Mmmmm.....Peanut Butter......

My final project was a personal one. I am taking these treats to a party later, and wanted to take something I'd wanted to try and make for a while. One time I was in one of my supply stores, I saw peanut-butter flavoured pastilles.... I instantly wanted them, but felt I should wait until I actually had a project to make otherwise I would just eat them.... all...... by myself.

My opportunity come along when I decided to make "Inside Out Reece's Truffles". Chocolate cake inside, dipped in peanut-butter flavoured chocolate, topped with a single Reece's piece.

My Mother tried one.... I'm going to have to make more just for her.....

It's a Bird....It's a Plane......

.....It's Superman!!!!!
These are my very first super hero cake pops! For some time I've wanted to do a set of pops inspired by the Justice League of America, so I guess I've made the first step.

These are for a Super little boy's Birthday party. Mum was inspired by a photo she saw on Pintrest, and came to me in the hopes that I could recreate these pops for her. Luckily, these were classically designed and remained true to the "Superman" colour scheme, therefore wasn't too difficult to stay true to the original design. I have to admit that I was glad to make pops for a little boy as most of the pops I've made are for little girls, and it was fun to work with dark blue and red and not pale green and pink. My boyfriend certainly got a kick out of them!

Hope the party was a big success!!

 

 

A Week-End Treat

It seems it's been a while since I've posted about my latest projects! Truth be told, I've been having a bit of a "holiday" and not baking so much in the hot weather. But this past week was a complete 180 as I had three projects to work on!

First was an order designed to be a week-end treat for the step-daughter of a colleague of Patrick's (aren't you glad that wasn't the title of this posting!!) When I'm making pops for little girls, younger than 9, I can imagine pink, purple, sprinkles, and other fun girlie decorations adorning all the pops. When it comes to 9-year-old however I have to think older. After all, she's still a kid but she's starting to grow just a little bit. So I tried to come up with designs that would strike this balance.
I hope she liked them!

 

Something to get those Neurons Firing...

If you enjoyed last week's post about the tea pots then perhaps these pops won't be your cup-of-tea. Personally, I enjoyed getting my brain in gear in order to make these pops, and even though I had to make my own mold I wasn't nervous about whether or not they would turn out. However, compared with the animals, sprinkles, and swirls I normally produce some may find these offal... enough puns yet? Some of you may know I am a bit of a nerd at heart, and though it doesn't happen often enough I was thrilled to get out my anatomy books to help me designs these latest cakes. As such, when my friend told me she needed pops for her step-daughter's academic achievement, I secretly hoped she would ask for this design... because how else do you celebrate someone being accepted to do their Master's in Neuroscience, the study of the nervous system and the brain, and how it interacts and controls the body? Why, with little brains in colours coordinated with your school's colours... of course. Despite the bad brain puns littering this post I seriously enjoyed getting into this one as it was a cross over between my cake-making and my biology background.

This is the reason I required my anatomy books which I used to create a brain out of fimo in order to create my mold.

 After the fimo core, comes the silicon exterior mold in order to the shape the chocolate.

 The brain stands alone.

 The little army of brains! Most are a brain-like colour but there was a special request to make five of them Bishop's-purple.

 I was really pleased with how the detail came out!

The whole lot of them together...

Every single brain, bagged and tagged.

Tea's Up!

I know, I already blogged about the tea party at my Mum's but I truly felt these little pots needed a special mention. I loved making these, right from researching the best designs to seeing just the plain white pots which came together so quickly just by adding the spout, handle, and lid. Deciding the best designs to put on the pots was tough though, lots of choice!

I kept the design a secret from my Mum until I brought them to the tea party. So glad I did, she was amazed!! Perfect reaction!

 

 This is a miniature tea set from Holland that I got when was a kid. The blue and white tea pot that I made blended in perfectly!  

Fancy a Cuppa?!

For those who need it, translation of "cuppa" is: Cup-of-tea/coffee, usually tea.

This post is not strictly about my cake pops although it does involve some of my truffle balls, this post is about how baking in general can be used for something so yummy and fun! Last Spring our Church had a talent auction and Mum auctioned off an English Tea for Two at her house. Although neither Mum nor I was born in England, we did live there for eight years total within my life so we've picked up a thing or two in terms of English culture and tradition. The hope was that we could have had the tea last year but unfortunately there were too many things that came up at the last minute, so this weekend when schedules finally worked together we were able to hold the tea party! There was rain but after all, what happens in England....?

This whole week, Mum and I have been planning and organising the menu, making sure we included as many English things and as many treats that were memorable to us from when we lived there. We had the essential sandwiches, scones, jams and elderflower cordial, followed by the quintessential Victoria sponge, Grantham biscuits, fairy cakes, and many other sweet goodies. Looking at everything on the table made you quite excited by the idea that not only did this spread look great, but you could also eat it too! Each of the three courses; Bread, Savoury, and Sweet were all accompanies by a different blend of loose tea specifically chosen for that course.

The Fairy Cakes. I used a vanilla cake recipe with lemon in it, plus I added rose water to the icing for that extra English touch.

What is essential at a tea party? A tea pot! I made these out of my truffle cake balls.... 

LOVE THESE!!

Words cannot describe how excited I was to eat all of this!

Everything is all set to go, just waiting for the guests to serve the cordial for the "befores".

The beautiful table set by Mum.

The Menus for the afternoon. The Sweet Course was much longer than the other courses.

Nothing better than appreciative guests, I'm so glad they both had as good a time as Mum and I did having them there.

My Mother being Mother. Mum was in charge of pouring the teas for the different courses. We had three different teas for each course, thanks to the employees at David's Teas for all their help!

Even Mum's lace pillow made an appearance- She's currently working on a handkerchief border for me!!

Everything about this afternoon was fun, hopefully we'll do it again soon!!

Green with Envy

(When in doubt, always go with a classic title)
Any second guesses what the birthday girl's favourite colour is?? That's right, GREEN! You guessed it! Anything green goes with my friend, so there was no doubt of what colour to make her treats. I wanted to add a bit of variety with texture though, so I added different types of sprinkles so as not to make them too samey. I went for a little bling with the middle truffle ball and added a little dragée flower on top for that added touch. (All edible, much to my boyfriend's amazement!)
Happy, happy Birthday Sab!!!