Coconut Macaroons Attempt #4

Coconut macaroons are so delicious. It's an easy and simple recipe...or so I thought. Every time I baked it something went wrong. The first batch I made my oven decided to have a mind of it's own. I think they were in the oven for only 10 minutes when I smelled something burning. I opened the oven and to my surprise the temperature had quickly increased to 500 degrees! I changed the dial down to 200 degrees and the temp did lower but the bottoms had gotten very, very dark. I have an old gas oven, if you already didn't know from a past post.

My second batch I had forgotten the salt but that wasn't too bad. The taste was still pretty good. The third batch I decided to be ambitious and make it from memory. That was a horrible mistake. The recipe I use calls for 1/4 tsp. of salt and I ended up using 1 whole heaping teaspoon of it! I wasn't a huge fan of the taste but I had a friend try them and he didn't complain. I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I wanted to throw them away in disappointment. Instead, I gave them all to my friend, haha. The fourth batch came out the way I wanted. As they say, practice makes perfect!

Ingredients:

14 oz. sweetened shredded coconut
14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 extra large eggs whites in room temperature
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Combine the coconut, condensed milk and vanilla in a large bowl.
In a separate bowl whip the egg whites and salt at medium speed with a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk until they make medium-firm peaks. Then carefully fold the egg white mixture into the coconut mixture. Drop the batter onto sheet pans lined with parchment paper or you can use a baking spray. You can use a tablespoon or a cookie scooper. Bake between 25-30 minutes, until golden brown. Let them cool then serve.

Pictured above is the first batch I made. See how the bottoms got very dark.


Here is a batch I made with chocolate drizzled on top. I used Bakers Semi-sweet chocolate squares. I just melted a few squares in the microwave and then drizzled them over after they were very cool. It takes a while for the chocolate to firm up so I placed them in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Rainbow Cake Pops

I have a friend who wanted rainbow themed cake pops for a party. I was up for the challenge and got my inspiration from these two blog sites: Brooke McClay's Rainbow Cake Pops on Babble and Sue's Munchkin Munchies Blog. I wanted to surprise people with a rainbow cake center than just an outer rainbow design. I had a lot of fun making these pops.

I took two boxes of vanilla cake mix and tried to divide them evenly the best I could into six bowls. Then I added food coloring to each bowl. They turned out a bit lighter than I wanted. Then I baked them in cupcake form.

After they cooled I put the cupcakes in a bowl and broke them up till they were crumbs. Then I mixed the frosting in to bind them together. I had to guess the right amount. Too much frosting and they'll end up mushy and will fall off the stick. Too little and the cake will not stick together.

I placed them in a cake pan and layered them so they had the rainbow pattern. Then I placed it in the refrigerator overnight to firm up. They are a lot easier to roll up in balls when they are right out the the refrigerator.

Here they are after I rolled them into cake balls. It came out real nice with a tie-dye effect. Then I proceeded to dip the sticks in some chocolate and placed them in each cake ball. Then I placed them in the refrigerator for just a few minutes and then took them out while I had my candy melts in my Babycakes Chocolatier getting melted. When the chocolate was just the right consistency I proceeded to dip. NOTE: I alway have issues with my candy melts getting too thick so I always add a tablespoon of melted shortening.

I was also able to find a rainbow mixture of M&M's at a candy store in the Los Cerritos Mall. This candy store is one of the best places to find what I need to decorate my cake pops. I originally wanted to use the M&M's to make a rainbow design but they were a little too big and looked funny. So I decided to use them around the pop. I piped a little bit of chocolate to use as a glue when I added the M&M's and voila!

Other cake pops that I've recently made...

These are Hawaiian themed cake pops made out of red velvet cake. I tried my best to pipe hibiscus flowers on the white ones.

These were a huge hit! My famous Minnie and Mickey Mouse silouhette cake pops. Also made with the rainbow cake center. Too pretty to eat!

A little help goes a long way

I recently bought the Babycakes Chocolatier at the local Kohls. I had wandered in over a week ago looking for a double boiler. Unfortunately, they had none and I stumbled upon the section of Babycakes products and seen the chocolatier. I did another look around for a double boiler just incase I had missed one. Then I went back and stared at the box, opened the box, looked inside and placed the box back on the shelf. After a few seconds I decided to get it.

I placed the candy melts inside and plugged it in. It took a while for them to melt, around 30 minutes.

After I got the right consistency I was ready to dunk the cake balls in. I liked how it kept the chocolate warm and I didn't have to worry about it getting too thick. I did remove the ceramic pot from the base before I did my dunking. I noticed it was too hot if I just left it in the base. Since I had my cake balls in the refrigerator I had to take them out 5 minutes prior or I would have horribly cracked cake pops.

