As promised...

The best part of Jim's welcome home party (besides him finally being home) was....

CAKE POPS!

I saw these on bakerella.com a few months ago and had been wanting to try them, but was waiting for a good occasion. They're very time consuming and really easy to screw up, but once you get the hang of them they're fun too. I wasn't adventurous enough to try any of the crazy designs shown over at bakerella, but I'm pretty sure they taste just as good no matter what shape they're in.

To make:
Prepare a box of your favorite cake mix and let cool completely.
Crumble into tiny pieces, then add 3/4 can of your favorite frosting, and mix together.
Roll mixture into balls and let chill in refridgerator or freezer.
Melt chocolate.

Take out 5-10 cake pops from freezer.

Dip stick into chocolate, then stick into the cake ball about 3/4 of the way.

Dip entire cake ball and stick into chocolate.

Tap stick against side of bowl to remove excess chocolate.

Put stick into styrofoam block and allow to set.

I found these to be much easier when working in small batches. The first batch I did, I melted too much chocolate at once and it ended up burning. I also took out all of the cake balls from the freezer at once and they started to get too warm by the end, so they were falling apart when I dipped them into the chocolate. But my mess ups turned into cake balls instead of cake pops!

These really are SO good and are worth spending time making... check out bakerella for more ideas and instructions.

Strawberry Cake

Anyone know where to buy vanilla bean paste? This recipe called for it and I looked everywhere but nobody knew what I was talking about. It turned out to be an okay cake even without it, but was a little bit too dense and the frosting was too sweet for my taste.

Super Strawberry Cake

Cake

3 cups cake flour

1.5tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2c sugar

1c butter, softened

3 large eggs

1 tbsp vanilla bean paste (I used vanilla extract)

1/4 tsp almond extract

1c buttermilk

1/2c sliced strawberries

Preheat oven to 350. Sift together cake flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, beat together sugar and butter until creamy and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in vanilla and almond extracts. Add flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk. Fold sliced strawberries into batter. Divide batter between 2 8-inch round cake pans. Bake for about 35 minutes.

Frosting

1/2c butter, softened

1tbsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp salt

4c powdered sugar

3-5 tbsp milk

1/2c sliced strawberries

Beat butter, vanilla extract, and salt until creamy. Add powdered sugar in 3 parts, alternating with 3 tbsp milk, one tbsp at a time. Fold in strawberries. If frosting is too stiff, beat in remaining milk.