Best of Valentine's Day: Treats!

No matter how anyone feels about Valentine’s Day, we can’t imagine that anyone can argue with the delicious treats that go along with it. There are pink and red heart-shaped treats galore this time of year, but why not try your hand at making something rather than buying. After all, it does come from the heart.

Lucky for you a heart is a simple enough shape to make and so can be incorporated into the easiest of baked goods, some of which you probably already know how to make! The pancakes shown above were made with a quick swoosh while the batter was still in the pan. Martha Stewart shows this and more in her Valentines gallery. Here are a few easy tools and ideas for you try out this year:

A set of Heart-shaped cookie cutters can be used to make anything you desire into a heart felt treat! This set includes 6 sizes and is a steal from Amazon! Just imagine all of your possibilities!

Jazz up a plain ol’ cupcake with these festive Cupcake Holders. The Bakers Confections shop on Etsy has a great variety of different liners that can match any occasion! But these liners don't have to just hold cupcakes... get creative and use these to hold candy, a scoop of ice cream, or a morning muffin!

Add simple decoration to a basic treat and they'll be delicious, thoughtful, and festive! The edges of these heart shaped cookies were decorated with sugar which make them look so much more special! The same idea can be used with sprinkles or frosting.

Happy baking!

Ellenor

Cake Pops!

Ah, Bakerella, we love you! Thank you for introducing us to the wonders of cake pops!

These delicious little pops are fun to make, wonderful to eat, and provide a generous amount of creative outlet. Just look at all that you can do with these gems of the dessert world:

all photos from Bakerella

If you are not familiar with cake pops, let us explain, they are literally a piece of cake rolled up and placed on a Popsicle stick. They are a true delight to eat and make! The creative options for these little treats are endless. The flavor combinations are whatever your heart desires, and the decorating can range from simple to "oh wow!" as you can see from above.

Here is a simple recipe for you to follow. Of course, you can improve on this recipe by making as much of this from scratch as you dare. But to begin, we started with simple.
1. Prepare and bake a boxed cake recipe. Once the cake cools, crumble it into a large bowl.
2. Add a can of pre-made frosting to the crumbled cake and mix it all together with a fork or your hands.
3. Lay wax paper over a cookie sheet and roll the cake/frosting mixture into little bite size balls. Place on the wax paper and freeze overnight at the least or up to a few days. You can place the sticks into the balls at this point or before dipping into the chocolate (next step).

Next day...
1. Prepare your counter top with everything that you will need to decorate your pops. Get your sprinkles, candy, nuts, cookie crumbs, etc. ready because once those pops come out from the melted chocolate you must decorate asap while the chocolate is still hot!
2. Melt chocolate over the stove. For this, we used a bag of chocolate chips and a bit of canola oil. (For melting chocolate, most recommend a double burner. If you don't have this use 2 sauce pans, one slightly large than the other. Fill the larger with water and place the smaller inside... don't let any water get into the smaller! Pour the chocolate chips into the smaller and bring the water to an almost boil. Once the chocolate chips appear glossy, stir them and add canola oil until the chocolate is smooth and fluid enough to dip).
3. As the chocolate is hot (keep the burner on while you do this), dip the pops into the chocolate and cover as desired.
4. Decorate!
5. Place off to the side to cool and let the chocolate harden. We found that if you hold the freshly dipped and decorated pops in the freezer for about 45 seconds to a minute, the chocolate hardens enough so that you can then place the pop down and you won't get a flat edge on your rounded pop.
6. Serve! We placed ours in mason jars with a bow around it. They were cute and delicious center pieces to our dinner table :)

Enjoy!
The ladies of Ellenor