Gingerbread Cakepops

Resolutions

1.) Bake more with and for friends and family: This has two parts to it, but they are quite similar. A lot of the baking I did this past year was for myself. Which, don't get me wrong, was great, but so much of my baking isn't seen or heard about by people I know. My mom, dad, and sister are all well aware, but I want it to go further. I was lucky enough to get to bake a few times this year with friends, but these times were few and far between. And moreover, (yes I just used the word moreover) I would like to share the fruits of my labors with friends and family! I usually never scale back recipes so I stick my family with the duty of eating all my creations. Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it can be difficult.

2.) Start making regular dinners for the family: Towards the end of the year, regular family dinners had broken down within my family. It wasn't really a choice we made, but it just happened. With all of our busy schedules, it was hard to coordinate who would be home to eat it or when. So, this year I'm going to make sure we at least have three structured dinners a week. I want a reasonable and obtainable goal, so I think three will be good. Of course more can be made, but this is a minimum.

3.) Comment more on other people's blogs: I used to be very good about this. Then, when my own blogging became sparse, I stopped commenting. I still read SO MANY blogs daily, but I rarely comment. That's definitely not in the spirit of blogging. If I have enough time to read the post, why can't I just write a quick comment? I'm hoping to fix this ASAP.

4) Clean Daily: This is unrelated to blogging and can mean a number of things. I don't mean to do this in an OCD kind of way, but I like having a clean house or space. I usually end up throwing my clothes all over my room and piles build up. Eventually, I will get to it and clean it, but I want to stop letting the piles turn into piles. Also, keeping our kitchen tidy since that's the center of our house pretty much. Small or big, cleaning is therapeutic and a good thing to do.

Now I could try and think of more resolutions, and I eventually will probably end up doing so, but I don't want to overwhelm myself. I think all of these things will take up my time. This year is going to be big for me anyways as I will be mulling over my college options.


Now, for these little pops, I could say a lot. But I'm going to try to be brief. I've never made cake pops, but I've obvi seen them around. I read up a little bit on instructions, but most used cake box mixes and canned frosting, so they weren't very helpful. I guesstimated as heck of a lot. I think I might have put too much frosting because it tasted very sweet to me. However, my mom thought it was just right.

I decided to dip them in plain white chocolate. This wasn't too bad, but eventually coating the balls was difficult. I luckily has skewers in my house to help me, but towards the end, my cake balls would slide down them=/ Overall, I'm not too sure I would make these again. It was a lot of time consuming work and I wasn't that wowed with the results. I would much rather just have a slice of cake. Plus, I have like 40 balls left over that are not coated because I had to stop because the process took forever!!

Gingerbread Cake
found at Lisa's Kitchen

2/3 cup of unsalted butter
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of honey
3/4 cup of molasses
2 teaspoons of fresh ginger, finely grated
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 cup of yogurt
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon of baking soda, dissolved in 2 tablespoons of warm water
2 1/3 cups + 2 tablespoons of unbleached white flour

Grease a 12 X 9 inch pan and then line with parchment paper.

In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter combined with the brown sugar, honey, molasses, ginger and cinnamon over medium heat, stirring often. In a small bowl, beat the eggs with a wire whisk and then add the yogurt and baking soda and water. Whisk a few times and set aside.

When the butter is melted, remove the pot from the heat and stir in the yogurt and egg mixture.

Put the flour in a large bowl and add the liquid ingredients to the flour. Beat together until everything is well combined. Transfer to the prepared pan and bake in a 325 degree oven for roughly 45 minutes, or until the gingerbread rises and firms up. Nigella says to not overcook, as the gingerbread is especially nice when sticky and she also notes that it continues to bake a bit when removed from the oven. I tested it with a cake tester at the 45 minute point and it seemed just right.

Cake Pop Assembly:

After cake is cooled, crumble it to pieces in a large bowl. Dump in some frosting of your choice, but start small. You want the cake to come together but not be goopy.


Next, roll into 1 inch balls. Freeze the balls for 10 minutes to they are easier to work with when you go to dip them in the chocolate.


Melt some chocolate in a bowl in the microwave. Place the balls on skewers and dip them into the chocolate. Quickly, while the chocolate is still wet, roll the ball into sprinkles. Then, allow they pops to dry by placing the skewers into tall cups.