Cake Pops

My friend D’s bridal shower and bachelorette was this weekend. We celebrated her happiness and how exciting it is for her to be getting married next month.

I first met D through my friend Mon a couple of years back. We had both heard a lot about one another, and hit it off right away. I think it’s our love of the color pink, cupcakes and sugar.

It’s definitely not our love of cake pops.

I love making them. They’re cute. Fun. And easy to get your friends to help out with.

Her opinion? Well. It’s not so favorable.

She may or may not have attempted making them once. 4 trips to the grocery store and $100 later, not to mention an irritated boyfriend who suggested she just go buy some at a bakery after the first few trips? I believe they were a success. But at that point, it was more the principle of just conquering the Paula Deen recipe.

I believe it was a “melting of the chocolate” issue.

She now hates cake pops. And Paula Deen. And me every time I give her a hard time or feature them on the blog (hey girl, heeeeeeyyyy!).

So I couldn’t help but laugh when I walked into the private room of a restaurant where her shower was being held.

Copious amounts of cake pops!

It couldn’t have been any more ironic.

Other things there were copious amounts of?

Tiramisu. Cupcakes. Candied almonds. Sheet cake. Hershey’s kisses.

Alright, so the cake had strawberries in the middle. But that doesn’t mean I won’t eat some of the buttercream icing off the top… I mean… when you’re handed cake, you should never turn it down…

The bachelorette may have been a low-key dinner out, followed up by drinks at a chill bar afterwards. But I still had a heck of a hangover the next day.

From sugar. Nothing else.

For a girl with an extremely high sugar tolerance, this is saying something.

But wanna know why I love D so much?

The first thing she did when getting up yesterday morning was go to the mini refrigerator in the hotel and exclaim, “cake pops for breakfast!”.

It’s like we were meant to be.

And it sounds like her hatred towards cake pops has subsided a bit.

Every Sunday morning should start with cake pops in bed.

And, in turn, this means every Monday should be full of salad, salad, salad, and maybe more salad.

It’s all about the balance, kids. Am I right?

Victory is mine!

Hey, remember that time the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series?

That was pretty neat. We can talk about it again if you’d like…?

No? Well… ok… But can we at least talk about the bet I won with Kace when they played the Phillies for the NLCS title? Because my winnings came in the mail yesterday:

Cue the angels singing and a spotlight coming down from the heavens.

Please understand- I’ve heard ramblings of the amazing Tastykake from some of the east coast girls for QUITE some time now. So when I had a chance to try some out? Count me IN.

My head was buzzing with excitement. Or from inhaling the smell of sugary goodness. Either/or.I shared with my friend at work (I’m SO nice) and we both dug into the Peanut Buttery Kandy Kakes first (we each had our own package- none of that splitting business). Because great minds think alike. And peanut butter and chocolate rock.The “cake” part was spongy and light and the thin layer of peanut butter on top confirmed what I already knew in my heart…

… I’d almost consider moving to Philly. Just for these babies.Good thing I can order them online and don’t have to. Whew…

Now the question is how long will they last? I offered to take some with me to St. Louis next week for the man friend. This will hopefully keep me from face planting in the tin they came in.

He gets me a massage… I bring him a tastykake. That’s fair, right?

If you say “no”, that just means you’ve never had a tastykake before.

Either way- a big thanks goes out to Kace. And the St. Louis Cardinals for winning. But mostly Kace.

Must be a week of new things (heeeeyyyy really awkward transition!). Or sorta new. Or “I haven’t done this in over a year” new.

I’m talking about yoga, people.

Yes, I dusted off the good ol’ Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown dvd (literally- it was  in the back of my media table that my dusting routine never reaches). After the same mix of cardio and weights for quite some time, it seemed appropriate to throw something new into the mix.

Plus I was sore from also breaking out Jillian’s Shred workout earlier in the week and running/ellipticalling sounded a little daunting.

My thighs are now burning thanks to both The Shred and Meltdown. It’s also embarrassing how few chatarunga push ups actually happened.

