She Puts The Color Inside Of My World

As soon as we found out Anna's due date (December 24th), I knew our future kid was going to be faced with a lot of birthday disappointments over the years. I mean, seriously, a birthday at the end of December? My birthday is at the end of October and I sometimes feel slightly shorted. Like, all my presents come in a two-month stretch and right around June or July I start feeling envious of everyone celebrating their birthdays. (Because that's what Christmas and birthdays are all about, right? Presents!)

In fact, I even came across a blog that declares March to be "National Abstinence Month" so that no one is forced to celebrate a December birthday. While I wouldn't go as far as Scary Mommy does and say that "December babies suck," I would agree that a birthday three days after Christmas isn't exactly ideal.

But you know what? It is what it is. And like I mentioned a few days ago, even if I'm exhausted and totally over celebrating and stuffing my face, I'm going to make damn sure that Anna's birthday is celebrated. Yes, we've all eaten way too much cake. Yes, she's totally spoiled by the seemingly endless amount of presents that she's opened. Yes, I would very much like to take a long nap instead of cleaning my house. If Anna's birthday was in  probably any other month, though, none of those things would be an issue. My sister said, and I agree with her, that it's almost like we have to make a bigger deal out of her birthday than we normally would, just so she knows she has her own special day.

Besides, how are we not going to celebrate the day this girl came into our world?

This year was a much smaller affair than last year's, although I did get talked out of my original idea of ordering Costco pizzas. (Boo to that - who doesn't love Costco pizza? Who?) And I of course went a little overboard on the cake, but mostly because I get a kick out of doing stuff like that. Also - Pinterest exists this year, and there were quite a few fun ideas I wanted to try out.

Behold, the rainbow.

Much less complicated than it looks. Promise. Mostly time consuming. You need to buy the gel food coloring to get the colors that bright - they sell them at Michael's. I just used two boxes of white cake mix and divided the batter into eight smaller bowls. I only have two cake pans, so it took awhile to bake the layers, let them cool, wash the pans, and start over again.This bad boy required two batches of frosting, which equaled an extremely heart healthy six sticks of butter and eight cups of powdered sugar. Yum. If I did it again, I would use the same frosting for in between the layers, but probably use something a little fluffier for the outside. I still have like half of this cake in the freezer, so hit me up if you want a slice!



We ate Mexican food, Anna showed off her new presents, and we all marveled over the amazing little person she has become.

I spent like $25 on rainbow sprinkles. Yes, I'm aware I have a problem.

Birthday crown made by my mom.

When it comes down to it, even though her birthday may not be perfectly timed, in my eyes she timed her arrival perfectly. She's here. She's healthy. That's all that really matters.

And if that's not an excuse to eat rainbow cake, I'm not sure what is.

Any December babies out there? How do you cope? Will Anna be scarred for life?

This and That

I've been having a little bit of blog envy lately, drooling over beautiful pictures and collages and images and wishing I were cool and artsy and had a knack for capturing things on film. I'm definitely not any of those things, but I have been having some fun playing around on Picasa and using a retro camera app on my phone.

Here is what I've come up with - a little slice of what's been going on in my world the past few weeks...

Flowering tree in our yard; Anna playing in her pool; green cake ball; baby birds; Anna going in for a smooch;
again, Anna and her BFF Cedella; crime scene?; my new sticker; peanut butter cake balls; ice, ice, baby

Also - who can tell me about this Pinterest business? It seems like all the cool kids are doing it and I wanna be cool, too. Hit me up, yo!

Ballin'

All kinds of peeps have been asking me for a recipe for the famous cake balls, and since it's not really a recipe - more like a process - I decided to create a little tutorial so everyone can enjoy these delicious little orbs of cakey goodness. And since I was making 200 of them, I had the perfect opportunity to get some good pictures. If you want to see how they're done best, you really should check out Bakerella and her book. She gives tons of tips and pointers, and gets waaaay fancier than I ever plan to. It also seems like cake balls are the new hotness of the baking world, so it might not be too long before they're showing up all over the place. Starbucks is even selling cake pops now, so if you really get a craving and don't feel like all the work, head over there for your fix!

Ok. The first thing you'll need to do is decide on flavors. Really, any kind of cake will do, although I would probably avoid anything with chunks. Rainbow chip does sound delicious, though, so if anyone tries it with success, let me know! Our favorite is probably red velvet cake. Bake the cake according to the directions on the box in a 9" by 13" pan. Let it cool completely and cut into quarters. If you don't want to make a full batch, here is where you can freeze any sections you don't want to use. Just adjust the amount of frosting and coating you use accordingly. Each quarter of cake will make around twelve balls.

Next, take each quarter and break it into half. Rub the two pieces together so the cake starts to crumble. Continue on with the rest of the sections, and work through all the crumbs to make sure there aren't any big chunks.

After that, it's time to add the frosting. For the red velvet I use cream cheese frosting, but again, any kind will work, although make sure it's not the whipped kind. For a full cake, you will probably need about 3/4 of a tub of frosting. I usually start by adding about half, then more as needed. Use the back of your spoon to mix it in, until it's a consistency that can be formed into balls without being too mushy.

Start rolling! This can get a little messy, but it's fun. For a whole cake, you should probably get between 45 and 50 balls, depending on how big you roll them. Put them on waxed paper on a baking sheet, and when they're all rolled pop them into the freezer for 20 minutes, or the fridge for a couple of hours. You want them to firm up a little bit, but not freeze.