Here is a close up of one of the cracked cake pops. I had 3 of these in the second batch I made.

The first batch of cake pops I made were red velvet and covered in sprinkles. These didn't crack. I read online that air bubbles can cause cracking and I think the sprinkles helped prevent air bubbles in the chocolate.

My second batch of cake pops were vanilla flavored. I did a cute design with butterflies that I made from a chocolate mold.

I made the cake pops for a 5 year-old's birthday party. She adored them and they were a huge success.

Cake Pop Maker

A few weeks back I had an order for 100 cake pops. Luckily, it got reduced to 30 pieces but before that happened I decided to get a lil help. I went online and found the Tasty Top Cake Pop Maker from Amazon.com. It was a few dollars cheaper and included free shipping compared to if I were to get it from the actual website. I tried it today and baked some red velvet balls. I wasn't impressed. After baking, some of the balls weren't too round and the taste was boring. I prefer the old fashioned way using frosting. I have an order this week for 50 cake pops but I decided to ditch this cake pop maker and make it the original way. I might use this again if I have to make a huge order but it's too late to get my money back...hahaha!

This is what the cake pop maker looks like. I just took them out of the oven.

This is what it looks like after I removed the top.

Unfortunately, I wasn't impressed with the shape. Most weren't round enough and I didn't like the texture.

After popping them out of the mold there were excess on the sides. It looks funny but it sure was a fun experience.

Baking is so much fun

It's been a while since I last posted in here. I haven't been baking much this year since I've been busy with work and school. So here are some of my baked creations that I have made since I last posted in here.

Sugar cookie pops for a Willie Wonka theme at work for Halloween. It was my first time making cookie pops and I had a lot of fun. Very simple to do except when I was trying to make the icing colors real bright and dark. I had to use a lot of icing color gel, especially to make red. But it was a huge success!

I made these adorable football themed cupcakes for my co-worker's son's birthday bash. They were chocolate chip flavored and a big hit. It was tedious piping the green grass but it was worth it. The footballs were made out of chocolate from a football mold.

I made these orange marmalade cupcakes for fun oneday. I got the recipe off of Martha Stewart's website. I made a cocoa flavored, cream cheese frosting with a hint of almond extract and added the almonds on top. They were delicious!

Vanilla poinsetta cupcakes made with buttercream frosting. Made these for a co-worker's christmas party. I also made some red velvet cake pops for him. They were simple pops covered in white chocolate and I piped green and red colored chocolate all over.

I made these fudge brownie, mint chip cake pops for a christmas party at work. Everyone loved them!

The Summer Heat

I had two cake pop orders to do and the California heat was not helping me one bit. Also my home doesn't have air conditioning so I was having a difficult time making them. The chocolate was not setting and the cake pops were falling off the stick! So I decided that every time I dipped a cake pop in chocolate I would immediately put it in the refrigerator to set. My legs were not happy from going back and forth, that's for sure.

But there was a huge downfall from putting them in the refrigerator. I didn't know that it condenses and all my cake pops were sweating. So from this experience I learned it isn't wise to put cake pops in the refrigerator...hahaha. Seventy-five cake pops later!

Cake Pops with a blue butterfly detail

Cake Pops with a red flower detail

Cute baby shower cake pops

All cake pops were red velvet flavored.

Neon Cake

Lately I've been having bad luck with making cake pops. I think the cake pops had too much frosting and ended up being so soft that it fell off the stick. When I decided to go for Round 2 I decided to melt my chocolate candy melts in the microwave and some how burned them! It certainly wasn't my day for cake pops. Since I had some red velvet cake left over I decided to make a layered cake. Luckily, I had baked them in six-inch cake pans and I had enough for 2 thin layers. I decided to go nuts and baked some chocolate cake so I could make a 4 layer cake. I had some leftover cream cheese frosting and added some rum extract that I bought on a whim from the local Food-4-Less.




Then I made some vanilla buttercream frosting. I was debating over using green or blue food coloring and ended up using green. A few drops of the icing color gel and a nice light green color came out. It was a struggle to frost this cake since I didn't put it in the refrigerator. Note to self: let cake cool in the refrigerator before frosting. The buttercream didn't adhere to the cake on the sides because of the filling pooling out but oh well, I made it!

With some whimsical neon orange piping this cake came out pretty cute. Not bad for a practice cake. It was too cute to eat so I ended up giving it to a friend. Haha!