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Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’

Baking extravaganza – Part II

22 Dec

Cake balls (hehehe)

Hilarious to say, but so yummy to eat. It’s also incredibly idiot-proof to make, but requires some patience.

Starring:
[we made two batches]
• 2 boxes of cake mix (we used Classic White and Red Velvet)
• 2 cans of frosting (we used Lemon [for the white cake] and Cream Cheese [for the Red Velvet because that’s what you’re supposed to use. No, really. You are. It told me)
• 2 pounds of white chocolate bark (bakers chocolate)
• 2 pounds of semi-sweet bakers chocolate

To prepare:

Bake the cakes according to the package.

Mmmmm….looking good!

As soon as they come out of the oven, dump each into two separate bowls.

Add a can of frosting to each (here you see the lemon with the white cake) and mix it all around

May not look like much, but it smells so good! Once you’ve done this, it’s best to freeze the mixture for up to 24 hours.

The next day, or much later the same day, take out the bowls and make little balls with the cake/frosting mixture.

See? Kinda like that. They’re all happy and ready to be dunked into chocolatey-goodness. Oh, and I know I’m just showing you the white chocolate/lemon frosting batch, but that’s because my sister was mostly dealing with the chocolate and red velvet.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.

And now here’s the white chocolate all melted. Yum!

Isn’t it pretty? Double boiling and using really good quality bark is the key. We tried just using semi-sweet chips, but it isn’t tempered and we didn’t know how to temper it. So we decided just to buy the bark to melt. Nothing was added either. We just dumped them into the bowl and let it melt; no oil, nothing.

Drop one cake ball into the chocolate. We put the red velvet into the chocolate and the lemon into the white chocolate. Using a fork and spoon, work the cake ball around to cover it in chocolate. Remove it and put on a piece of parchment paper and allow to cool completely and harden.

Aren’t they beautiful? Sigh. It’s such a sight, I could cry.

Perfection – this is what it looks like

Oh, here are the white-cake-with-lemon-frosting-and-white-chocolate cake balls. Even though red velvet cake is probably my favorite kind of cake, I prefer the lemon cake balls. How weird is that?

Anyway, something fun you could do is take any leftover white chocolate you have, mix in some food coloring and then drizzle some color onto the cake balls. Then you’d be super-duper fancy. I, however, was lazy and didn’t get around to doing that.

So there you have it. Cake balls (hehehehe). You can try it with any kind of cake you like and any frosting! The possibilities are endless. Just a fair warning though: you’ll end up with 60+ cake balls like we did. Not that I mind, of course.

 
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Posted in Desserts, Food, Holiday Food

 

Baking extravaganza Part I

22 Dec

I love to bake. I don’t do it that often. I should remedy that.

My sister and I are on a baking extravaganza that will complete over the course of three days. Yes, three. Why give presents when you can give baked goodies to your closest family and friends…? Exactly, that’s what I thought.

I’ve talked about my and V’s famous chocolate mint cookies before, and I’ve posted many photos of their perfection on my Flickr, but now I shall share the recipe with all you out there. You should feel special. No, really, you should. DO IT.

Cast of stars:
• 3/4 cup of butter
• 1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar (I used light but you can use dark…whatever you have)
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 36 Andes mints (I just ended up using two packs of them – 24 come in one package)

Start with the butter. Yeah, I know it’s a lot but you can’t skimp when it comes to these cookies. Besides, it’s the holidays. Isn’t the gym for the resolutioners any way…?

In a large saucepan, cook the butter, brown sugar and water together until melted. Add in the chocolate chips and stir to partially melt. Remove from heat and continue stirring to completely melt the chocolate. Pour this mixture into your mixer bowl, or into a larger bowl.

Beat the eggs at high speed, one at a time, into your chocolate mixture and mix until blended. Reduce the speed to low and add in your dry ingredients and mix until blended and a dough forms.

Chill the cookie dough, uncovered, in your fridge for up to 1 hour.

When the dough has set and hardened (I pulled the bowl out after about 45 minutes), take a little bit, roll into a ball and place on an ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Don’t they look magical? I thought so too.

Bake at 350ºF for 8-10 minutes. You’ll know they’re done because the cookies will spread and be kind of cracked on top.

