Happy Valentine's Day -- MudPies & PixieDust Photography

Well they say the way to a man's heart is through his tummy & as I have three men in my life (that would be 1 hubby and 2 little boys;) thought I'd see what I could do if I spent some time in the kitchen, instead of behind the camera;) The process was a bit messy, but the results look pretty good if I do say so myself. Grandma might even be proud;) Hopefully they'll like them....sweets for my 'sweets'!

Dear 'Danger' -

B always wants reassurance that he's 'my dearest', but between you and I, you can be assured that while he is a most special little dude, you are in fact my dearest now and for always. I'm so lucky that all those years ago you picked me to be yours. I love getting to live life with you. XXOO

Yours,
S









{2 years ago a girlfriend sent me the bakarella site. If you haven't checked her out you must! Last year at Christmas I purchased molds and sticks with the intention that my SIL and I would whip up some magic over the holiday...needless to say we got a little busy and never got around to the cake pop project. So here I am finally making them. Yes, if you're counting that's 3 years....why oh why did I wait so long?! So yumm-O! In case you'd like to try them out, I followed the recipe found here.

Things I learned: go easy on the frosting. The recipe says you won't need a full tub of frosting and she was right. I added a little too much which made them a little tricky to work with. Once you roll the cake into balls, pop in the freezer for a good 15 minutes at least - makes the process of rolling them in the melts much easier. When I take meals to friends, I often use the disposable metal pans with plastic lids. I simply took one of the plastic lids and set the cake pops inside one of those in the freezer. The lid made transporting the pops between counter to freezer super easy, and as the lid was made of plastic, it prohibited the pops from sticking to the lid while chilling. Definitely purchase the melts in the easy microwave containers instead of trying to color/melt almond bark. I could never get the consistency right when using regular chips or almond bark, but the melts were so easy to use. They harden relatively quickly after microwaving, so what worked best for me was to put a portion of the melts into a separate glass container and then microwave. They suggest letting the pop dry by placing the sticks in styrofoam. I never have styrofoam and frankly wouldn't haven't a clue where to purchase any but we happened to have some left over packaging from a recent toy purchase. Lifesaver!! They worked like a charm! For the sprinkles, I emptied a jar into a glass bowl and when the pops were just beginning to dry dipped them in. A couple of times I waited a bit too long to dip them and there were patches that had already dried and were missing sprinkles. Easy fix - simply dab some of the left over bark on the spot and then re-sprinkle. Voila--no one will ever be able to tell;) Seriously people, if I can pull these off anyone can}