Not to Bake

Move along, folks. No baking to see here.

Happy Fat Tuesday!

Want to hear something funny? Not really "ha ha" funny, but more "you're really weird" funny.

I am not much on cupcakes.

There. I said it. Feels good to be out of that closet.

I will take a small test bite or two, but cupcakes and I don't have the dysfunctional relationship that Oreos and I have. My husband feels the same. Needless to say, the majority of the cupcakes I make are given away. But only after my daughter has had a few. Ever since her first birthday, when she sees a cupcake she squeals like Elmo himself is standing in front of her.

The other day while I was frosting my practice batch, she was intently watching me. Out of nowhere, she excitedly picked up her play cell phone and "called" someone. The only words I understood were "mama," "cupcakes" and "okay, bye!" This must have been breaking news on the toddler circuit.

After all the recent cupcake making, I needed a salty/sweet snack. For me, salty/sweet snacks are in the same realm as Oreos. Only slightly more dangerous.

Lately, I have been seeing lots of variations of chocolate covered popcorn on the internet and I had to give it a try. Here is where the "Not to Bake" part of this blog comes into play. (I will have more of these posts in the future.) This recipe involves no baking. It is so incredibly easy and the results are super fantastic. 

Chocolate Covered Popcorn

1 bag white chocolate chips

1 bag microwave popcorn (preferably natural flavor with no butter)

Pop the corn as directed. 

Pour chips into a microwave safe bowl and cook 1 minute on high. Stir. Repeat at 30 second increments stirring in between until chips are almost melted. Once the majority of the chocolate is melted and there are just a few chips left, keep stirring them into the warm chocolate and they will melt on their own. This keeps you from having to microwave the chocolate further and avoids the risk of scorching. 

Pour the chocolate over the popcorn and toss to coat. It's easiest to use your hands here. Yes, it is messy, but I found a spoon or spatula doesn't work as well and tends to just crush the popcorn.

Once the popcorn is coated, pour onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and allow the chocolate to set up. (This is where I tossed on some of that purple sugar.) Break into pieces and place in an airtight container.

There are so many ways you can go with this recipe. Of course you could use milk chocolate instead of white. You could toss in nuts, pretzels, colored sprinkles or M&M's. You could even accent  the white chocolate popcorn with a drizzle of  milk chocolate, and vice versa. 

Have a great Mardi Gras!

Cake Balls

All photos Copyright © To Bake or Not to Bake 2012 (Unless otherwise noted)

One night last week I baked a cake for a friend of mine. Nothing fancy, just a simple sheet cake. When the timer went off, I checked the cake but it wasn't quite done. The center of it still jiggled as I slid out the oven rack.  It needed just about 10 more minutes, I figured, so I sat down at my computer just to check my email. Before I knew it, I got caught up in editing pictures and a half hour had went by. The smell of the cake jolted me out of my concentration. I ran frantically to the kitchen and saved it from the oven. Amazingly, it wasn't as bad as it should have been. The edges were indeed burned to a crisp but the interior of the cake was unharmed. Though the cake as a whole was not (in my opinion) edible, I was determined to do something to salvage what I could and decided to make cake balls.

Cake balls are really just three ingredients: cake, icing and chocolate to dip them in. I have to be honest here. As simple as the ingredients make them sound, to me, they are very time consuming and I have a hard time getting them to look as clean and pretty as the pros do. But they are always a hit and very fun treats to eat!

This is how I make mine:

Cake Balls 

1 sheet cake (1 box mix, prepared)
1 container of icing 
Melting chocolate *

Crumble the cake into a mixing bowl. Microwave the icing for about 20 seconds (just enough to soften it a little) and stir. Pour over the crumbled cake. Mix well. (I also added 1/2 a cup of mini chocolate chips since I had some on hand.) Put the mix in the refrigerator for about an hour to make it easier to work with, then form into round 1-inch balls. (I use a small scoop to divide out the portions so that they are equal in size and then just rolled them in my hands to give them a good round shape.) Place rolled balls onto a parchment or wax paper-lined cookie sheet and then into the freezer for a couple of hours or even overnight.

Prepare your work area by laying out a few sheets of wax paper. Melt your chocolate according to package directions. Dip the cake balls into the chocolate, shake off any excess and place on the wax paper. Sprinkle with embellishments and allow to set up. 

The dipping is where things get a bit hairy for me. I always use a plastic fork with the middle tines broken out to dip the balls. It works pretty well, but I have a few issues. (I don't have any photographs of my mistakes so I hope what I say next makes sense.)

The first issue I have is that the excess chocolate tends to hang out on the fork and then transfer to the wax paper leaving a big messy puddle of chocolate around each ball that I then have to cut off once they set up. The edges are not very clean and pretty afterwards, but I remedied that this time by placing them in the decorative candy papers. It's all about improvising!

Second, when transferring the dipped cake balls to the wax paper they don't want to leave the fork very willingly. I used a toothpick at the very bottom of each one to help coax it off, but what sometimes happens is that in the process of pushing it off the fork, the ball tends to roll a bit causing any sprinkles or embellishments to be on one side of the ball rather than just on top.

Even though these were a bit challenging for me (I am open to any suggestions and tips!**) I love the learning process and photographing the finished product. In the end, I thought they turned out quite nice. And, I am told, delicious to boot! The compliments more than make up for all the hard work.

*I have mentioned before that I use the bark/chocolate that is packaged in its own tray to make things easier. Also, I used the white chocolate and tinted some of it different shades of pink. Colored candy melts work, too.

**My boss gave me a great tip this morning. She uses toothpicks to dip round treats. Insert the pick, dip the ball, gently shake off the excess the pull it out once it's on the wax paper. Most of the time chocolate will fill in the tiny hole, but if not, just dip the toothpick back into the chocolate and fill it in. I will definitely try this next time!