He forgot to take the pops!!!

Billy forgot to take the pops with him on the Manual!!! (Okay....we forgot!) As we're driving to the Baltimore I realized we forgot them! I guess in the rush of last minute packing and getting Amos & Tinsely into the car, we forgot!! I thought if I made it back in time, I could go pack them up and overnight them or at least use 2 day FedEx and they would arrive on Saturday but alas! A little rain and lots of traffic from BWI back into VA made us miss the last pick up.  Guess how much it would cost to overnight 8 cake pops to Alabama? Like $75!! If I went with the 2 day service they would have gotten there a day late. I was so upset because I really wanted the boys to be able to enjoy them together.  I was really close to coughing up $75 but I thought I could really use some new shoes or something for $75! Ha!

Well, I decided to just freeze them and go to the post office on Monday to ship them to their houses. I guess the good thing is that now their wives get to enjoy them too!  

"So what kind would you like for your bday??"

Famous last words. 

So my 8 year old niece was having a family birthday party. So how is a family birthday party any different from any other party you might ask? Well basically it comes down to the fact that Emma is a genius!  Her birthday is July 18th and last year she realized that a lot of her friends couldn't come to her party because they were out of town on vacation. So this year she made sure to take advantage of her classmates still being around and had her bday party a month earlier in June while they were still in school.  So that was her "friend" birthday party.  However, you still need to celebrate on your actual birthday, so she decided that her real bday would be celebrated with family. Genius right? 

Well, for the family birthday party she asked me (2 days prior to her actual bday) to make cake pops. I'm thinking, "No biggie. I'll have enough time, plus it's only for 12 people tops." So I said, "So what kind of cake pops would you like for your bday Emma?" At this point you're probably thinking, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry....something like that right? Well here is how Emma interpreted my question, "Uhhmmmm. How about monkeys? I'm not sure if I want girl monkeys or boys monkeys though. Maybe both. Maybe the boy monkeys can be regular and the girl monkeys can like have a bow in their hair." Oh Crap! I had to do some research on how in the world I was going to make these and what they should look like.  I decided on a version of these two pictures. 


I used cheerios for their ears and then used a toothpick and lots of patience to paint in their faces. For the girl monkeys I drew little flower designs with a hot pink candy writer pen on parchment paper, waited for them to dry, and then stuck them on their cute little heads. What do you think? 

                    

What's a Manual?

Happy 13th Annual Manual Billy, Chris, Brian & Adam!

My husband Billy and some of his closest college friends from Auburn have been getting together for a "Man Trip" every summer. If I mention that Billy is out of town on the Manual the response is always, "What's a Manual?" Then I go into my explanation that it's an Annual Man Trip, hence Manual. Their group number has fluctuated throughout the years, but these 4 guys have been going strong for...you guessed it, 13 years!! Impressive right? I must say I am extremely envious of their tradition and keep telling my girlfriends we need to do it too!! Billy's friends all live in different states and they usually try to rotate the trip locations and keep it close to one of them so they don't always have to travel very far. This year Brian is renting a lake house in Alabama on Lake Martin, so that is where they are headed. 

The Manual usually consists of a fair amount of cerveza drinking, so in honor of the Manual I decided I would make beer shaped cake pops out of Chocolate Guinness cake with Bailey's Cream cheese frosting. I actually got several uses out of this recipe. I made a couple of cupcakes for Billy just because, and then in a 9" round pan I baked the rest of the batter. I used half the cake for the Manual cake pops and froze the other half of the cake for a future use.  

Here's the recipe I followed courtesy of Dave Lieberman on the Foodnetwork.com: 

• Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, plus more for dusting finished cupcakes
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups all-purposeflour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • Pinch fine salt
  • 1 bottle stout beer (recommended: Guinness)
  • 1 stick butter, melted
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 3 large eggs
  • 3/4 cup sour cream
  • 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened at room temperature
  • 3/4 to 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1 (1-pound) box confectioners' sugar

  Directions

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

  In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt.

  In another medium mixing bowl, combine the stout, melted butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs, 1 at time. Mix in sour cream until thoroughly combined and smooth. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

  

  This isn't my picture but my cupcakes were almost identical, no joke.  

  Lightly grease 24 muffin tins. Divide the batter equally between muffin tins, filling each 3/4 full. Bake for about 12 minutes and then rotate the pans. Bake another 12 to 13 minutes until risen, nicely domed, and set in the middle but still soft and tender. Cool before turning out.

  To make the icing:

  In a medium bowl with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese on medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the heavy cream. On low speed, slowly mix in the confectioners' sugar until incorporated and smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use. Icing can be made several hours ahead and kept covered and chilled. Top each cupcake with a heap of frosting and dust with cocoa.

The cupcakes were pretty delicious by the way. Oh yes, my cake pops! I created a little mug and pilsner glass. I had a difficult time writing 'Beer' on the mugs though. I used one of those food markers which supposedly says you can write on just about anything. I'm not convinced you can write on chocolate. I used peanut butter chocolate melts for the mug/glass and white chocolate for the overflowing foam.  On the mugs I used a Cheerrio for the handle.