While the cookies bake away, unwrap the Andes mints. Try to contain yourself and not eat them as you unwrap. But that’s why you buy three packages…mwahahaha.

When the cookies come out, this is when the magic really happens.

Immediately after the cookies come out, place one mint on top of each cookie and let them melt into ooey-gooey-melty-amazingness (yes, thats is a word).

Then be patient and let them melt for up to 5 minutes. Once they’re kind of melted, you can use the back of a spoon to spread the chocolate all over.

Patience is a virtue, isn’t it? This is what you end up, and it’s amazing and wonderful and delicious.

Go ahead. Tell V and me that we’re awesome bakers. Actually, thank her sister-in-law. I think it was her who gave us this recipe. She’s basically my hero. Srsly. My hero. This is a staple made every Christmas now. Even if I can’t make it with V, they get made. And they’re delicious. Happy Holidays!

 
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Posted in Desserts, Food, Holiday Food

 

Cleocatra, comin' atcha

21 Dec

My sister brought her cat, Cleocatra (aka Cleo) when she and my brother-in-law came to stay with REB and me over the weekend. She kind of had to be quarantined to the guest room. This was mostly so she wouldn’t get stressed out by Gryff, or that Gryff would come want to play with her, and also because a lot of people makes her a little uneasy.

We ended up setting up a baby gate so she could come into the hallway from the room, and Gryff could still leave her alone.

Although they had met before, it was very exciting for Gryff to be this close to Cleo. They were curious about each other, which was adorable.

She’s so pretty. We were all surprised she tolerated Gryff as well as she did. “Oh, there he is.”

In the protection of her No-Gryff zone.

My sister wanted a picture with Gryffzilla. It would have worked except he was too concerned and crying that he couldn’t play with Cleo…who was staring at him at the time this photo was taken.

“Oh…that weird animal went that way…”

“Nope. Now he’s back over here…staring at me again.”

“I know I’m pretty. You look weird and can’t get to me.”

Then Cleo wasn’t interested in Gryff or me anymore and retreated to the room. It freaks me out when animal eyes do this with a camera flash.

Yup, that’s Cleocatra in a nut shell. She isn’t super social, but she sits pretty for the camera and likes to play with meeces and string. So very feline.

 
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Posted in Anipals, Cleo, Holidays

 

I have the best family ever. Period.

18 Dec

My sister and brother-in-law came up for the holidays today. I love seeing them. I love seeing my sister. She only lives 4 hours away in Chicago and yet I don’t see her as often as I should. When I see her, I’m just so happy to see her.

We exchanged presents early because, well, there’s no reason except I REALLY wanted to give her the present I got for her. I made her a monogrammed recipe book for her to store her recipes in and made it all pretty with her monogram on the front, put some index tabs in it and printed out some of my awesome recipes to get her going.

Anyway, they all decided to give me my present. I was sentenced to the bedroom until she finished wrapping it.

Then I was told to come out.

And then I unwrapped this:

…and I cried. I literally cried. I had no idea I was crying. But I cried and kept saying “Oh my God” over and over again. Or so I’m told. The whole opening of the present and staring at it and holding it like it was the first time I saw my dog, is all a blur. And this all just went down about 90 minutes ago.

I’m also told that as I was unwrapping it, they could tell I knew what it was because I looked like a 5 year old opening a present for the first time on Christmas morning.

REB did such a good job at hiding it from me. I knew he and my sister were on the phone a few weeks ago talking about it, but he tried to play it off like it wasn’t her on the phone. Whatever. I know my sister’s voice. That’s also why he never felt bad if I’d pout when I wouldn’t win a mixer from a P-Dub giveaway.

Either way, I don’t care. I love it.

Even my dog loves it. He kept sniffing the box and putting on that stupid-cute smile he does so well. I cried more.

This is mine. I own this beautiful candy apple red mixer that matches my kitchen perfectly.

Ah, perfection.

It’s shiny and new and perfect. And if that face isn’t any indication of how I’m feeling…I don’t know what would. That smile has been plastered on my face since unwrapping it. The christening recipe that shall be used will be my and V’s famous chocolate mint cookies.

I can’t stop thanking everyone for it.

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Posted in Holidays

 
 
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