Blood, Guts and Cakepops?

Yep, that's right, blood, guts and cakepops. A few weeks ago, Bug Man and I decided to get the UFC fight and invited my favorite bikini-clad baking assistant, Pamela, and her boyfriend, Marc over to watch. The girls decided we needed something girly to make us feel more, uh, um, girly? Anyway...my blog addiction led me to Bakerella, who stands for all that is good and right in the world of baking. She has these cakepops on her website that are so a-darn-dorable that I couldn't resist making them, even if it was for no special occasion, other than celebrating the blood and guts that is UFC. They were so fun, and pretty easy. Here they are, only partially complete.And the pink "muffin top" candy coating. Never thought of the underlying meaning of the muffin topping causing greif to my actual "muffin top." Hmmm. And, the lovely bikini-clad baking assistant, Pamela. Everyone should have a bikini-clad assistant, weather for baking or not. Actually, Puh-mella (pronounced the way that Borat talks about Pamela Anderson) and Marc had just come from the lake, hence the beach attire. We thought we had this one down pretty good. Make cake ball, shape ball into cookie cutter to form scalloped, cupcake-like bottom, dip in chocolate, stick in bottom of cupcake, in fridge to set, pull out, dip top part in pink candy-coating, sprinkles & m&m on top, and, and, and, crap, where the heck to put 'em now to let the top part set... We got creative-fast. Collander, we'll put them in the holes of that. Nope, the sidesways leaning caused chocolate to run to the side. Bakerelle recommends a block of styrofoam, but I missed that little detail while at Michael's (and I loathe Michael's, so I wasn't about to make a run). SO, I grabbed a Gymboree box, poked holes in it and thought that was the PERFECT solution, but since the inside was hollow, they tipped so easily, and ran into each other and smudged and the world almost came to a screeching halt. THEN...The genius bikini-clad baking assistant said, "What about a baking rack?" So we placed a baking rack on two Cherrios boxes and now we're gonna patent it and make millions. Not really, but it was the perfect solution to our problem and the cake pops were more delicious because of it! Hello my pretties...

I have had this inherent need to bake lately. In addition to Bakerella's cakepops, I've been baking any and all recipes I come across that look sugary, chocolatey, and delicious. It's a problem. Mainly for my waistline. I blame (in no particular order:) Pioneer Woman (LOVE HER) for all her delicious looking foods AND for the whole Tasty Kitchen thing, Bakerella for having not only delicious treats, but adorable treats. You can't resist cute food, you just can't. Also, Joy the Baker for the whole S'mores cookies incident (the incident being that I made them and ate them), and Neiman Marcus for having the urban cookie legend, in which a woman charged a cookie recipe to her account, wound up with a rather sizable bill, decided to share the cookie recipe with the world via email to get back at Neiman's for the cost of the recipe. They are REALLY good. And, my sister Susan, who let me flip through her recipe files, only to find a recipe titled "Rolo Cookies." Need I say more about that? I really do take responsibility for my baking/eating problems, but sometimes it just feels good to blame my love of baked goods on others. All of the aforementioned recipes may make a debut on this here blog. Which may mean that I have to bake them all to take photos and then I'll eat them and blame the blog. Darn blog.