Christmas Cake Pops

For my birthday, approximately seven months ago, I got a Cake Pop Maker from my friend, La (Thanks, La!). While a gracious gift, it was also around the time I was moving to a new apartment, so the cake pop maker and accessories went into a box and got stored away into a closet. (Sorry, La.) But they were not forgotten! Last week, J. and I hosted a Secret Santa exchange among a few friends in town, and I thought, what better time to finally make use of my cake pop maker? Who wouldn't want little white "snowballs" festively dotted with green and red sprinkles?

For those of you have never seen a cake pop maker, imagine a waffle iron, with plates that have these little round indentations instead of the "waffle" shape.  Or look at the picture here. It comes with a cake pop stand to use for cooling the cakes and to hold the cake pops after frosting them. And La was generous to also get me the "chocolatier" for dipping in the frosting (essentially it is a miniature crock-pot).

This actually turned out to be a fun project. Although one downside of the cake pop maker is that it only makes 12 cake pops at a time, and the recipes all make about 36 cake pops, so that means you have to bake them in batches.

I used the vanilla cake recipe and the vanilla frosting dip recipe from the cake pop maker manual.  The manual also has some handy tips in there.  For example, I learned that it was easier to freeze the cake balls for five minutes before dipping them in frosting made the process easier.  And dipping the stick in the frosting before jabbing them into the cake balls helps to keep the cake from falling off the stick.  I've never tried making cake pops without a cake pop maker, so I couldn't tell you if it was any easier.  I do like that it only took about four minutes to cook each batch.

I decorated the pops with red and green Christmas Sprinkles and crushed candy canes.  A note on the cake pops with candy canes - the red dye on the candy canes will start to run if you make the cake pops too far in advance.  They still taste good, but I recommend serving them the day of so they stay crisp and pretty when you serve them to guests, and don't look like mangled eyeballs.  (Though something to keep in mind if we ever serve them at a Halloween party!)

I'm looking forward to testing out the other recipes in the manual (I read somewhere it is better to use the recipes in the manual when using the cake pop maker since they are especially formulated for it).  Next I hope to make the apple cider doughnut holes or the red velvet cake pops.

My First Cheesecake (Ricotta Cheesecake)

Last week was my week of freedom between my last final and before bar review began. So I had many ambitions to cook and bake things that I've had bookmarked such as, Paula Deen's Cheesecake cookies, and Penne with cherry tomatoes, asparagus, and goat cheese. So at the beginning of the week, I went to the supermarket, and bought, among other things, cream cheese for the cheesecake cookies, and ricotta cheese for the penne and goat cheese dish. Ricotta cheese, you ask? Well, I couldn't find goat cheese at the supermarket, so I thought ricotta cheese would be a good substitute.

Needless to say, neither of these dishes materialized between running errands, seeing friends I wouldn't get to see during the summer, and graduating from law school. Many of the other ingredients, such as the cherry tomatoes and asparagus, got eaten up by my parents, leaving me with a lot of ricotta and cream cheese. One google search later, and I had a recipe for "Heavenly Cheesecake" - which calls for both ricotta and cream cheese.

Now, this was the first cheesecake I have ever baked, so it's not so pretty. But don't be fooled by its appearance. This cake turned out to be a light and fluffy custard, like eating a cloud in a crust. The topping adds a sweet tangy flavor, but it's good even without it. I used a store-bought crust since I was pressed for time, but making your own as the recipe describes seems easy enough. Plus, it's low-fat! All in all, I would call this a success and I would make this cake again. Except next time, I will work on folding the egg whites into the batter better, which I believe is what caused the brown blotches.

For the recipe, click here.

Bake Sale Preview

So this is a shameless plug here, but it's my blog, so I can advertise what ever I want! Tomorrow is the APALSA bake sale, so to entice potentially hungry law students I have posted pics of my contribution - rainbow cupcakes and blueberry muffins!

Now doesn't this look tasty? There's only one way to sink your teeth into these cupcakes - come to the bake sale tomorrow!

I have to admit, it takes a lot of willpower not to eat any of these before tomorrow!

First Blog Ever!

Welcome to Food Judicata! I plan on dedicating this blog to interesting food-related adventures I come across such as recipes, techniques, and restaurants. And as a law student, I may include some rants of my own about law school, legal issues, and the like. For now I will put up photos of meals that I have cooked in the past. More to come soon!

In this picture here are, "Free-Form Chocolate-Strawberry Petit-Fours" made with my friend Joey, for our mutual friend Junas, on her birthday. (Although you can't see it too well in the picture - the cakes in the middle have letters that spell J-U-N-A-S.) The original plan was to bake cupcakes. But then Joey had the brilliant idea to make petit fours*. But after a minor fiasco with making the chocolate sauce that the cakes were supposed to be dipped in, the cakes became "Free-Form" petit fours. These cakes are layers of chocolate cake, with homemade strawberry sauce in the middle, topped with whipping cream and a slice of strawberry for garnish. They turned out to be a real hit at the party.

*Random trivia - Did you know that "petit four" is French for "small oven"?