Valentine's Treats

In our house, Valentine's Day isn't as much about flowers and stuffed animals and such...it is just a big excuse to get in the kitchen and indulge in something CHOCOLATE! (Of course, for my choco-holic hubby, that's every day! We each have our drug of choice...coffee & just about any baked goods for me, chocolate & Diet Coke for him.)

A while back, I'd been snooping over at bakerella.com and saw some of these adorable creations called Cake Pops. She does them a ton of different ways and for different holidays, but I figured I'd keep it simple for my first go at it. Basically you bake a cake, then crumble it and mix it with cream cheese frosting, roll the mixture into little balls, freeze them on lollipop sticks, and then dip them in melted chocolate and decorate with sprinkles. Today I had everything ready to go when Maddie and Keith got home from the store.


It sounded simple enough, but I was quickly proven wrong. Chocolate too thick? Cake mixture too wet? Too heavy? I'm not sure, but after my first few successful attempts they started doing this sad, sad thing...


Ummm. Well then. This just won't do! How to save this from utter disaster? Make cake bon bons! Crisis averted. :-)

Maddie was my official "sprinkler" and what can you say about a 3-year-old helper in the kitchen? You'd better be ready to go with the flow. The flow of sprinkles all over the counter and rolling onto the floor. Sleeves dunked in chocolate frosting. Lollipop sticks being pulled out of cake balls, licked repeatedly and then tapped all over unfinished treats. (And "the talk" about how these are gifts, food for other people, and how they probably don't want your slobbery germs patted ever-so-lightly into their cake balls!)


All in all, I think we ended up with about 6 actual "cake pops" and another 40 "cake bon bons" to share with family and friends. Not bad for an afternoon filled with chocolate, sprinkles and an oh-so-thrilling 3 year old on a sugar high!

Good thing Nana and Papa came over today to exchange valentines and wrestle on the bed with Maddie and James! All that sugar-high energy needs to be used up somehow!

I saw this idea on the Family Fun magazine website and thought it could be a fun start to a new little tradition. A curtain of hearts to wake up to on Valentine's Day morning. As Maddie gets older, we could clip on little notes and affirmations of things we love about her to make it more personalized. On a scrapbooking website I also saw paper with hearts & robots / hearts & frogs, so perhaps I'll make one for James in a year or two.



The cool, unexpected thing about these that I discovered when I hung them tonight is that they twirl! Looking at that just makes me happy.

Happy Valentine's Day everybody! :-)

P.S.--I didn't want to leave out one special family member, whose birthday happens to be on February 14th. Happy 5th Birthday, Lucy!