To be honest, even when doing the yoga dvd regularly (once or twice a week), I couldn’t do those stupid push ups.  Sooooo weak…

So that’s that- my meager attempt to make a few changes. Because I’m a big subscriber to the idea that “you can’t expect change when you’re not changing anything”. And let’s face it. I was in a rut. All cardio and the only action my weights were getting was when I was stubbing my toe on them as I walked by. Not cool.

So let’s do this, shall we? Happy Thursday!

One Of Those Days

We’ve all had “one of those days”.

You know what I’m talking about. A day where, at some point, you just step back and go “wow… what is going on right now?”

I experienced that yesterday morning.As part of the FoodBuzz Tastemaker’s program, I received two bags of Godiva coffee to try out. Godiva makes coffee? I honestly had no idea. SO YES PLEASE!

The day started out pretty much like any other.

My alarm went off. I woke up and my hand slowly felt it’s way to the alarm clock to shut it off.

Get up. Go downstairs to take a shower. Think to myself how exhausted I still am considering the majority of what I did the day before involved my couch and a dvd player. Figured that’s just life and kept going.

Dry hair. Start on makeup. Go to kitchen to make breakfast.

It’s like clockwork, really. The Godiva Pumpkin Spice smelled amazing and had a great taste for sipping slowly. But my heart belonged to the Caramel Pecan Bark. It smelled just heavenly, was smooth (not bitter in the slightest), and my mind ran wild with ideas of how to take it to the next level…

Make coffee. Take coffee to living room while eggs are finishing up. Turn on tv to catch some of the morning news.

Go back to kitchen. Listen to tv. Find it weird that the news is not on. Walk back to living room to see for myself.

Infomercials.

What? Look at clock…

12:35. Crap. I need new batteries for my clock.

Walk into kitchen. Look at microwave. Clock is still not set from when the roommate blew a fuse and accidentally reset everything when trying to fix it. Look at stovetop. 12:35.I added to the mix two more things that are near and dear to my heart. Whipped cream because I’m a sugar addict. And the new Trader Joe’s dessert grinder. Again, because I’m a sugar addict.

Wheels start turning. But I’m still pre-coffee and cannot believe that it could actually be 12:35 in the morning. So I look at my cellphone as to confirm what was already clearly going on. 12:35.

Pieces are coming together. When the roommate tripped everything a few days before, I reset the clock in my room.

But I didn’t reset my actual alarm.

So, when in autopilot for bed time, I just turned on my alarm and rolled over. This means I set my alarm and actually got up at midnight. Literally 2 hours after going to bed. And did not encounter another clock for another 30-some minutes.

Seriously. How is it possible that I actually did this?

Thank God I didn’t actually start drinking the coffee.

Clearly I took my tired lil’ butt back to bed. Slept for another 5ish hours. And woke up once again to continue my morning routine- reheating the breakfast made only hours earlier.Coffee shops ain’t got nothing on me. By mixing the hot cocoa mix into the coffee before brewing, I added a chocolate vibe to the mix. By topping with the whipped cream and the sweets, I created a dessert coffee that is minimal on the calories compared to what you’ll find in your standard coffee chains (see “light” whipped cream- he he he).

Even after waking up the second time, it was hard to wrap my head around the idea that I actually went 35 minutes without a clue of the mistake.

Exhaustion. It does funny things to a person.

I will plead temporary insanity. But cannot confirm that it will never happen again.

Sigh… This drink was made and enjoyed after my victorious 8-mile run over the weekend. I suggest you do something similar for a little celebration in your life. Whether it be a fantastic run, hosting weekend visitors, or even celebrating a solid shopping trip. #Priorities.

Welcoming Fall

There’s something about Fall.

It’s one of my favorite seasons.

One of three to be exact.

Winter is the only one on my shit list. Hard to believe? No.

Anyway, there are a bunch of things to like about Fall.

Like college football. Even if my team does nothing but give me heart palpatations. (Yeah, I’m looking at you, Mizzou.)

Breaking out the sweet knee high socks. Because I look really good in argyle. Yeaaaaahhhh buddy.

All the boots…. oh the boots…

Snuggling under blankets (and eventually realizing the reason your room is so cold at night is because the window is still cracked open- hey duh).

Halloween candy- still on the hunt for those devilish looking candy corn M&M’s.

