More Valentine's Treats from Julie's Kitchen

I love to read food blogs. Some of my favorite are baked goods. After reading about it, sometimes I get in the mood to bake myself. The pattern goes like this: see baked goods on someone else's blog, see baked goods in my kitchen, see baked goods on my blog. Then, someone else sees my blog and bakes, and I'd like to think that the blog-baking-blog cycle continues.

Anyway. Today we made two different treats. Mostly because I wanted to, but also because we are going to a Valentine's party where I can pawn off some of the said treats, and not feel guilty about eating them all myself. (Or, Connor finding them all and scarfing them down when no one is looking, which is more likely.)


Connor still loves cake, in all forms, as he reminded me several times this afternoon. He told me that it was his "best." He also told me that "blue is my best," which I take to mean that blue is his favorite color.

But I digress. And since I am on this stream-of-consciousness wave, I'll just keep riding.

Kevin bought me a Ninja Master Prep (as seen on TV) for Christmas. I now Rule The Kitchen.

And I used it today to massacre a freshly-baked chocolate cake.


No, I wasn't taking out my frustrations on the cake. I was trying my hand at cake pops. The basic concept and recipe for cake pops can be found here, but of course, mine are slightly different.


One cake sure makes a lot of cake pops! These are the ones that made it all the way to the end. A moment of silence please for their fallen (ahem, eaten) brethren.


On to the petits fours!

I made a double batch of marshmallow fondant earlier this week to prepare for making these little cuties, which Connor very appropriately calls "small cakes." The rest of the fondant is going to be used for my little brother's birthday cake (he's going to be 20!) next week.

The inspiration for this project came from this blog. Of course, I think store-bought fondant is disgusting, so I used my own. I also decided that I wanted another go with royal icing, so I whipped up a batch of that, too.


After I was done with these decorations, I used the rest of the icing to decorate a sheet of aluminum foil. I bought some new tips earlier this week and I wanted to try them out. Maybe I should go to one of those cake decorating classes at Michael's? Anyone want to join me?