Heard of Cake Pops?

I hadn't heard of cake pops or cupcake pops, but apparently they are a relatively popular phenomenon invented by Bakerella (google her).  Basically you make a "sucker" out of cake and chocolate candy coating.  Some people are really ingenious and make pigs, or snowmen, or reindeer.  This seems like an appropriate Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday activity, so I am trying my hand at it.  As we speak.  I'm trying out cupcake pops, because my sister has a crush on cupcakes.  If they turn out I'll probably take some to her for a surprise tomorrow (she's going on an LDS mission to Nicaragua on December 15th) and some people are throwing a farewell bash for her.  Anyway.

The idea behind these cupcake pops is to mix a baked cake that has been crushed up and destroyed with an appropriate amount of cream cheese frosting and put them in the freezer to harden.  When they're hard, you can shape them into a cupcake shape with a small cookie cutter and then dip them in candy chocolate, and put them on a stick and decorate them however.

I made my cake with only two eggs instead of three because I forgot to get more eggs at the store.  How important could that last egg really be?  I figured I would pretend I put in three small eggs, instead of two large eggs.  That way, it would be just like I'd put in three eggs... I'll let you know how that reasoning goes.

I found one website that had shortcuts.  I like shortcuts.  So I microwaved the cake.  Who knew you could do that?!!!  It turned out like a normal cake in about 10 minutes.  Now that is crazy.  All the instructions say to use a food processor to blend up your cake, but my cake just sat there in the blender.  I had to just stir it up into crumbles.  I think you can skip the food processor step.  Your cake will turn into dirt when you're stirring frosting up into it.

There are a lot of useful websites and tips, but I liked this one a lot:
http://steamykitchen.com/7343-cupcake-pops-recipe-video.html

And now.... The moment of truth.  Did I succeed?

My First Cupcake Pop

On all of my subsequent cupcakes, I swirled the "frosting" (vanilla candy coating with food coloring) to make the cupcake look more authentic.

Aren't my cupcake pops packaged in a lovely fashion?

An artful shot for you

And here's all the ones I made today.

I actually got some good advice from my old visiting teacher for these.  Thanks, Natalie!  Pretty fun.  I particularly liked her recommendation to freeze whatever cake you don't use (then you don't have to finish it all off if you don't want to).

Bead Making Tutorial

If you have several small beads hanging around, or maybe some lure beads and fishing line, you should try making a cluster bead.  All you need is twelve of your little beads, and some fishing line (or tigertail, beading thread, etc).

First, string four of your beads onto the middle of your string.

Then, take the end of your string and go back through the first bead.

 String three more beads onto your string.

Now take the opposite end and string it back through the last bead you put on your string.

Notice how the string is kind of sitting on top of the bead to the right.  Go ahead and string your beading wire or fishing line through that bead.

String on two more beads!

Take the end to the left and string it back through the last bead you put on the line.

If you pull both ends tight, you'll get something like you see below.  Go ahead and string the line through the bead on the left that it's kind of sitting on top of.

String on two more beads.

Go back through the last one you strung with the opposite end.

 You should only have one bead left.  String it on.

And go back through it with the opposite end.

 To make the bead sturdy and finish it, you have to go back through the last beads.  If you've done everything else right, when you finish at the end every bead should have two lines/strings going through them.  To finish it you take one end of your string and go through the last three beads on top that don't already have two lines through them.  I've marked the beads in the picture.

Now conveniently both ends should be coming out right next to each other.  Go ahead and tie them in a double or triple knot until it feels secure to you.  The beads should feel sturdy and look something like this:

You can make it out of any type or size of bead than you can manage.  You can string it on through the hole pictured above, or you can hook jump rings/wires onto the fishing line.

Enjoy!