Christmas Cake Balls

My family is having our Christmas Day dinner up in Whistler at my sister's, and I was put in charge of desserts. Several batches of cookies and a pie have already been baked for the occasion, but on Wednesday night I decided to add something new and unique to our dessert line-up. You know - because I don't already have enough on my agenda this week.

I decided to make Cake Balls. For those of you who aren't up-to-date on the happenings of the baking world (or who have been living under a rock) Cake Balls are all the rage among foodies and dessert lovers these days. In a nutshell, they're little balls of cake dipped in melted chocolate. In reality, they're time consuming little suckers that took me several hours to complete and kept me up until the wee hours of the morning.

But look at the finished product ... adorable, right? Yup, I think so too.

For those of you who want to give this treat a try, all you need is cake mix, cake icing and chocolate to melt. Oh, and HOURS of free time. (Kidding. Sort of. No, not really.)

I really wanted the red and white look for Christmas so I bought colored melting chocolate at Michaels for $3.99 a bag, but you can probably get the same result with any chocolate as long as it can be melted down to a smooth, creamy texture. Once you've got all the necessary ingredients, bake the cake as per usual and let it cool for at least 20-30 minutes. I believe this is where I went wrong with my Cake Ball attempt ... I was impatient so I only let it cool for 10 minutes or so. Because the cake was still warm when I added the icing, it was extra gooey and hard to work with. Let it cool people, trust me, otherwise you'll waste lots of precious time trying to get the right texture.

When the cake is cool, crumple the cake dough into a bowl and begin to add the icing. Blend well. You should end up with a sticky, batter-like texture. Roll the mix into small balls. If they're extremely gooey (as mine were) you may need to put them in the freezer for a few minutes to keep them from falling apart. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a small pot on the stove. Using a lollipop stick, a chopstick or a fork gently dip each ball into the chocolate. If you're planning to add sprinkles to your balls, do this as soon as you've coated the ball in chocolate ... if you wait too long, it won't stick. Place the balls on a plate and put in the fridge for one hour to set.

serve & enjoy!

Coconut Pumpkin Seed Cookies

Happy Saturday everybody! This morning was cloudy and overcast so I decided to do some baking. I originally wanted to try my hand at organic brownies, but I was missing some key ingredients (aka chocolate!) so I decided to improvise on cookies instead. I've had a bottle of Agave Nectar sitting in my pantry for awhile now and it was calling out to me to give it a try. Agave Nectar, in case you aren't familiar with it, is a natural sweetener that is very popular in the organic cooking community. So, anywhoo ... I pulled out the nectar and some other ingredients I had lying around and whipped up these:

Coconut Pumpkin Seed Cookies. If you don't like pumpkin seeds you can use sunflower seeds or flax seeds or any other seed. You can also use dried raisins or cranberries. So, let's get baking! You will need the following:

Ingredients:

1 cup of butter or margarine

2 cups of flour

1 large egg

1/2 to 1 cup of sweetened coconut flakes

1/2 to 1 cup of pumpkin seeds

2 tsp of nutmeg or cinnamon

1/4 cup of blue agave nectar (or you can use 1/2 cup of sugar)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 375*F.

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl and blend well.

Place little drops of the dough on a cookie tray.

Bake for 10 minutes at 375*F.

Remove from oven, let cool for 5 minutes and enjoy!

These cookies are super easy to bake and I think they're really tasty too. Have a wonderful weekend. I'm off to an all-day scrapbook crop at Pick of the Patch Scrapbooking tomorrow. I admit, I'm a little nervous and I hope the ladies are nice! Oh, and thank you for the wind words regarding my mission's trip (see last post). I think there might have been a little misunderstanding, though. I'm not going away for a year ... I'm going on the trip in a year. I'll be going to this country for 2 weeks and if it goes well and I feel comfortable, I can look at going again for a longer period of time. But yeah, I'm not moving to another country! Sorry for the confusion! :)

loves to you all

xox

Eggnog Cupcakes

I made these yesterday for the girls and I to munch on as we scrapbooked. They turned out fantastic & were a big hit. (I bought the little edible icing snowflakes at Michaels.)

Eggnog Cupcakes
1/4 cup dark rum or bourbon - optional. I omitted this.
1 cup eggnog
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix together rum, eggnog, vegetable oil and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix together nutmeg, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Pour in the first mixture and whisk until well combined. Divide evenly into muffin tins.
Bake for 18-20 minutes.
Enjoy!