and to go tubing. It was cold but so much fun! Kristi and I would hook our two tubes together and one of the workers would fling us down the hill. We spun 39448 times and laughed until we cried. I think Kristi's tears actually froze to her face. We are far too old to have that much fun :)

On Sunday, we were finally able to hit the slopes! By the time we packed the truck and checked out of the hotel, it was around 11. I think we got to the slopes around 11:30. We decided to wait another 30 minutes and purchase a half day lift ticket. That gave me time to find a pair of sunglasses in the gift shop and check out the cafe. Once we purchased our tickets and got all of our gear, we were off! To the bunny slopes.

First off, we were wearing far too much clothing for this adventure. The high that day was 45 and I felt like my body was on fire. I ended up stripping down to just a t-shirt and ski pants before the day was over.

Secondly, whoever told me that snowboarding was hard has lost their mind. I don't know if it's because I'm athletic and pick things up easily, or if it's because I'm awesome at pretty much everything I do, but this challenge proved easy. That's not to say I'm a master - I could definitely use more practice. But I picked it up far faster than anyone else I know. Aside from Kristi.

Kristi tried skiing once and hated it. I, however, grew up skiing and love it. It was a bit of an adjustment for me to get used to moving my legs as one unit; Kristi knew no different so she had no obstacles to overcome.

We started off by keeping one foot loose and the other strapped into the board. This was fine for about 10 minutes. It's much easier to learn with both feet strapped in. We had watched one YouTube video about how to stop and that was all we needed! We figured out how to turn and all that jazz on our own.

By the time our ticket expired and we got back to the truck, my knees were swollen and I was super tired. We decided we needed to eat before the drive so we stopped at a sushi restaurant we had seen advertised on some billboards. Everything was going fine until we realized that it was 6 pm and we hadn't received our bill yet. Apparently the computer system was down so they had to manually add our tabs. By the time I finished arguing with the waitress about how and why I didn't feel comfortable leaving them with my credit card number on a piece of paper for all the world to see, it was 7 pm. The manager finally gave me the ok to write a check. So I did and we were on our way. (I can't tell you how close I was to walking out without paying. We were so irritated!) Needless to say, I was exhausted when I got home around 11.

But, all in all, it was a successful trip! We plan to go again soon. And when I say soon, I mean in like 3 weeks.

movie update

Kristi and I went to see Black Swan a couple of weeks ago. I completely forgot to write about it!



This movie was as amazing as all of the reviews had said. I honestly left the movie theater thinking, "WHAT THE HECK?!" After the movie, I found out that this movie was based on a book. Had I known that prior, you know I would have had to wait to see the movie until I read the book. I'm so glad I saw this in the theater! If you're wondering what all the hype is about, I beg you to see this movie. You will soon understand.

During that same movie trip, we also saw The Dilemma.



There were some funny parts but I couldn't help thinking about how long the movie was.... This sort of movie needs to be cut off around an hour and 45 minutes. I think it lasted well over two hours. But I love Vince Vaughn and Kevin James so I really did this for them.

And thennnn, this past weekend, we went to see No Strings Attached.



There were parts of this movie that had me laughing so hard that I was crying. At least I wasn't alone - Kristi was right next to me turning on the laughter. I absolutely love Natalie Portman and I honestly feel that she can portray any character. She is one of the few versatile actresses in Hollywood. And one of her best friends in this movie had me in stitches almost the entire movie - even when she was attempting to be serious. I have no idea why! Anyways, this movie is hilarious and highly recommended!

I have also swiped my Regal Crown Club card so many times that I have earned myself a free soda :) You'd think they'd at least give me a free movie ticket!