makin' treats for the teen

i didn't tell my friend 10yt this, but for last week's baby shower i'd had every intention of surprising the group with some yummy red velvet cake balls. but then i was distracted with god-knows-what, and the box of red velvet cake mix sat on the counter, untouched.

the teen caught sight of it and said "ooooh, are you making these?" and when i told her i'd wanted to make them for the shower but ran out of time, she beamed and said "well, you know what next monday is, riiiiiiight?"

and that is how i put myself on the hook to churn out a batch of those delicious little treats. we were going to celebrate her birthday along with mother's day, since she'd be around despite it being her week with her dad, so i figured it would make a nice addition to the dessert line-up. not to mention, each batch yields close to 50 freaking cake balls, so we'd be needing some help gobbling them up. tough job, huh?

since it was a special birthday treat, i thought i'd dress 'em up a bit. i decided to give bakerella's cupcake bites a shot - which i'd wanted to try for quite a while, and already had the candy mold on hand. i considered making them "pops," since i also had a bag of lollipop sticks, but figured it would be a pain in the ass to display/serve them.

look at the gorgeous (although i could swear i read somewhere that red food dye comes from beetle pee, or some gross shit like that) color of the cake batter:

it baked up quickly and easily, and i set it out to cool completely.

i crumbled it all up, giving myself a devilish looking manicure in the process, and ended up with a big bowl of what almost looked like ground beef. ew.

i scooped out the frosting and dropped it in, and got to work on mixing it all up. still pretty ground beef-ish, huh?

it was getting pretty late by then, so i scooped out the balls, rolled them by hand, and set them on a cookie sheet in the fridge to chill overnight.

i somehow woke up super early on sunday morning - like 6:30-early. i laid there for about ten minutes before i realized i wasn't going to fall back asleep, so i got up and decided to proceed with the final steps of operation cupcake bite.

since i don't have a double boiler, i just use my soup pot and a medium-sized pyrex bowl that magically fits perfectly inside. i poured in a couple of inches of water and turned it on to simmer, put my candy melts in the bowl, and set it in the pot.

i stirred and stirred...

and finally, the chocolate was all melty and gooey and ready to go.

i was a little apprehensive about the dipping and decorating part, because past experience has taught me that i'm really not good at this kind of stuff. i always wanted to dabble in cake decorating and candymaking, but my talents apparently only lie in the actual cooking/baking. let's just say that wan will never be a food stylist and leave it at that.

but i followed bakerella's instructions carefully, spooned a bit of chocolate into my candy mold, and pushed a cake ball in, making sure to press down hard enough to make the chocolate come up along the sides of the mold.

so far, so good. and it was pretty easy, although i ended up getting a little too generous with the chocolate in a few of the molds. oops.

the tray only had 8 spots, so after i'd done the first batch, i put it in the freezer to harden, sat down at the computer, did a little tweeting, and caught up on my google reader. luckily, it only takes a few minutes for the chocolate to firm up, so i didn't have to wait long. and i was happy to see that the cupcakes popped out really easily - no nonstick spray or anything needed. although those overly-coated pieces required me actually taking my trusty kitchen scissors and trimming off the extra chocolate. too much chocolate! well, i never.

as i got to the last of the cake balls, i found that my generosity with the chocolate came back to bite me in the ass. i had about seven left to make, and only this much candy to work with:

oh, well. i cranked out two more and called it a day. i washed the bowl out, dried it carefully (you can't get any water in with the candy, because that just fucks it all up), and poured in the second bag of candy melts - pink this time, for the "cupcake" tops.

as i waited for the chips to melt, i inspected my container of decorative sprinkles, which was actually a valentine's day set. heh. i liked the sprinkles, but there were little red candy "lips" in there, so i poured some out and picked out the offending pieces.

and because it required both hands to do this part, i don't have any pictures of the dipping process. but i was stoked to see that it was easy peasy - i just pulled a few of the cupcakes out of the fridge at a time, leaving the rest to stay nice and chilled. working quickly, i plucked a bite from the tray, held it by the chocolate "paper cup" part, and dipped and twirled into the pink candy. i sprinkled some of the colorful decorations on top, set it down, and repeated the process until all of the cupcakes were dressed and ready to chill until the BBQ later that day.

look at my little cupcake bite army!

i took a picture on the iPhone and sent it to the teen (still at her dad's until noon), and laughed at her excited response: "those are AMAZING! are those mini sprinkles cupcakes??" heh. no, love, these are so way better.

aren't they cute?

all in all, with the dipping/decorating taking a solid two hours to complete, i figure i spent about 3.5 hours on this project. but it was worth it - the teen loved 'em, i had fun making them, and they sure are delish. yay!

