Valentine’s, Baking, and the Epic Cake Pop FAIL

Okay, so maybe the cake pops weren’t so bad. You be the judge ;)

I hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s Day. We celebrated Valentine’s on Saturday, since Monday is, quite honestly, a lame day to have a celebration. ;) I’ll get to that later. During the day on Saturday, however, John had Klondike with the Boy Scouts and was gone most of the day. Don’t be sad though, because I went to see my crazy aunt Michelle and we did some Valentine’s baking! So we both stayed busy until our night out :)

At Michelle’s we had a pretty ambitious to do list:

• Decorate Sugar Cookies
• Homemade Oreos
• Oreo Truffles
• Cake Pops

I had brought the cookies, so I started with those. I’m also very proud of myself, the ONE HANDED WONDER!!!!!! Hee hee. I got all the royal icing done and frosted our cookies. I was going for a ‘conversation hearts’ look:
We then had to wait for them to dry before decorating. We finished up the homemade oreos and covered them in sprinkles to make them more festive :)
MmmM those look tasty. THEN came the crazy chocolate dipping. Michelle had made some oreo truffles, so we dipped them in white candy melts and then decorated them in black candy melts. The dipping was quite the adventure! Michelle and cousin Makenzie hard at work…
Thanks to cousin Logan for snapping pictures of us :)
Once those had set, we did a fancy little drizzle on them :)
See? Faaaaancy :) After they set we broke off excess and put them in mini cupcake liners. So pretty!
  
By the time we had finished those, we molded our cake pops and I finished up the cookies. I got these AWESOME edible ink pens and they were PERFECT for making conversation heart cookies!! I think they make for a really easy project if someone wanted to try royal icing for the first time. Cute, huh? I LOVE THEM! hee hee I thought “facebk me” was clever ;) These we made for someone as a joke. They’re for my uncle James. yeah, if you’re related to me, you get the one on the left now, doncha? ;) hee hee

THEN came the cake pop fiasco. Michelle would like me to point out that these were NOT easy. And she thinks you should NOT try these at home. But that’s her opinion, not mine ;) I think i’d still give it another go. But stick with a simpler shape next time. Because we tried to make owls. Because Michelle and Makenzie are obsessed with owls. So between the strangely shaped owl bodies (I was molding them. with one hand) and then the chocolate chip ears falling off when they were getting dipped in chocolate, and then the excess chocolate dripping off of the owls once they were dipped and on their stick…and losing one or two to the depths of the chocolate pot…well…let’s just say when I look at our little owls, I get a very strong urge to laugh hysterically. ;)
See what I mean?
This one is my favorite. Hands down. One of his ears fell of while he was taking a dip and then the other somehow moved to the center of his head. And his facial features were put on in somewhat of a rush. He looks ridiculous. ;) “why are you looking at me like that?”
This one comes in close second. Apparently his chocolate coating wasn’t finished dripping when his beak and feet went on. oops.
 
So we still had lots of fun with our deformed little owls. But I don’t know if I’ll be doing those ones again ;)

When we finished up we packaged our yummy goodies and I headed home. Because I had a hot date that night! :)


John and I went to dinner at a place called 100 South not too far from our apartment. I was really excited because on Friday nights getting off the train I can smell the yumminess coming from there and I’d also found a gift certificate for us to use on restaurant.com. We had a very nice dinner, except for when they gave John the wrong order and we found out that our gift certificate wasn’t good for holidays and that Saturday was considered a holiday for Valentines. Oops. Thankfully, John still liked the shrimp he got instead of the Mahi-Mahi he ordered. And we’ll have to go again when we can use our gift certificate. Oh darn. At least then John can get his Mahi-Mahi ;) We also exchanged gifts at the restaurant during dinner. I made John some fun bumper stickers reflecting his love for surfing and mountain biking using vinyl and my make the cut software (MAN I love that stuff!!!)

And John gave me a beautiful hand stamped necklace with our names on it with a heart charm. It’s gorgeous and I love it!

I sure do love him! So, did everyone have a good Valentine’s day?