Easy Does It

.

The set up. (In the board room, no less.)

There are a lot of reasons I love my job. The fact that every day I encounter a new challenge. The fact that there's never a boring moment. The fact that I can see and feel how my work makes a difference in the organization. The fact that I work with a super supportive group of people who have seen me through the best and worst of times. But most of all, I'm thankful for a boss who, after a string of really grueling weeks, will bring in her daughter's Easy Bake Oven and allow me to cook to my heart's content.

No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I have a real job.

I know you're probably wondering how Easy Bake Day at the office came about. See, there are a few of us ladies (and the office is currently made up of only ladies) whose Easy Bake Oven wish never came true as children. And those few of us still have easy baking on our "bucket lists," so to speak. Since we've been working so hard lately, and since we have the best boss on Earth, we were lucky enough to take a bit of a baking break on Friday afternoon.

Now you're probably wondering why I chose to compromise my blogging integrity (or just my general integrity) by writing about my Easy Bake escapades. Well it turns out that if we hadn't had a baking professional (me) in the office, Easy Bake Day may have been quite the blunder. So here I am to share the knowledge and experience I've gained from non-easy baking (hard baking?) applied to the infamous Easy Bake Oven.

You can always add, but you can't take away

A sticky situation.

I found this cooking adage has never been more true than when applied to Easy Bake kits ... while it's near miraculous that a combination of powder and water can produce an edible cookie, the ratio of powder to water that you find in the directions isn't always on the money.

This was first evident as we ventured down the path of pretzel sticks. It's understandably tricky to produce a viable dough from a mix, but you'd think that following the instructions carefully would yield the right results. Not so. Turns out these pretzels require about half the water the instructions call for, which we learned on the second batch after the first batch ended up mostly stuck to Laura's hands. On round two, I (took over and) started slow, adding just a teaspoon of water at a time and pressing the mixture into a dough instead of stirring it into the sticky situation we created the first time. Viola! Chewy pretzel sticks came out of the oven and were promptly dunked in the mysterious, neon orange cheese sauce (also created from powder and water).

Patience is a virtue

I tried to follow instructions, but it turns out mine are better.

Bear in mind: you're cooking with a light bulb here. You can't be surprised when the oven takes 20 minutes to heat up and your cake, albeit mini, takes two 16-minute passes to bake. You also can't be surprised at the lack of a temperature gauge and timer on the oven itself (both present in decorative sticker form on the device, but clearly inoperable!).

What's curious, though, is that the instructions claim to bake that mini cake in just 16 minutes. Well my cake (and the pretzels, and the whoopie pies, and the cookies) came out half-done, so I borrowed from a pretty standard baking rule and rotated the pan. It may not be rocket science, but you'd be surprised how many people would have given up in defeat when those goodies came out gooey. And with a little patience, the delectables were perfectly done with dual passes.

Easy does it

At this point, we've learned there are (more than) a few tricks to breaking off an edible easy bake batch. And this includes working with the accessories that come with the oven. Now, if you had an Easy Bake Oven as a child, you might be familiar with the "pusher." (I can't imagine that it's a newfangled contraption, because it's not exactly high tech.) The "pusher" serves the dual purposes of pushing things into and pulling them out of the oven. It takes on the form of a spatula, just a lot less intuitive.

Truffles! Next time I'll supply extra sprinkles.

The instructions allude to this, but you have to be very careful with the pusher to make sure your pan ends up in just the right spot in the oven so the doors on either end are completely closed. Then, when your time is up, you use your pusher again to make sure the pan ends up in just the right spot in the cooling chamber. Now, if you don't take it easy with the pusher, and you haphazardly shove everything in the oven, guess what's going to happen? You're going to get the cupcake pan stuck and you're going to have to shake the oven upside down to get it out. And in the process, you're going to panic for fear that you've just broken your boss's daughter's favorite toy and wonder if you're going to get fired. I speak from experience


You're probably wondering, after all this trial and error, how did the finished products actually taste? You know, that whole powder and water thing made me nervous. I don't even use boxed cake mixes, so I was understandably skeptical. But surprisingly enough, most of our baked goods weren't half bad! We produced some pretty tasty truffles, some scrumptious sugar cookies with lemon icing, and some marvelous mini cupcakes. They weren't exactly enough to feed a crowd, but they're just right for a taste. We'll keep that in mind next week, when we bring our teddy bears in for the afternoon tea party. J/K!

Enlarged to show detail. Just like the photos on the packaging.

Happy Easter Cupcakes!

Cake balls used to be something I made only at Christmastime, and rightfully so because they're a lot of work. But they're so cute and everyone likes them so much, I've decided I can't limit them to just one holiday. The themed cake ball possibilities are endless ... you can make them for any occasion! The last time I made them I made footballs for the Super Bowl, so I figured why not try Easter eggs for Easter?
The problem with making cake balls more than once a year is that they're a huge process. I typically take three or four days to complete all the steps in cake ball-making. I won't repeat the recipe because you can find it here in my football cake ball post, but I will walk you through the steps in photos.

This project was made slightly more complex by the fact that I was making my cake balls in order to decorate cupcakes. It was so much work, but so worth it!