Next, you need to figure out what kind of coating to use. Michael's sells just about every color of the candy coating - most of the colors are vanilla flavored. I know they also make peanut butter and chocolate, too. I've been using the Meijer brand chocolate coating and it seems to work well and taste pretty good, too! Follow the directions on the package and melt it in a small bowl. For a full batch, you'll probably need two bags of coating.

Take only a couple of balls out of the fridge at a time so they don't start warming up. Put one ball at a time in the bowl of melted coating. Don't stir! Use a spoon to cover the ball, then lift it up and tap your spoon on the side of the bowl a few times to get rid of the excess coating and smooth everything out.

Slide the ball off the spoon onto another piece of waxed paper. This might seem a little tricky at first, but you'll get the hang of it! If there is extra coating pooling around the bottom, you can always break it off when it dries, or use a little toothpick to scrape it away.

Here is where you can get a little fancy. Sprinkles? Colored sugar? Mini chocolate chips? Go for it!

All that's left now is enjoying all the fruits of your labor. Sit back, relax, and pop a few of these bad boys in your mouth and let the cake take over!

It doesn't hurt to have an extra cute helper, either...

Happy Sunday!

Extra special thanks to my photographers - Mike and my mom. You really did a wonderful job of capturing the beauty of the ball-making process. xoxoxo 

Put 'Er There, Pal

I've been elbow deep in green velvet over here for the last couple of hours, and I'm not talking about fabric. I'm talking cake - green velvet cakes that I'm baking for the 200 plus cake balls I'm making for this weekend. Yep, 200. Sounds crazy, I know, but it's for a really good cause, and the more I think about it, staining my fingers with a little bit of food coloring is really the least I could do.

A few weeks ago, I took a stash of my cake balls with me when I went to visit my sister and brother-in-law. I tried to warn them of the addictiveness of these little treats, and sure enough, one bite in and they were asking me if I could make some for Drew's upcoming golf outing. When I came across a recipe for green velvet, I knew it would be perfect - and even though green and white aren't my favorite colors, surely I could put my distaste to the side in honor of doing something charitable, right?

Somewhere along the line, Kristin also asked me if I could put together a poster with pictures and information about all the stuff their charity is involved in. I happily agreed, mostly because there's still a huge part of me that loves anything that involves Sharpies, but also because I was starting to realize just how awesome the High 5ive Foundation actually is.

It's embarrassing to admit, but I never really paid that much attention to all the stuff they do. Sure, my sister tells me about it, and I attempt to keep up with their crazy schedules (seriously, it exhausts me just thinking about it sometimes), and I've been to a few events, helping out when I can. But last night, she handed me a stack of pictures to use, and I was just about a sniffly mess looking through them.

It's probably because I'm a mama now, but seeing actual photographs of the kinds of things the foundation is providing really hit home. Because those babies that need those bubble machines to distract them when they're getting chemotherapy or see the puppets being used to show them what a CAT Scan will be like? Those babies could easily be my baby. And even though there is absolutely nothing that I can think of that would be worse than seeing Anna in need of any of that stuff, it's comforting to know that there are people like Drew and Kristin (and everyone else involved in the foundation) who are doing something to make an awful situation a tiny bit better. My love and respect for both of them has grown so much in just the last few days.

Here is an article about how Drew won the Lions' Man of the Year Award for the second year in a row.
And here is one about an event they do around the holidays.
More information about the puppets can be found here and here is a little bit about the bubble machine.

A couple hundred cake balls? No big whoop.

And in between all the rolling and dipping and decorating, I'm going to take a little extra time to hug my baby a little tighter and be thankful for all the wonderful people in our lives.

If you want more information about High 5ive (because I certainly can't do justice here to all the things they are doing), please check out the website: www.high5ivefoundation.org

Amaze-Balls

I would like to dedicate this post to my balls. Now, before your mind goes all pornographic on me, I should clarify that the balls I am referring to are of the cake variety.  And they are amazing. Hence, Amaze-Balls.

Martha, Schmartha, right?!??

It all started with a little graduation present from my mom - a Cake Pop cook book. At first, I was intimidated. I don't fancy myself a baker of any kind, and these tiny confections looked pretty darn complicated. But it was our good friend Steve's birthday, and it was a rainy day, and I was feeling all Martha Stewart-y, so I decided to give it a shot. 

Admittedly, the cake ball is the much simpler cousin of the cake pop, but a girl's got to start somewhere, right? And it was actually much easier than I anticipated. You basically bake a cake (I used red velvet - just a box job), crumble it up, mix in some frosting (cream cheese, again, just from a tub), form into balls, and cover with chocolate. I was feeling a little extra fancy when I was done and threw in a little drizzle over the top, and I have to say I was quite pleased with myself. 

But the best part? These tiny balls o' cake taste awesome! Something about the cake being smooshed up with the frosting ups the deliciousness factor by about a million, because even Mike, who doesn't normally like cake, couldn't get enough. I think his exact words were "Where have these been all my life?". Even Anna got in on the action, which might have been a mistake on my part, because she then spent a majority of the weekend screeching "Ba! Ba! Ba!" (her word for ball) and pointing up at the counter where they were stashed. Smart girl. (I would like to point out, just so I don't sound like a totally delinquent mother who feeds her baby cake balls for every meal, that Anna also scarfed down a ton of kale chips - another new delicious recipe I tried this weekend from Gwyneth Paltrow's cook book. So it's all good - I'm not a horrible mom.)

So now I'm busy planning my next creations. There are so many delicious options that I think this beautiful relationship with cake balls is just beginning. And I like it. I like it a lot.

"My mouth is watering just thinking about those balls..."