Something Beautiful: cake pops

Last Thursday and Friday were designated to getting ready for Bailey's Shower that we had on Saturday. Trisha, Kendra and I emailed back and forth for over 2 months so that we could discuss all of the details of the big day. We had a lot of fun planning together and everything went off without a hitch. I will post pictures from that day soon but for now I wanted to explain how I made the cake pops and party favors. Bailey is now 37 weeks along and soon she will be the mother to little Harper Lee Johnson! We are already planning our trips to see her once the little one arrives!

First I started by making the Strawberry Cake mix (Pillsbury Super Moist Box Mix) and baked it in a 9x13 pan like any other cake. Then I cut the cake in cube pieces and crumbled the cake a little bit to let it cool down.

Once the cake was completely cooled I added a couple large spoonfuls of cream

cheese frosting. I used about half of the container of frosting. I figured cream cheese frosting would be delicious with strawberry cake. I also looked on different blogs for tips with cake pops since this was my first time making them. One of the useful tips was to not mix in too much frosting and to add it a little bit of a time so that it was a good consistency for forming balls.

Then I rolled all 28 balls and froze them overnight. The next day I went to Kendra's to start dipping them. I used vanilla flavored pink almond bark chips from Hobby Lobby. And I ended up using the whole bag of chips. For the dipping technique I used a tall ceramic mug, dipped the sticks first about 1 inch down in the melted almond bark and then put the cake pop on it.

To let the pops dry I stabbed holes in a box lid so that the pops could be upright and not have any flat spots when they cooled.

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Coffee and Polish Party Favors

Bailey loves coffee but hasn't been able to have any while she is pregnant. That doesn't mean her guests can't enjoy some freshly brewed coffee on the go! I got this idea from a friend at work and it was reasonably priced since. Each reusable cup was $1 and if you use it at Starbucks then you get 10 cents off your order! I also found 97 cent pink NYC nail polish at Target which I was excited about because I had to buy 16 of them and wasn't going to pay $4 a piece for nail polish.

I used some whole bean coffee that I already had at home and filled the bottom of the cups with some great smelling beans. I wrapped the nail polish in tissue paper, tied it with ribbon and placed it inside the cups. Then I added a little tag that said "Bailey is "Brewing" up Something Special" to finish off the party favors!