Oreo Cake Pops!

I now need a cake pop stand...

     This is my first time at attempting cake pops! I first was wondering how Bakerella (the inventor of cake pops) got the cake to bake in a perfect circle, cake just doesn't work that way! Then I decided to read through the book and found out that they are made by combining already baked cake and frosting, amazing!

Recipes:
Yield: about 48 cake pops
Difficulty: Moderate

Cake
Used my Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes recipe except I replaced the peppermint extract with vanilla extract. I also baked the cake in a 13x9 glass pan with 14 minutes added to the time at the same temperature.

Frosting
1/2 cup unsalted room temperature butter
2 cups powered sugar (fyi, I am never exact on my sugar measurements, I always add until I like the flavor)
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp milk
1/2 cup oreo crumbs

Decorations
Dark cocoa melting chocolate
Vanilla flavored white melting chocolate
Oreo crumbs
White candy sticks

Step 1
     Bake the cake! I'm no expert at taking a cupcake recipe and turning it into a cake recipe, but for me, luckily it all turned out fine. I kept the temperature the same and lengthened the time. If you want to take the easy route, you can definitely used boxed cake mix, in fact, thats what the cookbook recommended. After the cake is done, let it cool completely before turning it into crumbs.

Step 2
     Make the frosting. Whip up the butter until it is smooth and then slowly add the powdered sugar. Whip it up until it looks nice and fluffy. Then add in your milk and vanilla until combined. Lastly, add in those yummo oreo crumbs! Also, the easy way out for this step would be to just buy some store-bought frosting and add your own oreo crumbs.

Step 3
     Turn your cake into crumbs! You can do this by a food processor, blender, or by rubbing two pieces of cake together. Break up any large crumbs with a fork.

Step 4
     Now take that bowl of frosting and dump it right into that bigger bowl of cake crumbs, then mix mix mix it with a spoon. If you're doing the easy way, only use 3/4 of a can of frosting.

Mush!

Step 5
     Now that you have mixed alllll this up and made a lovely mush consisting of cake and frosting, you now need to get down and dirty using your HANDS. Pick up a nice portion of cake mush and then roll it into a 1 1/2 inch ball. I'm terrible at estimating size, so I just rolled them into a size that people wouldn't mind shoving into their mouths. Since I was making these late at night, I just put all of my cake balls into a bowl and let them chill overnight so I could dip them in the morning. If you want things to go faster than leaving them in the fridge for a couple hours, then you can put them into the freezer for about 15 minutes so they are firm, not frozen.

I couldn't stop singing Chef's song "Chocolate Salty Balls"

Step 6
     After my cake balls were sufficiently chilled, I set up my work station. Cake balls, sticks, melting chocolate, and crushed oreos. To melt the melting chocolate, you can put it in the microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring between each heating session. Or you can put it in a double boiler. Just be sure the chocolate doesn't get too hot, otherwise it will burn and you will have icky chocolate.

My itty-bitty work station

Step 7
     So now we need to turn these chocolate cake balls into pops. This magical transformation happens by putting a stick in them! But first, you should dip that stick into the chocolate and then about halfway through the cake ball, we don't want to be stabbing through these little guys, now do we? So now that we have a cake pop, we gotta dip it into the chocolate. This is where I got kinda messy.... I had to add 2 tsp vegetable oil to help thin the chocolate and then I kept a toothpick handy to help scrape off extra chocolate. Sorry I didn't get any pictures of this, but its a little hard when both hands are busy, haha. The technique is to dip it, cover the entire ball, let some drip off, and then hold it sideways while twisting it to let more drip off (this is where I used my toothpick).
     Immediately after dipping, sprinkle the pop with crushed oreos and then stick it into some styrofoam to let it dry. I had to use some oasis, which is what florists use for flower arrangements... thanks mom. If you don't have any styrofoam, then just stick the pops upside down on a pan covered with wax paper (for easy removal). You'll end up with a flat edge, but whatever, it all ends up in the stomach anyways :)

Good thing I had my taste-tester around!