sorry, 10yt & co. i'll try to make these for y'all next time!

a tale of bunco

picking up from last week - my balls were all wrong.
but nanette to the rescue! i damn near broke out into song.
"not enough chocolate. re-roll those balls by hand!"
i listened and learned, and the results were quite grand.


so i loaded my tray of precious balls into the car
and hoped that they'd make it - i had to drive quite far.
i cursed the friday traffic and thanked god for my navi
but i'd printed a map out too, because i am just so savvy.

then into tater's narrow one-car garage i squeezed
no issues with parking! i was really quite pleased.
we sat down to wait for the others to arrive
and soon we were ready to continue our drive.

as we headed down the 405, we laughed and chattered
running oh, SO late, but we pretended it didn't matter.
tater gave the security guard her name and he let us in
right through the gates of coto, where none of us had been.


inside the house, there were hugs, greetings, and snacks
everyone was happy and excited, so it was easy to relax.
"jibbitz", the monkey, and diane showed off their fun shoes
while tater slipped off to find herself some booze.



a tour of the house, a little munching, and meeting their pet
then we split off into groups of four, and we were all set.
sarah and kim tried their best to explain to us the rules
but we were so loud and rambunctious, just acting like fools.


diane got lucky - rolled a bunco and won a fun prize
out of the bag came some "pees" - she couldn't believe her eyes.
we tried to explain that she was forgetting a "p"
but she was over the moon, so we just let her be.


poor aline got stuck all alone with her wine
but she was double-fistin' it, so she was just fine.
and she ended up stuck with the DOG on her team
heh. she was screwed, or so it would seem.

when the game was over there was no clear winner
.and my portion of the prize fell short of buying me dinner.
the monkey and jess got a part of it too
and nessdog took home a silly toy that went poo.

of course, we gathered to snap a group shot
aren't we cute? aren't you thinking "hey, that's hot!"
then a round of hugs, some laughs, and squeals of delight
and that was the end of our o.c. bunco night.

stupid effing cake balls.

i keep forgetting why i'm no good at intricate, detailed things like cake decorating and embroidery and sewing in general: i don't have any fucking patience.

after reviewing the directions for those fabulous red velvet cake balls, i convinced myself that it'd be totally easy - i mean, how hard could it be? well, i'll tell you - it's not really hard, but it's really freaking frustrating.

i got off to a great start - at least mixing up cake batter from a mix is idiotproof.
and then i hopped into the shower while it baked. i got ready, threw some clothes on, came out to a lovely-smelling kitchen and pulled the cake out of the oven.
i let the cake cool for a few hours - ran some errands, picked up the kid from school, took her to her tutoring session, and returned to complete the next step - mooshing the cake into crumbles with my hands. i'm such a priss, though, because i didn't want to do it barehanded. instead, i put a ziploc bag over my hand and went to work.
the next step was to mix a can of cream cheese frosting thoroughly with the crumbled cake. again, this is best done by hand, but i used two forks instead. worked just fine, and i had minimally messy digits. so far, so good.
by now, it was time to pick the kid up, so i stuck the bowl into the fridge, strapped the bean into her car seat, and took off. when i got back, i found my cookie scooper and started making cake balls.

it was all going quite swimmingly (what a stupid ass saying. and i'm lame as hell for using it), until the next step: dipping the chilled cake balls into melted chocolate. that shit is a pain in the ass. when you have balls made of crumbled CAKE and then you try to coat them in hot ass melted chocolate...that shit falls apart instantly and you end up with crap that looks like bloody turds.

fuck, man. i was planning to take half the batch to bunco night and the other half to dinner at my mom's for my sister's birthday. instead, i'm totally scrambling trying to figure something else out, because no way in hell am i taking these ugly ass bloody poop balls out in public. "yay, great to see you. i brought - these. just eat them without looking, okay?"

at least i had the kid, who "mmmmmmm"ed when she ate one, and the bean, who just giggled at me as i smiled back while uttering terrible, very un-mommy-like epithets.
hmmmmmffffppphhhhhh. [popping deformed cake ball into mouth]

mmm. at least they taste how they're supposed to. and that's what's important, right?

right?

