Food as Encouragement

Chocolate with Peanut Butter Coating

I learned long ago that one of the best ways to tell someone I care is with food. This is true when I make a seven-course birthday dinner for Jeff or just my son's favorite stuffed shells because he had a bad day. Nothing says "You're special" like homemade food. With this in mind, I was contemplating how to encourage the many new faculty in my department as we wrap up first quarter this week. I thought about writing them all notes of appreciation, but I did that a few weeks ago. Drink certificates for Quick Trip are always a hit, but I've done that as well. So, as I flipped through this month's edition of Family Circle and saw the cakesickles, I found my idea. (The memory of yummy cake balls my mom made last Christmas didn't deter me either. As a matter of fact, my puppy-dog-eyed son had to make sure there would be enough left over for him to enjoy.)

Lemon with Vanilla Coating

Cakesickles, it seems, are part of the newest rage of putting everything on a stick. In this case, cake balls are put on sticks, dipped in candy coating, and decorated. While mine aren't as elaborate as the ones in the magazine (which you can see at http://www.familycircle.com/recipes/holiday/halloween-treats/ ), they are certainly tasty. I opted for lemon cake with lemon frosting dipped in white coating with colorful sprinkles and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting dipped in peanut butter coating with chocolate sprinkles. In addition,

since I am giving these away, I made the balls nearly twice as large as suggested. (The recipe says it makes about 50 cake balls, but I made about 30 of each kind.)

All wrapped up and ready to go

This is one of the easiest dessert gifts I've made. While the dipping takes a little time, putting the balls on a stick makes it oh-so-much easier than dipping without. In addition, the recipe instructions say to put the formed cake balls in the freezer. After sitting for about an hour, the balls were firm and the pans were very cold, which also helps with the dipping process because the coating set up quickly around the center and on the pan. The recipe says to put the sticks in a Styrofoam block while the coating hardens, but since I didn't have anything like that I just allowed them to puddle on the pan and create a flat bottom. I had another problem with wrapping the cake pops. I purchased some of the Wilton small sucker bags, but my cake balls were too big, so I ended up cutting squares of plastic wrap and fastening them around the sticks with tape.

In the end, both versions taste good, but Jeff and I like the lemon better. The chocolate with peanut butter is just a little heavy. Next time, I'll skip the chocolate in favor of a lighter flavor like strawberry or cherry. Though, my son says red velvet with cream cheese frosting and white candy coating would be "awesome."