     So there's my post about cake pops *whew*. Sorry if it was confusing in any way. If you have any questions, just ask! Oh, and by the way, I made these cake pops about a week ago and they are STILL moist and delicious. I've kept them in a zip-lock bag. I can't guarantee moistness if you went the boxed cake mix and frosting way though... I guess you just gotta get all domestic and go the homemade way!

Chocolate Pie

Currently listening to: 500 Days of Summer Soundtrack

What I should be doing instead: Hm, nothing really

(Picture taken from Joy of Baking)

     This is seriously the best chocolate pie ever. And thanks to the Joy of Baking, where I got this recipe, I will never ever eat a Jell-O chocolate pie ever again (no offense, Jell-O). The picture above is not mine. I couldn't get a picture before it was viciously devoured by my family. I hope to get my own picture soon the next time I have a reason to make pie.

Graham Cracker Crust

1 1/4 cup graham crackers, crushed

2 tbsp sugar

5-6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Step 1

     Crush the crap out of those graham crackers with your fist/mallet/rolling pin/any other desired object, but be sure to keep them contained in a bag, we don't want a huge mess. 1 1/4 cup crushed graham equals about a whole packet (minus 1 or 2 crackers).

Lost in the land of cracker crumbs, don't get squished!

Step 2

     Put the graham cracker crumbs and the sugar in your pie pan and mix together with your hands. Then add the melted butter and mix with your hands more. Your hands are the best tool for this because you're gonna be squishing these crumbs into the pan to make a flat layer and going up the sides of the pan.

Step 3

     Now put the crust into the fridge while the oh-so-delicious filling is made.

Chocolate Pie Filling

Yeild: 1 - 9" pie

3/4 cup sugar

3 tbsp cornstarch

1/3 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder

1/8 tsp salt

2 1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

4 large eggs yolks

4 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp

Step 1

     Take out 2 large heatproof bowls (stuff like porcelain), 1 medium heavy saucepan, 1 large heavy saucepan, and a strainer. Also, take out and prepare all of your ingredients as it makes things a little easier and faster.

Step 2

     In a large heatproof bowl, whisk together your sugar, cornstarch, cocoa powder, and salt. Then whisk in 1/2 cup of milk until a thick paste is formed. Add your egg yolks to this paste one at a time until blended. Set this aside while you go to heat the rest of the milk and cream.

Step 3

     Rinse a medium-sized heavy saucepan with cold water and then shake it out to get rid of the water. This prevents your milk from scorching. Pour in the remaining 1 1/2 cups milk and 1/2 cup cream into the an. Bring mixture to a boil over medium-low heat then remove from the heat. Be sure to closely watch your milk/cream mixture, because if it boils over, then you have one nasty mess to clean up.

Step 4

     Add milk to the pasty-egg mixture, whisking constantly. Always remember to add hot stuff to cold stuff when it is involving eggs, if you try the other way around, then you end up cooking your eggs, ew.

Step 5

     Transfer the filling to a large heavy saucepan and place over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens to the consistency of mayonnaise (yum?). Be sure to be scraping the bottom and corners of the pan to make sure nothing gets burned. I like to use a heatproof spatula :)

This smooth liquid mixture turns into....

...this thick kinda lumpy mixture.

Step 6

     Remove your filling from the heat and pour through a fine strainer into a large heatproof bowl. This will remove any lumps (which for me, a lot showed up and I freaked out the first time I made this pie, but don't worry!)

Step 7

     Add your chopped chocolate, vanilla, and room-temp butter to the filling and stir with a spatula until smooth. Then cover with plastic wrap and let cool to room temperature.

Yummmmm

Step 8

     After the filling has cooled, pour it into your graham cracker crust. Let this delicious pie sit overnight in the fridge and in the morning you'll have a delicious chocolately breakfast! Or you can do the patience thing and wait to eat it later, psh.

You can add whipped cream as a nice topper. In my first pie, I piped it on like the way Joy of Baking did, but the second time I made the pie, I got a little lazy and let people serve their own whipped cream.

By the way, sorry for the delay in posting this. Blogger or iPhoto don't really want to make my photo posting easy and convenient, dumb. Anyways, up next will be my Oreo cake pops!