Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake Pops

This week has been busy, busy, BUSY! I'm still trying to set up a workable schedule for myself with baking, household chores/errands and the gym. My trainer has ramped up my workouts, which has left me with less energy than usual the last few days. I have never been a regular coffee drinker, but now I'm considering starting the day with some caffeine. Hopefully, it won't come to that and I can push through!

My next post will feature some "Piggy" creations - cupcakes and cookies. They are not quite done yet, so in the meantime I thought I would share another cake pop flavor combination - chocolate covered cherry cake. I was hoping it would turn out as tasty as I imagined, and they did!  When I tried one it was so similar to eating a candy chocolate covered cherry, which is one of my favorite treats.  Yum!

You will need Cherry Chip cake mix, Cherry Frosting, and melted dark chocolate.  I used a box cake because the Queen of cake pops, Bakerella, said it's okay.  And she is CRAZY creative and penned an incredible book, which inspired me to start making them.  If she's said it's alright, that's good enough for me!  Instead of the Wilton chocolate I usually use I tried the Merckens brand and the difference was amazing. Merckens not only tasted better, the melted consistency was also much smoother for dipping and set with such a lovely sheen to it. The colors are much more vibrant, as well. I'm going to use it exclusively now.  

Click here for the instructions on assembling the cake pops.  Make sure to leave yourself a few hours for this project. They are time consuming and can be frustrating, but the results make me feel satisfied every time.  And, people love them!  I sent the chocolate covered cherry pops to work with my husband and they were a huge hit!  The birthday girl loved them.  Nothing makes me happier.  :)

Chocolate Covered Oreo Cookies

As I mentioned in my previous chocolate molding post, I also bought a chocolate mold specifically for covering Oreo cookies (the molds will be labeled as such, so you can be sure they will be deep enough to cover the Oreos completely).  Once again, I will say I need to do a bit more research regarding melting and molding chocolate.  This mold, like the dice mold I used prior, had a raised design surface.

I wanted to paint an outline of the glass with white and then "fill" the glass with pink to mimic a cosmopolitan.  Had I chosen a simple design and used only one color of chocolate to start, I believe I would have been more successful.  The extra step of staging colors and/or painting part of the mold is a whole other ballgame.  It requires a steady hand and precision, which, I must admit, I lack.  Here is an example of my difficulty with staying in the lines:

Perhaps if I had painting experience or had any artistic ability this would have come more naturally to me.  Maybe, but I am going to go with the-chocolate-was-too-thick excuse (actually it was!).  My next idea was to color the martini glass in all pink.  This was easier, but not without error.  I used a toothpick to trim the glass edges and hoped for the best.  They turned out better:

Finally, after the chocolate has set and you ease them out of the mold and it's finally time to take a bite, it's all worth the effort!:

You can never go wrong with an Oreo cookie and smothering them in chocolate seems like the right thing to do.  :)  I recommend trying this, they would make a great snack, dessert, or party favors.  You can put them on sticks and make chocolate covered Oreo lollipops (just make sure to use Double Stuff Oreos in place of the regular cookies).  Happy Molding!!

Chocolate Dice Bunco/Casino Cupcakes

My latest interest has been molded chocolates. I was browsing through a cute shop that specializes in melting chocolates and molds and discovered the possibilities are endless and a bit overwhelming! Wandering around I felt like a kid in a candy store. Oh, wait, I guess I actually was (minus the kid part)! I tend to be an impulse shopper so I took my time and finally settled on a few molds that seemed as though they would be good for beginners. Right.

Let's start with the dice. Very simple mold. White dots, red chocolate. Easy. Except that I made the chocolate dots too thick, so when I added the red chocolate, the white melted and ran into the red. And the air bubbles! I did tap the mold against the counter to rid the chocolate of air bubbles, as is recommended.  However, I wasn't entirely successful and there were random, tiny holes in my dice. 

Examples of the dice should NOT look.  ;)

Sigh.  Obviously chocolate molding isn't as easy as I thought it would be!  I'd prefer to ice cookies any day of the week.  Since I purchased the chocolates and molds, though, I persevered and finally had some decent looking dice.  I baked chocolate cupcakes, mixed up some buttercream icing, and topped them with the chocolate dice.  These will be cute for a casino theme party.  I think the finished product looks great!  Unfortunately, my husband had our "good" camera while I was making these chocolates, so I was not able to document the process of making the dice.  I also made chocolate covered Oreos, which I'll cover in another post, that I was not able to document, as well..  When making my next set of chocolates I will definitely be photographing the process!