Beer me, Baby!!

So. I'm pretty much the best girlfriend in the world at this point. Evan and his twin brother had their birthday this weekend and I have been planning an epic birthday cake for months now. Evan and Cam both really like beer. And I really like challenging myself. So I decided to make a "beeramid" cake.

As much as I would like to go into great detail here, I'm not feeling super hot today and I've got to work (7 days off and I've forgotten how cute these kids are!) so it's gonna be a short post with lots of pictures.

Here's the short-hand how-to...

Cut off the end of a can: 

Spray it with PAM and stuff it with rice krispie treats that you JUST made (don't let them cool down and harden!)

After you've made as many as you want (one batch of rice krispies will make about 4 cans), let them harden over night. 

Cali badly wanted to eat them. Mercedes did too, but she
was trying to be stealthy about it and was hiding
from the camera. Smart cat...

Mock-up of how they'd stack...looking good I think...

Put a ring of fondant around the top and use some fondant to fill in any weird holes or gaps in the treats. 

Then cover the whole thing with grey fondant. I also used a little darker grey to make the hole and the same light grey to make the pop top. :)

Make sure you are using cornstarch to keep the fondant from sticking to your rolling surface or itself. Please avoid getting cornstarch on your dog. She will not like it. 

Now you've got to figure out what you need to do for the labels. I talked to one of Evan and Cam's best friends, Andy, who just happens to know everything there is to know about craft beer. I asked him to send me a few pics of craft beers in cans that the twins liked. He recommended Brew Free or Die, Gordon, Dale's Pale Ale, Surly Furious and then I added in Yuengling because I know Cam likes it. 

I rolled out white fondant in the right size for a label and used edible markers to decorate. The lovely ladies at Cake Art also suggested this white edible food coloring that I used much like acrylic paint. It worked some of the time, but not all of the time. Might have been user error on that one. 

Anyway, I can't tell you how I made the labels look so awesome because I'm just talented like that...ok, I'm just really good at copying things. But I still can't help you get better at that. You have to do that for yourself. Anyway, I finished up the beer cans and decided to do some playing cards as well. Reason for this: anytime there ends up being a "beeramid" on the table, there has usually been a drinking game of some sort that involves playing cards. Simple enough. 

Anyway, the next day, Cam's girlfriend, Allie came over to help me do the grunt work. We made the cake (1/2 sheet red velvet...exciting, right?) and covered it in icing and fondant. She also had the great idea to make a playstation remote for the cake as well. Since I am lousy at sculpting on my own, I was glad she was there to do that part. She sculpted the remote and I made the buttons. Then we decided it was time to add everything to the cake. 

We used skewers to make sure the cans stayed where we wanted. That was harder than it looks.

Remote close-up

Crushed can: I carved some of the sides out and made it
look all crushed like that before I added the label.

The cake with all the candles.
There is a napkin in front of it for a reason.
Someone decided to put their finger in it. :(

Anyway, that's all she wrote. Hopefully y'all liked the cake. I sure enjoyed making it! :) Thanks for the help, Allie! Happy Birthday, boys! :) 

Chow down!!

I have a sweet tooth...

So I know I said I would be gone for a while, but I just can't help myself! I missed you guys! :) AND I got a new book! Now, books are my number one passion. I'll read just about anything (currently reading "The Hangman's Daughter" on my kindle...highly recommended!) and I never get rid of my books. I have amassed quite a large library of random reads (note: I'm looking for a library system for my books...if you know of something, pass it my way).

My number two passion would have to be sweets. Both of my grandmothers had a penchant for the refined sugar goodies and I guess it's genetic. If I could, I would live off of sweets and macaroni and cheese. And stinky cheese itself, but that's passion number 3 or 4...but I digress.

The other day, I was surfing around my favorite website (modcloth.com) and found something that combined my two favorite things: Cake Pops the book by Bakerella. I. Am. In. LOVE.

