For the Oldest One's Birthday, we made something called cake pops instead of a trditional cake. We decorated the cheapest cups we could find with the cheapest pretty ribbon we could find (cost prob less than $3), filled them with rice (which is something you can reuse since you boil it before you eat it anyways) and did the cake pop recipe that Julie J sent us from www.bakerella.com When I was making the first 1/2 of them (I did the first 1/2 one day and the rest of them the next day) I was sure I was going to 1. Hunt Julie down and hurt her for suggesting this awful time consuming mess of a project (have I mentioned I have had a bad heart with pregnancy hormones?!) 2. Never EVER make these again unless someone was paying me an absurd amount of money to do so,
BUT, The second 1/2 of the batch, the next day, I was much more organized, was easy and manageable. I don't know if I would go as far as to say it was fun, but it was close to it. That was a hard week for me, I don't think I would have said anything good about anything that week, though.
I will offer these bits of advice for those of you attempting these:
DO NOT USE FOOD COLORING. If you do, it seizes up the chocolate bark and it is no longer smooth and shiny. If anyone can explain why to me, I am actually interested to know. In order to restore the chocolate, you have to add a small amount of vegetable oil, which didn't seem to alter the flavor any.
I would recommend double boiler over microwave heating for the chocolate.
Freeze the balls before you work with them and once you dip them in the brown chocolate, turn upside down and put a stick in (I used chopped off bamboo skewers), put them on top of a 13x9 cake pan filled with ice topped with waxed paper- it makes dipping the top much easier and doesn't leave little brown flakes of the cake in the white chocolate.
The next time I make them, and yes, there will indeed be a next time, I think I am going to stick with balls, use only milk chocolate bark and just top with sprinkles (and maybe an m&m)
P.S. Thank you Julie for sending that email out suggesting these! They taste INCREDIBLE!!!
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