At my school, we have a class period between second and third periods (deemed “power period”) that is used for remedial and enrichment classes. My power period is Science Olympiad – we prepare for science competitions in different events. And people bringing in baked goods stirs up quite a lot of excitement. Thanks to a dear friend who is quite vocal about his opinions, everyone knows that I bake, and that I was bringing something in for St. Patrick's Day today.
I'm always nervous to take baked goods to school - the ownership of food often attracts, for lack of a better word, moochers.
I climb out of my car, throw my backpack over my shoulder, and gingerly pick up the sweets. Making my way across the overcast parking lot, I glance around in paranoia, clutching my tupperware box of treasure. I make it through first period without event. Then, as I walk to second period, panic. My box! It's missing - what happened to it? I rush back up the hall. My friend David sees me and attempts to give me a hug; I side-step him, apologize, and dash around a group pf people blocking the way. When I get to the classroom, my teacher has left. The second period class is congregated outside the door. I look around in distress, and decide to wait. Still no sign of the teacher. The bell rings; I'm late. I wait around for another minute or so before asking one of my friends in the next class to pick up the box and GUARD IT WITH HIS LIFE. When I get to power period, I see my dear friend over by a lab table, cradling the box under his arm. Sighing in relief, I thank him profusely and place the opened container on the front lab table. People take notice, and within five minutes, everything is devoured. I'm thanked, hugged, and even picked up. I think everyone liked them.
CAKE BALLS! I know I make these too often, but as you can see, no one seems to mind :P
I'll admit, I threw this together a bit haphazardly. The recipe was supposed to make two pies, but despite the deliciousness of pie, I think it's unlikely I could eat two. My circumference would pay for it. So I reduced it by half and didn't check my fractions. They seemed about right, though I did forget to add powdered sugar for decoration.
Delicious, ugly pie
And! because I like being a math nerd...
From memory: 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105
“That WOULD be why you’re looking forward to it,” he replied teasingly.
Last Thursday was a half-day, and we're off school for winter break from Friday to Tuesday. This respite from homework is much needed as math team competitions, district honor band, and Science Olympiad competitions approach. So much studying needs to be done!
But, that also means I had to give out Valentine’s sweets to friends on Wednesday the tenth. Nobody minded ;)
After much contemplation, I decided on three things to make: Heart-shaped red velvet cake balls, Ritz crackers with peanut butter in between, coated in chocolate, and sugar cookies.
I’ve made the cake balls many times in the past (they’re everyone’s favorite, I’m led to believe) but usually I use a box mix. It kills me inside to do so, but as I’m so limited for time and resources, sometimes it’s the most I can manage. And the Ritz recipe was a favorite of my grandmother’s before she passed away. My sister and I have made them countless times. Sugar cookies were a spur of the moment idea :)
This time, everything that could be made from scratch, was. The long hours spent in the kitchen were worth every minute.
First, the cake hearts.
I’ve been following baking blogs for a long time, and I believe Bakerella’s sharing of the “cake balls” recipe has been the most significant story I’ve come across. The idea is genius! All the goodness of a frosted cake, bite-sized and chocolate coated. Yes!
I set to work. I used the red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting recipe from here
However, it calls for vinegar, and having had a rather unfortunate experience with a strawberry soup globbed with (balsamic) vinegar, I opted to add lemon juice in its place.
The cakes came out so red and velvety that I couldn't bear not to make an actual cake first. And the frosting turned pink, as a result of my lack of will to clean the bowl stained red from the batter! How festive!
It was the best red velvet cake I’ve ever tasted.
I used a silicone here pan (http://www.amazon.com/Wilton-Petite-Silicone-Cavity-Heart/dp/B000M9N7CM) that I got for Christmas to make the balls heart-shaped. Around that same time, I began assembling the Ritz cookies.
I melted a bar of white chocolate to see if the cake hearts would still resemble hearts after the added bulk. Success!
Day 1 of baking completed.
Day 2
Melting chocolate is always a stress for me. The first few times I ever attempted it, my chocolate seized. Care to know how I tried to fix it? By adding water.
I learned eventually.
So I had two batches of things to chocolate-coat: the Ritz cookies and the cake hearts. Usually, due to lack of funds, I use the Kroger brand baking chocolate. However, it’s more of a milk chocolate. I stuck with it for the Ritz cookies, but for the cake hearts, I used a dark chocolate brand. White chocolate came into play when I ran out of regular chocolate, and I added some Wilton’s red melting disks for some pink~
After all the chocolate coating was done, I made the sugar cookie dough, which I refrigerated until the day before I gave out the treat bags. I don’t really have any pictures of it, because it was so simple. But I used this recipe from allrecipes.
(which had been saved 75,000 times)
And I received several wide-eyed faces of delight when people ate them.
It was great to bake so many things. Each bag had two Ritz cookies, two cake hearts, and a sugar cookie. I was able to make twenty seven bags, and was immensely thanked by all who got one. Honestly though, I’m just flattered they eat what I make ;)
Red Velvet Cake Hearts
I followed the recipe from this site, as stated above, but used 1 tsp. of lemon juice in place of 1 tsp. vinegar. For the frosting, I only made 3/4 of the recipe.
At this point, you can just make regular cake balls (method here). Or, to make cake "hearts," simply form hearts with the cake-frosting mixture. I did this with a heart silicone pan, but I can imagine you could also use a cookie cutter or, if you are very skilled, your hands. To make the balls/hearts less sticky for the chocolate coating (and less likely to fall apart) it's best to stick them in the freezer until you're ready to coat them.
Ritz Cookies
- Ritz Crackers
- Peanut Butter (I use creamy)
- Melting chocolate (any kind will work)
Simply put peanut butter between two ritz crackers. When all the ritz crackers are used up, melt the chocolate (I usually just use a microwave) and coat them with it.
I halved the recipe and used lots of red sprinkles :)
Thank you for reading my debut blog post! ^_^
