Saturday, March 17, 2012

Happy St Patty's Day

So I have mentioned before that I absolutely love holidays. And this is a VERY true statement! No matter how big the holiday, I just like to celebrate. I geared up for St Patty's Day to make today a blast! Of course one thing I love about holidays is baking, its another excuse to make and eat delicious food:). Plus eating festive food just makes it that much better. So for St. Patty's day I decided to make cake balls. I have never made them before but have wanted to try so this was the perfect reason to make some. They are very time consuming but since I have been on spring break all week I had time to try them out.  Boy was it a blast! Seriously, I had so much fun baking all by myself. That's saying something because I love being around people. Anyways.. I found a tutorial on how to make cake balls from Bakerella.com. It was fairly easy to follow and a total blast.

Since it is St. Patty's Day I wanted to make green cake balls. I used butter golden cake mix ( I wanted to home make a cake but didn't have enough time) and used lots of food coloring to turn it green.

It came out lookin' pretty nasty and I was super bummed. But much to my surprise the inside was exactly what I was looking for!!

Bright green!

The best part about making cake balls is mushing up the cake. I have always wanted to squish a loaf of bread so badly and crunching up the cake filled that desire! Seriously, how many times have you been able to take a cake and just squish it all up to crumbs? Probably not since your first birthday. And you don't even remember that anyways!


Then I made some green frosting..

And the second to best part came..You have to mix the frosting and the mushed up cake together. This was SUPER messy. I personally have a texture issue so it took a minute for me to stick my hands in their to mix it all up. It wasn't so bad but you definitely get sticky and messy. 

After you mix it you roll the cake and frosting mix into little balls.
 
Then you put them in the fridge or freezer for a few hours. I put them in the freezer to speed up the process. Plus I found out it is a lot easier to dip them if the balls are frozen. 

I had the hardest time dipping the balls into chocolate. Every time I have had a cake ball the chocolate is perfectly coated around the cake ball...Yeah I definitely didn't get that result. I melted chocolate in the microwave and didn't get a super thin easily spreadable result. I decided that if I had a chocolate fountain I could get that perfect result! I used little shrimp forks to assist me in dipping the cake balls and they actually worked pretty well. 

I know I know, definitely not bakery status yet..next time. I ended up only dipping half of each ball because I was having a hard time covering the entire ball. And that is why I suggest 
something like a chocolate fountain. I added green sprinkles, to make it more festive and wala!

I refrigerated them so the chocolate hardened and then they were ready to eat.

Then I made a delicious party mix that I found on the The yummy life. This was a lot more work than I was expecting but it was fun. First I melted white chocolate and hand dipped each pretzel and of course put more sprinkles. You can never have too many sprinkles, right?!

 Then I had to make green popcorn. Now this is where it gets a little embarrassing. So I looked up how to make green popcorn and followed the directions exactly.. little did I know it would end up ruining my mom's plastic bowl.


Yep totally melted the bottom of the bowl. oops!

Then you add green m&m's, yes I did by a big bag and pick all the green ones out! Then melted white and milk chocolate and don't forget to add salt. One of the best things about this mix is it is sweet and salty. I probably could've added more salt so don't be afraid to dump it on.


Then I froze it. The yummy life doesn't say to do this, but I wanted to speed up the process and get the chocolate hardened. 

Then you simply break it up into pieces, add the pretzels and eat!
 
I had St. Patty's day lunch at snider's meats. They have delicious sandwiches and cute workers too:) I brought them these treats and hopefully they loved them and got into the holiday spirit.
Anyone could use a cake ball and popcorn pick me up on a busy day at work, right?

The best part about St. Patty's day 2012 is fantasy bridal called and my dress came in!!!!!!!!!! I ordered it back in November so I have been anticipating this day for months. Of course I made my mom rush over there with me so I could try it on! It's gorgeous. Better than I imagined. I cannot even wait!!

Happy St. Patty's Day:) Make today a reason to celebrate!!

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