Move Over Turkey!

Thanksgiving is all about rich, decadent food and large birds with feathered fan tails, right? If that's the case, I think I really hit the nail on the head with my Peacock Pies.  It's the same cheesecake recipe from an earlier post (found here), but instead of doing it in a spring form pan, I went for the cheapy store-bought crusts. Obviously, homemade graham cracker crust is better, but if you're in a time crunch they work beautifully!  And, a half recipe made enough to fill two of these babies.

I liked experimenting with the colors. I was able to get some pretty impressive blues and greens with McCormick neon food coloring. I've used that for my last several food-dying projects with much success.  I had a great time designing them.  Proud of both, but I think the second one is my favorite because it's the essence of a peacock feather without being too literal. 

Still Poppin'

I'm turning out a batch (or 5) of cake pops almost every week. There are lots of bakes sales going on right now, plus the holidays are coming up. My goal is to get really good by Christmas so that I can give them as gifts or take them to parties.

Of course in addition to looking cute, they need good flavor. That was the project today. My grandmother, great aunt Lulie and I decided to try flavoring with extracts and oil. We ended up with gingerbread, almond, lemon, strawberry, raspberry, and peppermint. With the cake pop maker it was easy to divide out the cake batter and flavor a few cake pops at a time just to see what they would taste like. If it needed more flavor it was easy to adjust.

In order to tell them apart, we coated and topped them with things that would enhance or hint at the flavor.

Gingerbread:

Lemon:

 

Strawberry:

Raspberry:

Peppermint:

Aren't they pretty? And the "pops" don't have to be on sticks. We did them bon bon style and I think that works out pretty well.

Eye Candy

I really wanted to make some Halloween treats to take to work, but one of my professors had the brilliant idea of giving a test that day so there was no time for elaborate home-made confections. 

I cut store bought pound cake (2 for 1 at Ingle's!) into little circles and attached them to sticks.  After a quick dip in melted chocolate,  I put some gummy eyeballs in the center.  They were adorable. Unfortunately I don't have an up close photo, but the day after I brought them in my boss texted me this picture of his son:

Awesome.