Chocolate Lollipops

I came upon this recipe a few months ago in the social site Orkut, and made it for my niece's birthday back in October. It is very labor-intensive and time-consuming, but it's Oh So Good! Because it was cold back then, I did not have any problems working with the chocolate. This time, however, it was quite warm, and the chocolate was melting faster than our production line was moving, resulting in a few casualties. If anybody out there has any great tips on how to work with chocolate in warm weather please let me know! This is Texas after all and I've got to figure this one out. 

These particular pops were made for a dear friend's baby shower, and were one of many delicious treats available to all the wonderful ladies who attended the event.

Ingredients: 

Brigadeiro ( see recipe below)- I used two batches

Maria cookies- I used 3 packets for the two batches of brigadeiro, and it yielded 32 pops. You can easily find these cookies in the Hispanic section of your grocery store.

Good-quality candy-coating milk chocolate

Popsicle sticks

Cellophane paper

Ribbon

Directions: 

1. Make the brigadeiro and let it cool completely

2. Using a butter knife, very carefully spread the brigadeiro in a Maria cookie, place the popsicle stick in the brigadeiro, and close it with another cookie, like a sandwich. Prepare all the pops before proceeding to step four.

3. On a double-boiler, melt the chocolate and, using an angled spatula, completely cover pop making sure to remove any excess chocolate. 

4. Spread chocolate sprinkles all over the pop. Place pop in styrofoam to dry.

Brigadeiro: 

In a saucepan, place 1 can of condensed milk, 1/2 can of milk, and 1/2 cup of chocolate powder ( I always use Nesquick). Over medium-high heat, stir constantly until mixture is thick, bubbly and removes easily from the pan, about 30 minutes. Place on a greased plate.

Displayed at the baby shower.

Spreading the brigadeiro on the Maria cookie.

Closing the pop with the second cookie. It is now ready to be covered with chocolate.

Spreading melted chocolate.

With the jimmies on, drying.

The table where they were displayed.

Chocolate Cake- Ugly but Oh So Tasty!

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day and we will have a small celebration at school, so I naturally decided to bake a cake to celebrate the occasion. The cake itself is chocolate, from a recipe I have had forever, made from scratch. I did cheat on the filling, as I was tired after working, having a book study meeting after-school, running to the grocery store and making dinner. Short story long, I simply mixed cool-whip and blackberry jam. It came out mousse-like, very tasty in a tart kind of way. 

I made buttercream to ice the cake with, and that's where my problems started. The cream itself was fine, but when I started to add color ( I wanted navy blue) I soon realized it was going to be a disaster..I added the entire tube of blue gel coloring but it still came out baby-bluish. I need to take an art class to learn how to mix colors!

I then proceeded to assemble the cake and realized it was looking very much like the tower of Pisa. Hum, what's a girl to do? I tried to even it out by cutting, but it came out way less than perfect. The final disaster came when I was icing, I just could not get it to have that professional smooth look. Good thing I have signed up for 4 cake decoring classes! Obviously I need them. So I made myself feel better by thinking of this as a "before" cake, so I can look back and see how far I've come! Let's hope I have not just jinxed myself and  that it actually happens. 

Here is the cake recipe: 

- 4 eggs

- 2 cups of sugar, sifted

- 2 cups of flour, sifted

- 1 cup of boiling milk

- 5 tablespoons of cocoa powder

- 1 tablespoon of baking powder

Beat the egg whites until it reaches a stiff consistency. Add the yolks and the sugar and beat well. Add the flour and the cocoa powder, mix well and add the hot, boiling milk over it and keep on mixing it. Add the baking powder and mix it lightly onto the batter. Bake for 30 minutes on a pre-heated 350 oven ( I usually pre-heat mine for about 20 minutes).  You can bake it on a 13x9 pan or two small round ones, don't forget to divide the batter evenly in this case. 

The frosting was buttercream.

This is what your egg whites need to look like before you start adding the other ingredients onto the batter. By the way, if you don't have one, go ahead and purchase a Kitchen Aid mixer. Best tool ever! Totally worth the cost.

To check and see if the cake is done, insert a skewer into it, if it comes out clean it's done.

               The cake filling, before the second cake was added on top.

                            The final product, my poor little ugly cake.