Cake Pops by Bakerella
Find it at Modcloth.com (or in your local bookstore)

Bakerella is fantastic and extremely talented. She has perfected the art of Cake Pops. What are cake pops, you ask? THEY ARE HEAVEN...on a stick. I'm going to give you just a little how-to, but only to entice you to purchase this book. Bakerella's directions are much better than mine.

So...here we go. Ingredients:

• Cake mix and subsequent ingredients OR an already made 9 x 13 sheet cake.
• One tub of frosting
• lollipop sticks
• Candy Coating (I used Kroger brand and it is DAMN good)
• Shortening 
• Egg Yolks
• Food Coloring
• Mini Marshmallows
• Wax paper

Start off by washing those hands. You'll be using them quite a lot today. Also, I suggest making this a 2 day project. Make the cake and let it cool. I'll let y'all figure it out on your own. You can read. 

Once the cake is cooled COMPLETELY, you can begin to crumble it into a large bowl. This takes a while. Set aside enough time to do it right. It needs to be crumbled very thoroughly. Here comes the healthy part. Add 3/4 of the tub of icing to your cake crumbles. Mix well. You want the icing to disappear into the cake. It will look like cookie dough. (but it's baked so sample without fear...not that fear has ever stopped me. It's a wonder I have never gotten salmonella.)

Mix it up!

I was going to start making the cake balls, but I had a boyfriend who was being a little needy ;) so I put the mixture in the fridge for a little while. This let it firm up a bit and made it a little easier to roll! 

Roll them and place them on a baking sheet covered with wax paper. I made mine about twice as big as they should have been, but I'm not sure if I would have been able to decorate them if they'd been smaller. Am going to try again soon and will let you know how it works out.

Now I put them in the fridge overnight. This whole process took a while and the mix got a little gooey so overnight was the only option. If you're doing this in the middle of the day, you can put them in the freezer for about 15 minutes and you should be fine.

Next you're going to shape them. I only bought one kind of candy coating so I had to get a little creative with the shapes. I didn't want to do ghosts and I had already planned on making the cute popcorn buckets. So I decided to go with some hearts I found in the book and also decided to make my own shape. With a hint of irony, I decided to make some in the shape of white shiny teeth. :) They turned out to be my favorite.

Anyway, shape them! Then stick them back in the freezer for a few minutes. While they're in there, melt the candy coating according to the directions. I chose to use the microwave. Here's where the shortening comes in handy. If the coating is too thick, you're going to need to thin it out and the shortening does just that. I should have done this. I think mine was too thick and it made everything more difficult. 

So, dip the lollipop stick in the candy coating and stick it in the dough and set it back on the baking sheet for a little while. You're going to need to put it back in the freezer for a few more. Now you should take the mini marshmallows and use a knife to make lines that make them look like little pieces of popcorn.

Teeth, Hearts and Rectangles...OH MY

Now you're going to dip them into the candy coating! Shake off the excess and stick it in some sort of holder. I poked holes in an old box and set them in there. Most places suggest a styrafoam block. That would have been nice, but I forgot to pick that up. You have to make what you have work, right?

I almost forgot, when you dip the rectangles, you're going to add some "popcorn" made out of marshmallows. You need to do this before the candy coating sets up completely. 

Now, Bakerella suggests using edible markers to decorate the pops. but those didn't work so well for me, so I googled "edible paint" and came up with a very simple recipe. You take an egg yolk and add a TON of food coloring to it. Mix it up and take a tiny paint brush and paint on whatever you'd like. I let the nanner baby paint one. Could have been a disaster, but it turned out pretty cute.

After they dry completely, you're ready to serve them. Here are my finished projects (not as perfect as Bakerella's but I'm pretty proud of my first attempt!):

And here are the nanners enjoying the yummy cake pops:

Nanner boy said I should have added
brown spots to the teeth to make them
look like they had cavities. He's funny.

Yeah. I gave him another one.
He's too cute. 

Now, I know some of you will notice the absence of a small, furry cutie. I try to keep her away from food. This time, however, she was preoccupied with a plastic bag.