Disaster!

I think the biggest disaster is that I always spell it "diaster."

Nah, not really. I think a volcano being attacked by a shark, giant octopus, wolf, The Cold, and an encroaching ocean is pretty disastrous. Oh! Don't forget the meteor and wrecked helicopter.

See, this is a cake that I was planning for Hillary's 19th birthday, and now it's 2 months past her 20th birthday, so to say this is belated is quite an understatement. Anyway, we love watching cheesy corny disaster movies together ("The Day After Tomorrow," "Absolute Zero," "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus," "2012" for example) so this cake takes its inspiration from all of those movies and more.

The cake turned out a little more cartoonish--maybe it was the fondant octopus or the light blue icy lava-- than I was originally picturing in my head, but it turned out really great. The "lava" and ocean are made out of royal icing, which made cutting into the cake a little more difficult than originally planned, and the meteor, octopus, and shark fin are all made of out Wilton fondant (why Wilton? Because it's cheap and no one was going to eat the pieces anyway). The volcano is chocolate buttercream, and the cake is coffee flavored.

Shout out to Sarah! For telling me how to make coffee cake, and to pass it on, I'll tell you now! (Because have you ever tried to google "coffee flavored cake recipe?" It doesn't work, I tell you!) OK, so you take your cake recipe (or box mix) and instead of putting water or whatever liquid, use double-brewed coffee instead. And my dad says there's some secret "thing" about double brewed coffee, like it will break the coffee maker or something...so I just asked him to brew the coffee for me.

So there you have it! The Disaster Cake. While not as epic as the end of the world, this cake was pretty grand, and according to Chris, the best tasting cake I've ever made!

Cake Balls: The Pictures

So here's the pictorial evidence of the candy corn cake balls that I made!

First, the candy corn:

Here we have a picture of the newly chocolated cake balls. (of course "chocolate" is a verb!) You might be able to see that some of the candy corn melted and leaked out of their shiny, tempered chocolate shell. Also note the beautiful sprinkles that Haley & I decorated with:

And finally, the close up:

These were oddly and surprisingly delicious.

More Cake Balls and Disasters

Thanksgiving is coming up, and if all the holiday specials on the Food Network weren't enough of an indication, 'tis the season for delicious food!

Last week I made two different kinds of cake balls: I tried banana again, this time with a dark chocolate coating (not almond bark) and vanilla/candy corn.

The candy corn was interesting, to say the least. Joy and Haley helped me make them, and honestly, I don't think I would've ever tried if they hadn't suggested it. We made a plain ol' vanilla cake but chopped up candy corn pieces when we rolled them into cake balls. Then we tried to melt the candy corn to use as a coating, instead of chocolate.

The first problem was that the melted CC was very thick and difficult for dipping. Honey to the rescue! I suppose corn syrup would've been a good thinner too but we didn't have any of that.

The second problem was that the coating never really hardened. We put them in the freezer and everything but once they were sitting out at room temp, they got all mushy and sticky.

The solution? Coat the balls again in chocolate. The chocolate helped retain the moisture, and the candy corn took on an almost caramel-y texture and taste. The double-layer of candy coating actually turned out well. This is definitely an experiment I want to explore more.

And let me just say that tempering chocolate? It's magical. It's also pretty difficult, and I ended up with a lot of streaky chocolate, but thanks to my friends Hillary (for giving me the directions and confidence to try tempering) and Grant (who loaned me the all-too-important thermometer), I think I did pretty good.

I got some more cake ball requests from my family for Thanksgiving, so I'll try pumpkin or something equally delicious and festive. And Wednesday is the Disaster Party (an excuse to get together with friends and watch horribly corny apocalyptic movies and eat cake) which Hillary & I have been planning for a year, so I'm making the cake for that this afternoon.

So there's my baking update! I'll have lots more to share this week! :)

Banana Chocolate Cake Balls

Hello, everyone! It's your favorite MIA baker, back with some more tasty tidbits!

Just wanted to share my recent cake ball shenanigans... banana chocolate!

Sorry about the crappy pictures...they were taken with my camera phone and/or a webcam. I wasn't prepared with my real camera because I was dog/house sitting with my roomie, and the cake ball thing was sorta spontaneous. I said "hey, doesn't banana cake balls covered in chocolate sound amazing??" and she said "we're going grocery shopping!" We turned on some Christmas music, and it happened just like that.

And I know you're excited to know what my recipe is, so let me share it with you:

A box of banana bread (I used whichever brand didn't have walnuts in it, since roomie is allergic...Pillsbury, according to the picture below), 2 bananas, chocolate almond bark, cream cheese icing, and yellow sprinkles. The sprinkles are the important ingredient, of course.

Just follow the recipe on the box (honestly, homemade banana bread would've been 100000x better, but sometimes you gotta work with what you have) and add 2 sliced up bananas to the batter for a better banana-y flavor. I suppose if you want to add walnuts, you can.

I used a cream cheese frosting to mix it up with, but you really don't need a lot, because banana bread is already really moist.

Finally, dip it in the melted chocolate almond bark. Or get all fancy and use legit tempered chocolate. I really wish I had the knowledge and patience to make tempered chocolate, because the almond bark just isn't cutting it for me. I'm sorry I'm such a chocolate snob, and if you want to continue to use almond bark, by all means do. I probably will be too, until I get my own bakery, and then I'm bringing out the big guns.

Just a picture of me being silly.