Chocolate Is For Lovers

Ok, FINALLY! I've had a few complaints about how long it has taken me to get my Valentine's Day blog up and I just have to say, back off peeps! I'm lazy! C'mon!

But really, I was distracted by the lack of things I had to do this weekend, it was so nice to just sit around and not do anything. Plus my car died, so really, I've been grieving and couldn't even think about updating my blog. But here goes!

(the Radcliffe ladies @ the Party)

Valentine's Day at the Radcliffe house is quite the "to do." Every year we celebrate with a "tea party" (minus the tea) and lately I think it has turned into a party focused on how many desserts we can shove into our guests. I'd have to say we outdid ourselves this year as far as presentation. I'd give it a 12 out of a 10. The dessert buffet featured the following:

- Red Velvet Cake Hearts & Cake Balls

- Mini Chocolate Cupcakes filled with one of three flavors: chocolate, bavarian cream and raspberry

- Mini Cherry Cheesecakes (courtesy of Abby!)

- Vanilla ice cream served in Margarita glasses lined with pink sanding sugar

- Chocolate brownies with pink candy melts drizzled over the top (special thanks to our visiting drizzler Angela)

- Champagne Truffles

As you can see, our goal was to roll our guests out of the door after dessert. We gave everyone to go boxes to fill with their choice of desserts so they didn't have to ruin their pockets trying to save them for later.

My actual blog is going to very briefly explain how to make champagne truffles by sending you to another website for the recipe. Oh yes, I'm a classy girl. HERE is the recipe. Please make these...they are so good and so worth spending the extra time on. Truffles are not the easiest things I've made, as chocolate can be pretty finicky when it comes to actually forming it in to balls. I always make a complete mess and end up with a large portion of wasted chocolate on my hands. With that in mind, I'm sure there's a better way to handle it, but the best thing I can manage is to first dust powdered sugar on my hands and then form the truffles. I prefer powdered sugar to cocoa powder for the outside of the truffles, but it's just a personal preference. Also, I did watch a show on the Food Network last weekend that suggested using a small ice cream scoop or melon baller and dip it into hot water before scooping up the chocolate. They made it look easy, but I can't vouch for the method yet.

I also recommend inviting a friend to partake in the making of these truffles as you only use a very small portion of the champagne in the recipe. The rest, of course, has to be consumed as soon as possible to avoid the champagne going flat. Waste not want not! Well, maybe that's not the right phrase for this situation, but it's the one I'm going to use.

This week's project is again Cake Balls. But made with a Malibu Rum cake, dipped in chocolate and drizzled with caramel. I'm hungry already!

Ooo Baby, Baby!

Yes, it's true. Another baby post. It must be baby season at work, because another coworker of mine is with child and soon to pop. Since this is a lady coworker, she gets her cake before the baby comes. That's right, she has her cake and eats it too. Watch out for this one. I wanted to do something different than cupcakes (been there, done that), so I borrowed this really awesome baby bottle pan from my little sister (hey there Betsy!). The tricky part was not the baking of the cake, it was the decorating. I don't think anyone understands the massive task I was undertaking here, I have the worst case of shaking hands. I mean, they're shaking right now, at this very moment. So imagine trying to decorate an entire cake with those little bitty tips from Wilton. And of course the more I concentrate, the more the shake. So I ended up with a rather cute cake, with a hint of shaking on the side. I think it adds character.

This happened to be a big baking week for me (as will next week, more on that later). Another coworker and friend of mine asked me to make cake balls / cupcake bites for her niece's First Communion party. Of course I can't turn down a chance to bake cute things, so I made the red velvet cake balls and decorated them in a variety of ways. This included making some cake pops.

Cake pops are so very easy to make, especially once you've gotten a couple under your belt (I'm referring to making them, not eating them).

Supplies:

- Cake Balls

- Candy Melts or Chocolate for dipping

- Lollipop Sticks (You can find these at any Hobby Lobby or Michaels)

- Sprinkles for decorating

- Styrofoam Block

First thing you need to do is melt a few of the candy melts, I used pink. Then dip the ends of the lollipops into the candy melts and push them into the cake balls. The sticks should be standing straight up out of them. Put them in the fridge/freezer for a few minutes to let them set.

After they've dried, take the cake pop by the stick end and dip it into the candy melts. I use a spoon to make sure I cover the whole cake ball. Tap the stick on the bowl so the excess coating falls off and toss on some sprinkles or sanding sugar. Then stick the cake pop into the styrofoam block to dry and you're done! I wrap mine in little candy bags and tie them with string before serving them.

And because those pink cake pops turned out so well, I had to try some in blue for the baby.

All in all, it was a busy week of decorating and next week will be the same. On the agenda: Red Velvet Cake Hearts, Mini Chocolate Cupcakes & Champagne Truffles. Um, yum. Seriously. The massive outpouring of baking is due to a Valentine's Tea Party that my mom is hosting, I'm helping stock the dessert buffett. Plenty of pictures will be provided of both the desserts and the party next week. I know everyone is beyond excited, but you'll just have to be patient.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Delicious

So, I'm a little behind on the blog. Not on the baking, just on the blog. Still, there are no excuses - I have just been a lazy bum this past week as far as blogging goes and nothing could change that. In fact, the only reason I am blogging now is because I can't sleep and after laying in bed for TWO HOURS staring at the back of my eyelids, I decided I should at least do something productive with my time. So here I am, sure to be sleep-deprived in the morning, updating my blog for all ten of my followers, most of whom are related to me (Hi Mom!).

On a brighter note, I made some really amazing tasting Snickerdoodle Cake last week. I found the recipe here: Since I'm going with a lazy theme this week, I'm not going to go into details since the link to the recipe is above. I will tell you the changes I made though.

Instead of making one large bundt cake, I opted for tiny cakes. (Side note: I don't know if you noticed, but I love baking bite-sized desserts. They are just cuter and easier to serve.) I used a mini-cake pan from Walmart. Can't remember exactly what it was called, but it was Wilton Brand and they looked like mini-bundt cakes. Before putting the dough in, I sprayed the pan really well with PAM (am I the only one that imagines Emeril yelling PAM! when I see that?) and then sprinkled a cinnamon and sugar mixture over the pan. After putting the dough into the cups, I sprinkled a lot of cinnamon/sugar over the tops. Instead of baking them for 55 minutes like Dozen Flours does in her blog, I baked these babies for about 25-30 minutes and they came out perfect. No need to decorate, just cool on a rack, pack them up and then force them on your coworkers. I received an "amazing", "these are so good" and a "FA-BU-LOUS" for these, so I highly recommend them.

I also made some cute heart pies last week. I can't really blog about them though, because I totally cheated and used pre-made, pre-ROLLED pie crust, canned cherry filling and a pocket pie mold from Williams-Sonoma designed specifically for this purpose. I barely had to do ANYTHING. And I didn't even share them at work, I ate them all. This is probably another reason why I should not have mentioned this in the blog. Fortunately for you all, and unfortunately for me, I am too invested in the time I just spent typing this to delete it and leave you without a picture of my pretty heart pies. So here you are...

Well, without further ado I am going to attempt to catch a few moments of sleep before getting up and facing the dreaded Monday. If anyone has suggestions on recipes I should attempt to try, please comment. I'm starting to worry that I'll run out of good ideas before Spring.