Farm Animal Cake Balls: Little Pigs

So I know we swore that we would never ever do another cake pop again, but these aren't cake pops, they're cake balls! For some reason these were so much easier to do than the pops especially after we found a really awesome video on how to dip smooth and perfect cake balls. The video can be found here and you should definitely watch it if you want perfectly smooth cake balls. The technique used in the video doesn't require anything fancy, just stuff you already have at home! Since these went over so well, you can be expecting a lot more fun cake balls in the future. 

We did three different animals and each animal was a different cake, so we'll be spreading this out into three posts. All the balls were dipped in candy melts and their facial features were made out of homemade marshmallow fondant. This was our first time using actual candy melts, which are really great, but we still had to thin them out by adding a tablespoon of melted shortening to two bags of melts. We made the mistake of using gel food coloring to color on the eyes and little details. The gel never dried and now we know that we need to use powder food coloring mixed with alcohol! 

These pigs had a chocolate cake interior and if you've never made cake pops or balls before you should check out Bakerella. Her method of making the insides is the one we like the best. By mixing the cake with frosting you end up with a really moist inside. The chocolate cake recipe I used is from www.blogchef.net, which you should check out. He has some really great recipes! 

Chocolate Cake 

Ingredients

• 1 ¾ cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• ¾ cup baking cocoa
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ¾ cup boiling water

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease two 9” round baking pans. In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, cocoa, baking power, baking soda and salt. Add eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and oil. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water with a spatula or spoon. Evenly pour batter into both baking pans.
2. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to fully cool.

Chocolate Frosting

I didn't do anything fancy for the frosting. If you want you can use a store bought frosting. I melted half a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and creamed it with 1 stick (1/2 cup) softened butter. Then I slowly added powdered sugar until I got the consistency and flavor that I was looking for.

Close up of a pig. They all looked like this.

The pigs inside of the barn that Ai constructed.

While I was baking the cakes, Ai crafted an awesome barn out of a red science poster board. She wrapped the outside with red wrapping paper and attached a bow to seal the barn. Her birthday was the other day so the barn was a cute and fun way for her to bring it into work.

The shelves were made out of the extra parts of the board and lots of hot glue. They were really sturdy and held up well. Ai made cute little name cards for the cakes! 

Closer shot of the pigs in the barn! 

That's all for this week folks! You can look forward to two more cake ball posts to finish up the whole farm! Happy crafting and baking! ♥  

Mixed Media Geisha

This week's post is a just a quick one. It's some old mixed media geisha I did. I gave it to Ai as a present a few years ago. As much as I love all the crafting and cooking, this is what I really love to do the most. I have a tendency to do pencil work with just a few pops of color here and there. 

The geisha's face, hair, and hand were all done in pencil. Her hair accessories and kimono were made of construction paper. The wood in her umbrella were made out of a few scrap pieces of balsa wood. The design and little details on the umbrella were made out of tissue paper. Finally, I threw in a few rhinestones because the sparkles add a nice touch. 

 A closer shot of the geisha. 

Details of her hair pieces and umbrella. 

Closer shot of the rest of the umbrella and part of her face. Eyes are some of my favorite things to draw.

You can see her kimono a little better in this one. The white and blue part are construction paper with some shading done with pencil to add more dimension.

I haven't done anything like this in a really long time, which is such a shame. Hopefully I'll get around to doing more of this kind of thing sometime soon. So that's all for this week folks! Happy crafting! ♥  

Pokemon Birthday Cake

I mentioned in a previous post that my sisters celebrated their birthday a few months ago and I took it as an opportunity to do things I haven't really ever done. This was my first time making fondant covered cakes. (I suppose I should have posted this before our Star Wars cake!) For a first time attempt I'm happy to report that they didn't turn out too bad! 


The Pokemon and all the lettering were completely made out of fondant. The cake was a white cake with vanilla mousse filling. 

Another shot of the cake. I put pokeballs all around the edges.

This was my attempt at doing Harry Potter for my other sister's cake. It was a marble cake with chocolate mousse. It tasted a lot better than it looked! 

That's all for this week folks! Ai and I are gonna do something cute and yummy for her birthday so you can look forward to seeing how it all turns out at the end of the month! Happy crafting and baking everyone! ♥  

Paper Craft Shadow Box

We're taking a break from desserts this week to share another one of our loves with you all! Paper crafts are something we've always been into, even though we didn't learn the name of what we were doing until a little while ago. Ai and I have been making cards for our friends for as long as we can remember. It's unfortunate that we never thought to take photos of everything we did. 

A few months ago we discovered that people put paper crafts into shadow boxes and we were in love! But so far Ai is the only one that's done an actual shadow box. I promise there will be more in the future! (If you couldn't tell we like to do too many different things. The ideas just never stop coming!) 

Ai crafted a beautiful rose with butterflies all out of card stock. All the intricate details were cut with and X-acto blade. The pieces were all put together with Mod Podge. On to the shadow box! 

The petals say Live, Life, and Love

A closer look at the words

You can see how lovely the butterfly wing looks here

That's all for this week folks! Hope you feel inspired to go out and make your own lovely shadow boxes! Happy crafting! ♥