[crickets]

dang.

must. have. more. balls.

so i've been on a mission to find red velvet cake mix for ages. and not that overpriced sprinkles stuff, either. oh, no, i was hunting down a cheap, simple, but delicious version made by good old duncan hines. this stuff is pretty common down south and in the midwest, but in southern california? not so much.

nanette posted about these fabulous red velvet cake balls that she'd found on bakerella's blog a few weeks ago, and then when we were planning winnie's goodbye party, i begged her to make some for us. being the sweetheart that she is, she obliged - and they were even more scrumptious than i'd imagined.

i'm drooling just typing about it.

and since then, i've been checking the baking aisle of every grocery store i set foot in. nanette found hers at ralph's, so i tried there. nope. vons? zilch. albertsons? zippo. and then i remembered that i'd had good luck in the past in finding obscure grocery items, like marshmallow fluff, at stater bros. i really hate going to stater's (it reminds me of walmart for some reason, and i have to be absolutely desperate to set foot in a walmart), but the memory of biting into those dee-licious cake balls was enough to grit my teeth and give it a shot.

you know where i'm going with this.

um, hell yeah, i found my cake mix! while i ran into the store, the kid sat in the car listening to her beloved jonas brothers and kept an eye on the bean, who was snoozing in the back seat. and then she gave me that famous "WTF?" look when i bounced so blissfully back into the driver's seat, grinning from ear to ear. when i held up the box triumphantly, as if i'd just won an olympic medal, she just rolled her eyes and stuck those earbuds back into place.

i also found another flavor of cake mix that looked quite interesting. i giggled a little, remembering an exchange the kid and i had last week, and scooped that up too. gotta love that literal translation on the front there.

damn, i just realized that it has one of my most hated words in the entire english language printed quite prominently on the box. huh.

fuck it, i'm still excited, yay!

winnie and her rock star band(s)

the bean, the kid, and i spent a fun and fabulous afternoon with some of the SFAMily. the monkey has a great picture-filled recap here. our beloved winnie is leaving us for the wrong coast, but for the right reasons - her hub is there! so we planned a farewell shindig for her, which was graciously hosted by nanette and her wonderful ILs.

somehow, i managed to have a 2:00 start time stuck in my nugget, which i of course didn't realize was wrong until i pulled up the evite to get the address. mm-hmm, by the time i was plugging the info into the navigation system, it was already starting. nice. and we still had to stop at the store to pick up some soda that i'd volunteered to bring! d-oh.

when we first started talking about details for this get-together, i jokingly said that i was going to make a recipe i'd found called "winnie's white chocolate drops." i bookmarked it and forgot about it until saturday, when it was time to make the treats i promised to bring. so i printed it out, realized i already had all the ingredients on hand, and got to work.

they were so easy - just melt together some peanut butter and white chocolate chips, mix in some rice krispies cereal, peanuts, and mini marshmallows, and drop tablespoonfuls onto a baking sheet. stick them in the fridge till they're set, and then melt some chocolate chips in a ziploc baggie, cut the corner, and drizzle. i ended up going to bed before the last step, but managed to get it done about 20 minutes before leaving for the party.

and because i'm a total dork, i decided it would be fun to make my drizzles into "w"s - for winnie, of course!

when we got to the house, i was not-so-secretly pleased to note that we were not the last to arrive. i really HATE being late! ugh.

nanette picked up cuban food from versailles for all of us - i went with the combo of chicken and pork. i'd never tried this place before, and i instantly understood the raves from the other girls with my first bite. oh, so delicious. i wish i had more of it right now. the monkey mentioned that the pork was even better than the chicken i was "mmmmmm"ing over, and she was totally right. and the kid LOVED the rice. oh, how i wish there was a versailles near us.

and along with my "winnie" treats, nanette made a batch of red velvet cake balls - and i almost wish she hadn't, because we helped ourselves to the leftovers (packed carefully in a baggie) and now i literally have to sit on my hands to keep from eating them all. they're just so dang scrumptious.

after the eating was over, and we'd all managed to get in a nice amount of chit-chatting, it was game time. nanette busted out an impressive stack of xbox games that included karaoke revolution, guitar hero, rock band, and dance dance revolution. this was actually how i managed to bribe the kid into going to this shindig - she LOVES rock band. and as we watched her in action, she proved that she's pretty damn good at it.

nanette went first, at the guest of honor's request, and we all joined her in karaoke-ing "baby got back." and then the monkey jumped up to deliver quite an impressive rendition of "humpty dance" - she didn't even need to look at the screen for most of the song!


the bean got lots and lots of attention, too.

r had quite the magic touch!

i love my girls.

the monkey was quite proud of her perfect score. ha!


our rock bands, in all the different configurations (i love how the kid managed to score a part in almost all of them):

check out these band members, totally focused on their parts:

this made us sad.

amber finished off the gaming with a quick DDR demo.


lastly, here's a group photo - what's a GTG without a group photo?

and as i said to winnie, i refuse to look at this as "goodbye" - we have e-mail and the knot to help us keep in touch! this does not, however, mean that i won't miss her. winnie makes me laugh like no other.

good luck, winnie + hub, travel safe, and KIT!

U R
2 good
2 be
4gotten!

have a bitchen move! whee!