Easter Egg Hunt Cupcakes
Step 1 (Day 1): Bake your cake; let cool.

As you'll recall from the football cake ball recipe, cake balls require just one box of cake mix (but they yield dozens of balls). To shave off some time in the ball-making process, I poured half of my prepared cake batter in an 8x8-inch square baking pan, and with the other half of the batter made 6 cupcakes. Given that I was making cupcakes anyway, this seemed like a stroke of genius.

Step 2 (Day 2): Roll your cake balls; let set.

As far as I'm concerned, this is the most painstaking step in the process, especially when you're trying to achieve a specific shape like I was with my Easter eggs. I'm sure that an easier way to do this would be to press the cake-frosting mixture into candy molds. And I fully intended to go to Michael's in search of Easter egg-shaped molds, but I never made it there. That'll be a note for next time.

Step 3 (Day 3): Bake another batch of cupcakes because your husband ate the first batch.

Ok, so I was planning to bake a second batch of cupcakes anyway because the 6 that came out of the first box wouldn't have been enough. But Bill really did eat 5 of those 6 original cupcakes. And it looks like he may have pilfered one of these, too!

Step 4 (Day 3): Dip and decorate your cake balls; let set.

I've always found the dipping of the cake balls to be the most difficult step because it's nearly impossible to get them evenly coated and smooth. So, yes, they look messy. But when I peeled them off the wax paper and nestled them on my cupcakes they looked quite cute. You'll see.

Step 5 (Day 4): Frost and decorate your cupcakes.

My plan was to nestle my Easter egg cake balls in a bed of coconut "grass" on top of my cupcakes. The photo turned out a little yellow, but my coconut actually looked really good! I learned that the secret to evenly coloring coconut is to squeeze a few drops of food coloring into a plastic container, then add the coconut, close it up and shake it vigorously. Never add the food coloring directly to the coconut because the portion that it hits will absorb it immediately, failing the evenly coat the remaining coconut.

I also added green food coloring to my can of vanilla frosting. After frosting all of my cupcakes, I dipped them in the colored coconut, gently rolling them to coat the edges.

Step 6 (Day 4): Finish the cupcakes off with a cake ball on top!

Ta da! Super cute Easter Egg Hunt Cupcakes! To make sure the eggs stayed in place, I dabbed a bit of frosting on the bottom before placing them on the cupcakes. And here's a helpful hint: if you accidentally take a little chunk out of a cake ball in the process of removing some of the excess chocolate around the edges, you can hide that imperfection with frosting!

Are You Ready for Some FOOTBALL ... Cake Balls?

Those of you who know me know I'm not a football fan ... but I am a cake ball fan! If you're baffled by cake balls, the concept is really simple (and delicious). They're balls of cake dipped in chocolate. I discovered this recipe a few years ago when someone I used to work with forwarded it to me, and I thought it was genius. Who wouldn't love yummy little chocolate-dipped chunks of deliciousness?

Sue and I immediately added them to our Christmas treat repertoire and people went nuts. But never have I seen a more drastic reaction than this past Christmas when I introduced them to my new co-workers. You would have thought I'd struck gold and shared it with everyone. With the Super Bowl fast approaching, I thought I'd give the cheeseheads a real treat.

Football Cake Balls

Ingredients:
1 box cake mix, flavor of your choice (plus the ingredients listed on the box)
1 can frosting, flavor of your choice
2 bags semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 bag white chips
5 teaspoons shortening
1 teaspoon shaved parafin

Directions:
Bake cake according to directions on box. When completely cool, break cake into large pieces and place in a large bowl. Use a wooden spoon to break the cake into crumbs.

Stir in entire can of frosting. (This will take a little muscle. Be sure it's very well-incorporated. Your mixture will almost be the consistency of cookie dough.) Working by the teaspoonful, roll cake into balls and form into oblong football shapes. Place on parchment-covered baking sheets. Refrigerate until set, 2-3 hours or overnight.

Create a double boiler by simmering an inch or so of water in a saucepan and placing a glass bowl over it. Place chocolate chips, 4 tablespoons shortening and 1 1/2 teaspoons parafin in bowl to melt. As chips melt, stir until smooth.

Remove cake balls from fridge and dip in chocolate. (The easiest way to do this is to break the two middle prongs off of a plastic fork and use it to grab the balls, drop them in and pick them back up, scraping the excess chocolate on the edge of the bowl as you lift them out. That's a trick I learned at the Taste of Home Cooking School!)

Return cake balls to parchment paper as you remove them from chocolate. Return to fridge and let set 15-30 minutes. Meanwhile, place white chips, remaining tablespoon shortening and remaining parafin in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave 30 seconds, stir, then microwave another 30 seconds. Stir vigorously until mixture is smooth. Spoon into a ziplock bag. Snip a VERY small piece from one corner of the bag and pipe mixture onto cake balls (one vertical line and 2-4 horizontal lines to create laces).

Return cake calls to refrigerator to set. Then impress all your friends!


With a steadier hand I would have made more impressive laces, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. And, I might add, I'm pretty impressed with my creativity :)