Easter Baking Challenge

My sister-in-law, Angela, put a baking challenge on her blog earlier this week. She was really encouraging us to cook an Easter treat with our kids. Lynlee loves to cook with me so I thought this was a great opportunity to get in the kitchen with her. So with my competitive spirit, I searched for the best, most unique recipe. As I was making it yesterday (all day event with a baby that needs to be fed in between), I decided to look and see if anyone has posted their baking pictures yet. Low and behold, there was a family who was making the same thing I was :(. Oh well, the prize is a cookbook that I already have anyway!!

So here's our adventure yesterday. Be prepared...there are a lot of pictures!

We made something called cakepops. You will have to check the blog that I stole them from, Bakerella. She is extremely talented and her cakepops look amazing so don't judge mine. Basically, a cakepop is crumbled caked mixed with frosting, rolled into a ball, placed on a stick, and then dipped in chocolate/vanilla coating.

Lynlee mixing the frosting into the crumbled cake.

Posing for a picture as we prepare to dip our cakepops in pink vanilla coating. And yes she is wearing her princess PJs with her peacock tutu! We like to keep things interesting at our house!

Lynlee helped dip the cakepops. This was a tricky task because the cake would start falling off the stick, but I did learn a neat trick if you are ever dipping things in chocolate. Slowly turn the object in one hand while tapping your wrist with the other hand. It made the excess chocolate fall off while not putting too much pressure on the cake. I will definitely be using that trick again.

Lynlee starting to decorate her cakepop. We put a small amount of light corn syrup on a paint brush to use as a glue for our sprinkles.

Still decorating...look at that set up she had! I used to make sugar cookies for everything when I was in high school, so I had an abundant supply of sprinkles. So it was easy to give her free-reign...I needed to weed through those sprinkles anyway!

Another big helper! This was Owen's position most of the day, because those cakepops took Lynlee and I most of the day.

Just precious, right? And yes I kiss his cheeks a zillion times a day!

This was his reaction after Lynlee fed him a bite of a cakepop. Totally just kidding, the boy was so deprived yesterday that if you just looked at him this was the face he would make!

Lynlee's beautiful finished product! I was so proud of myself for not intervening with her creativity! I'm a perfectionist when it comes to baking, so I usually try to make her creations look a little prettier, but these babies were all Lynlee!

Notice the bite out of the top left one! She's such a sneak!

Here's my finished product! I know I wasn't too adventurous, but I did try a few other designs and they totally failed. I figured I would stick with what worked!

Another view!

So I got tired of glueing every single sprinkle on! I resorted to my old standby...just squiggle coating all over the place!

Finished product! I guess not too bad for our first try! Now for the taste verdict. Kind of weird if I was going to be honest. It taste like soggy/wet cake covered in a hard chocolate/vanilla coating. I'm thinking I added too much frosting, I would not recommend adding the whole can if you try it.

R.I.P. fallen cakepops!

THE MESS!!! Can you tell which sprinkle plate was mine and which one was Lynlee's? I promise I gave her FREE-REIGN with the sprinkles. I think her only goal was to empty all the sprinkle containers. I would keep telling her that she would use all the sprinkles and we wouldn't have anymore. Here's her response "it's okay mommy, we just go to tore (store) and buy new ones!" I guess I have trained her well! Sorry Pat :(.

The sprinkle bottles that Lynlee single-handedly emptied! Like I said, most of these I had in high school so I promise I am not throwing money down the drain here! I'm sure sprinkles probably expire anyway!