Cake pops

“Das Werk lobt den Meister. (German: The work proves the craftsman.)”

 

There are two activities which I avoid at all cost:

Scrapbooking/Paper Crafts and Cake Decorating

I know where my strengths lie and it isn’t in formatting a baby book page or making fancy cake pops. I have tried it, I hate it and my end product is usually pretty sloppy.

I’m self aware of my artistic weaknesses, which is why I enlist the help of talented and creative artists to make my ideas come to fruition.

For example, my sister Jackie has helped me tremendously over the years.  She’s made all the cool invites, banners and paper crafts for my kids’ birthday parties, including cake pops.

Here is Elsa’s 7th birthday invite that Jackie created.  The theme per Elsa’s request was Kawaii Donuts.

Check out Jackie’s website:

Direction Designs

Another example of talent is my friend Katherine Wehde.  Her work is amazing and I just love her handmade stamps.  I mean, how cool is my teacher stamp???

Check out her website Weeds and Whimsy

Now fast forward to a few weeks ago when Sophie came to us with her Science project plans. She had to create a 3D model of the earth’s layers and she was going to make a giant cake pop.

She started talking about wooden dowels, giant circle molds, YouTube channels and how it was all going to be SO super easy.

This was my nightmare. I argued that a Rice Krispie Treat ball would be just as cool, but it didn’t work…

Thankfully, we talked her out of the giant cake pop and much to my dismay I agreed to help with making individual cake pops.

Yesterday after school Sophie got to baking and we started the process of rolling and freezing and layering various colors of cake and frosting.

Easy right? Nope.  First of all, our core ended up too big and subsequently each layer required more dough than expected.  We ran out of cake so Sophie had to whip up a few microwaved mug cakes to supplement.

Our cake balls were growing rapidly and there was no going back. By the time we got to the mantle, our pops were far too large for cake pop standards. To add a stick would be like setting a basketball on top of a toothpick.

In the end we had to get creative.

Behold, it’s the earth floating in the universe!

More than anything, I was relieved to see that you could identify the layers of the earth because we did not have a Plan B.

I will admit, I was quite crabby at times and swore occasionally, but in the end we had fun and it was cool to see it turn out fairly well.  Soren even helped. And by “help,” I mean he ate spoonfuls of frosting.

Elsa said they tasted delicious and everyone chipped in and cleaned up, which is a win in my book.

Update: Sophie said her cake balls were a big hit at school.  I am sure all the kids loved being able to eat cake at 9 am.