Rice Krispy Pops....Yo Gabba Gabba!

Can someone say....Yooooo...Gabba Gabba.....go go plex...go go plex!!! Ok, so these are party favors for my friend's son's upcoming party!!! What do you guys think of it??? Pretty cute, huh?? I just loved the way it turned out!!! This is just straight up rice krispy covered in chocolate...all of it even the eyeballs!!! My kids thought it was pretty neat and my son couldn't wait to take a big bite out of it!!!  Now I just need to make the rest of the gang....foofa, toodee, brobee and muno!!!

Chocolate Banana Cupcakes with Ganache Frosting

This recipe just caught my eyes one day when I was reading joyofbaking.com website.  I thought to myself I just had to make these interesting cupcakes now but I didn't have any riped bananas.  So few weekends went by and I went to grocery shopping where I finally got some riped bananas...and so the baking began. This was easy to make and all with two bowls!! No mixer needed! I just love it when that's all the equipment I need to bake! Because eventho baking is fun, at the end the cleaning and washing is a pain!

For these cupcakes, the outcome was pretty interesting.  One might think it is kinda weird to put mashed up bananas in their batter but it wasn't that bad.  It was like chocolate cupcakes with a hint of banana.....it was not overwhelming I thought it would be.  The texture was moist and not soggy or to the point where every bite you would get a chunk of banana. The frosting was very good, light, fluffy and soft....kinda like meringue. I"m not big on frosting but this was good!!!  Not sure if that is how Ganache frosting is because the previous times I attempted to make it, it was nothing like this!!!  Finally, topped off the Ganache frosting with some shredded bittersweet chocolate bits.....YUMMY!

Ladybugs & Pumpkins.......Vote Now!!

Sunflower #1

Sunflower #2

Sunflower #3

Alrightly...let the voting begin!!! 

Ok, so everyone need your help.  I made this as a special request for an upcoming birthday party and came up with three different design for the ladybug sunflower.  One of the sunflower is my own creation and the other two is from the book "Hello, Cupcakes!" but with a little tweeking.  Now I need you gals and guys to vote and see which one do you like best?

As for the pumpkin, there was only one design that I got from "Hello, Cupcakes!"....what do you think of pumpkin?

Cake pops.....

I was surfing the net on day and came upon this cake pop idea from "Bakerella".  Her site is so awesome and her cake pops are out of this world.  So...as you can see another new thing to learn.......adding more to my already existing list of things to expand on. 

Ok, so let's get started......since I had some carrot cake in the fridge that I was going to use that for my cake decorating class but didn't. I decided to use it for this experiment...but first I had to make some cream cheese frosting.  After that was done, I crumbled the carrot cake and added in some cream cheese frosting.  I thought I added enough cream cheese frosting so I started rolling them into balls...but as I later found out, I either lacked the cream cheese frosting or cake cuz the stick didn't adhere to the cake balls that well. I was only able to get a few good ones to make it a cake pop.  But that was not the bad part yet......the melting of the chocolate disaster came next.  I used Wilton candy melts thinking it will be easy breezy....boy, was I wrong.  I don't know what I did wrong....I followed the directions on the back of the bag melting it in the microwave...but the end result was terrible. The chocolate consistency was not thin....liquid-like texture where coating the pops will be easy.  Instead, it was thick...and I didn't know how to thin it.....so now that's something I still need to work on.  Maybe next time I will do the double boiler method and see if that would make a difference. 

Anyways, at the end I was able to savage a few good ones and I added some sprinkles on it to make it look more like a lollipop.  The combo of carrot cake wrapped in vanilla chocolate came out pretty good...especially when you bite into it.  At first, it is hard due to the texture of the chocolate and then a crunch and then something moist inside!!! YUMMY!!!  Will definitely make this again to master the chocolate part....hopefully it will turn out better than this!!! Enjoy for those of  you that are eating this!!!

My class final cake......

This was my last decorating class and the final was to decorate your own cake.  The last thing we learned was making flowers and ta-da.....now I know how to make flowers for decorating.  Not bad for learning something for less than an hour, right?  But I do have to say....at then end, my hand hurts after making seven of them.  The teacher told us that the next class, if we continue we will have to make 50 flowers!!! I'm like....see yah! hahahahah.  I was kinda sad that my class had ended cuz I really liked being able to learn new things from a teacher, eventho most of the things I had done so far was self taught.  The class was fun and got to meet different people and even this lady that will be venturing out her own cupcake truck business.  I wish her the best of luck with it!

The next class after this is "fondant and gum paste" decorating or "flowers and cake designing" (more advance).....still thinking if I should continue or not.  The class time is what's holding me back since it's too late by the time I come home.  My babies miss their mommy too much when she is not at home.....so I don't know yet.  Guess we'll just have to wait and see........

Shaggy mums....Pompoms...and a worm?

Doesn't it look store bought?

Shaggy mums....

Pompoms......

Blue worm hiding amongst the grass.....

These cute cupcakes were made for my decorating class.  The flowers are pompoms and shaggy mums. I just loved the way the shaggy mums turned out!!! They look so pretty.  As for the little blue worm, that's my own creation....pretty cool, huh? The teacher said we can do whatever we wanted too so I was in the mood for insects (due to the previous ladybug gig) and that's how the worm design came up.  I didn't feel like taking it out of the box and so sorry if the pictures are not so clear.

Pineapple Cupcake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

I got this pineapple cupcake recipe from TLC "top 5 healthy treats".  It is considered healthy because you are using crushed pineapples so you don't have to use too much sugar.  When I started making this though, I added some shredded coconut to the batter to make it more tropical.  The outcome was a very moist cake....kinda like the "pineapple upside down" cake texture where the top was shiny glaze-y golden brown color.  Supposedly, there was no frosting recommended just dust the cupcake off with powder sugar.  However, I wanted to see how it would taste like with some frosting.  So I made some coconut cream cheese frosting to top it off.  I didn't try any myself with the frosting on top but my friends did and they said it was a unique taste.  Another commented that there were too many shredded coconut.  Good to know....next time will definitely either lessen the amount of shredded coconut going into the batter or omit the whole thing...=).