Halloween. Thanksgiving. Or basically just holidays that revolve around food…

And yes… the seasonal food that comes with it all.Pumpkin. Walnuts. And hey- let’s just throw some butterscotch and dark chocolate in there while we’re at it….

This round of the sweet swap had a fall theme to it and I chose to reference Culinary Concoctions by Peabody and her amazing Pumpkin Butterscotch Walnut muffins.

I’ve pretty much blog stalked Peabody since she posted her version of Chubby Hubby Cookies. I’ll openly admit that and hope she doesn’t send a restraining order any time soon because of it. I’m too addicted to sugar to stop…

Anyway, because I’m just awful at listening or following directions, swapping out half of the butterscotch chips for dark chocolate ones seemed like a good idea.Also, I had half a bag of the dark chocolate ones waiting to be used. This is way better than just mindlessly snacking on them like what may have been happening recently…They’re called “muffins”, but I know how much sugar is involved in making them. So what else is there to do than just say screw it and make them more like a cupcake?

Ice ice baby…Yeah. I like barely mediocre 90′s hip hop. Sue me.

Or don’t. I’d prefer it if you don’t.

Instead, just enjoy how pretty they turned out…

Ooohhhhh…. aaaaahhhhh….

Hopefully Leanne will enjoy these as much as my friends have. If she doesn’t, well, blame them for their crap food critiquing skills.

So as a few of the leftovers are inhaled (the ugly ones I couldn’t stand to send her way), I guess it’s time to admit I’m ok with the departure of summer and accept all things fall.

Until snowflakes start to come down.

Then things are just gonna get ugly around here.

You’ve been warned.

Trickster Cookies

Tonight I’m helping with stuffing packets for the race my friend has spent the last 6 months of her life organizing. There’s going to be a little crowd of us, so Annie made the request for me to bring a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ for people to snack on.

Sigh… well I GUESS if you really want me to bake…

Obviously it had to be something cute. Like these cinnamon roll sugar cookies…  Yeah. Aren’t they obnoxiously adorable? They appear to be teeny cinnamon buns.

But I’m still that baker who’s scared of using active yeast in a recipe. So until then, I’ll just “cookie-fy” or “cupcake-ify” anything.

These came from the mind of Picky Palate- as do quite a few of the things I’ve attempted. Never has she disappointed me. And I have high standards when it comes to sugar and butter. So that’s saying something.

Normally, I use my grandma’s recipe for sugar cookies. It’s an oldie but a goodie. However, this time around, I used the posted recipe. Just in case. And I think it worked out well- the cookies are less sweet than most sugar cookies I’ve tried. But because you add a little more sugar and butter through the filling and icing, it balances quite nicely.Did I say a little?

I meant a lot.

Paula Deen’s heart probably stopped for a second as this was happening.

The recipe calls for light brown sugar. I only had dark.*Shoulder shrug*

I was also a little more liberal with the cinnamon. Because I do what I want.

Oh and say hello to my piece-o-crap phone!

Heeeeey phone heeeey!  Ugh. It’s slow. It doesn’t accept all messages. And the roller ball thingie keeps popping out. Just die already!

Woah… random tangent…

Be careful to roll it tight so they won’t fall apart as you cut them….And admire my new nail polish color. That is chipping really badly. Whoops.Slice carefully. The cookies had a tendency to unroll if not handled carefully. I tried to smooth the ends of the cookies as much as possible so they wouldn’t separate mid-bake.

The entire apartment smelled like cinnamon rolls.But they’re not.

I’m such a trickster!The icing wasn’t the cream cheese recipe she posted with the cookie recipe. Because I didn’t have enough cream cheese on hand and was too cheap to buy more. So I went with a good ol’ fashioned mix of butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk to taste.

The roommate gave the thumbs up. Which was good. I mean… I ate a couple. But at that point, I was sporting quite the sugar buzz and most likely would have had a hard time critiquing the final product.

If we’re being honest.

Fine, it was three.

Is it bad this was about a half hour before bed and had no issues falling asleep?

It’s probably time to cut back a little on the sugar consumption.

I’ll write it on my list of things to do. Right under “win the lotto”.

See? Progress!