Weekendin'...

I have had a couple busy weekends and I kept forgetting to upload the photos so my blogging has been slack lately.  I will give you a recap in pictures.

What happens when someone randomly asks you if you have read the Harry Potter books?  In some cases it means you get volunteered to dress up as a Wizard to teach spells at a kid's birthday party.  That is what happened to B a few weeks ago.  I was extremely nervous about this but B ended up being amazing and the kids really like him.  He was quick on his feet and a great improviser.  I am now his booking agent if anyone is in the market for some children's bday party entertainment.

It was Shanzles big 31st birthday a week ago so I made her these cupcakes in the shape of an 'S' (sort of).

Cupcakes are cool.  But you know what people are really in to?  Ice cream sundae bars.  For real.  Put out some ice cream, chocolate sauce, cherries and of course whipped cream and people get excited.

See that excitement.

My friend Rachel flew in from New York to meet Beezus5's new baby.  KMU actually met a lot of new people at Shanzles' birthday party.

I'm thinking of writing the pilot for a new buddy sitcom...'2 Men, a Poodle and a Baby'.  Yeah?  Would you watch?

This past weekend I spent a lot of time making these guys and listening to some hot pop music on my iPad.

So that was my past few weekends. 

Did you do anything exciting?

Cake Balls-Part 2: The Successes

And now, the riveting conclusion to Cake Balls-Part 1.............

So the cake ball pops were not a complete failure.  There were just a few bumps a long the way.  We actually ended up with many wonderful and semi-wonderful looking cake pops. 

How we made our cake pops:
2 boxes of cake mix
2 containers of icing
A bunch of Candy Melts from Michael's (we had 5 bags but only used about 3 bags)
Sprinkles
Cake Pop sticks (from Michael's)

1-Bake the cakes according to package (very important)
2-Let the cakes cool
3-Crumble the cake into a bowl and add about 3/4 of a can of icing
4-Mix the icing into the cake to form a dough (add more icing if you need it)
5-Roll the dough into little balls and then refrigerate or freeze them so that they are more firm (makes it easier to dip in the melted chocolate)
6-Melt the Candy Melts (or you can use real chocolate, I think Candy Melts (CM) are easier because they harden faster but real chocolate might taste better)
7-Dip a stick in melted CM then dip the stick in a ball and dip the ball back into the CM until it's coated.  Quickly add sprinkles before the CM hardens.  You can also let it harden and then write on it with more melted CM or draw designs on it with melted CM
8-Stick it in styrofoam to fully dry

T constructed a cake stand for us out of styrofoam and ribbon.  We started with the sprinkles and then B5 did an excellent job of writing letters (and drawing creatures) on some of the balls.  Basically the ones that T and B5 made are much prettier than the ones I made.  I also tended to shriek or yell when my cake balls did not turn out as planned.  It got pretty tense up in there (for me, not for other people).

Our biggest success by far was figuring out how to transport the cake ball pop cake from T's apartment (3rd floor by the way) to the bar later that night.  We sat in contemplation for a few minutes when we realized we would need something to put the cake in, in order to move it.  Then T decided to take action and after searching through her storage closest for a few minutes, T pulled out this drawer which ended up being the perfect thing to transport the cake.  (We cleaned and disinfected it before putting the cake in there by the way.)

So I took the cake to my house and then later was in charge of transporting it to the bar.  I was very freaked out the whole way to the bar and sat in the back seat with the cake to make sure it stayed safe.  I also yelled at B for going over speed bumps.

However, we made it and the cake was a success!

I'm not really sure what she was blowing out here as this cake ball
cake had no candles.  However, M seems to think it's hilarious.



Cake Balls-Part 1: The Failures

How it all started..........
Secret email chain between Me, Curly T, and Beezus5 in regards to Shanzie's Birthday party......
ME: should we make/buy cupakes or a cake or something for saturday night for shanzies bday partay?  what does she like?  will the bar allow that?
T: hey...sorry, for the delay in response...I didn't have to work today.  Yes...I think she would definitely appreciate that....and I would think that the bar would be fine with it since we are bringing like 20 people into their business (but B5 might know the establishment better).
B5:  The Bar would be fine with that. #1 i'm in with the waitresses, #2 i had some cake balls there a few nights ago for another dude's bday.
ME:  ooh maybe we can make cake balls.  i have wanted to try them
T:  my co-worker brought in cake balls for Valentine's day and they were delicious!!!
ME:  yeah i see them on food blogs all the time.  lets do it.  I THINK IT'S PRETTY EASY.  you just bake a box cake and crumble it up and mix it with icing and dip it in something.  we can add some sprinkles to make it birthdayish.  i'll look it up.

Of course I was the one who had to say "i think it's pretty easy."  In my head I should have known it wasn't going to work out as I planned (just like those Martha Stewart glasses).  So after a few more email chains we decided that B5 and I would pre-bake some cakes and take them over to T's house on Saturday morning.  She would get the stuff to decorate them and then we would make something amazingly beautiful, just like these.......

Picture from cakepops.com (much prettier pops than ours)

So anyways, my first big fail happened when I was making the cake.  The directions on the box said to add 1/3 cup of oil.  Apparently I thought it said to add 1 and 1/3 cups of oil.  Ooops.  I didn't realize this until the cake had been baking for like 45 minutes and it was still liquidy.  It finally baked and I decided since we were crumbling it up it would be fine. 

No, not really.   I should have known.  I mean the balls were pretty soggy even after I froze them.  The first one I tried to make ended up like this.....as did the next few. 

We finally got a few of them to stay on the sticks but an hour later we realized that they were actually leaking oil (yeah there was that much oil in them).  GROSS.  So we threw away all the pink cake.  Fortunately I did make a chocolate cake with the correct amount of oil and B5 made a yellow cake to use

Our next big mishap occurred when B5 threw one of the recently coated melted chocolate balls under T's kitchen table.  Ok she didn't really throw it.  She just dropped it.  I just stood there frozen and yelling while T and B5 actually figured out how to get the (hardening) chocolate off the carpet.  (I also took pictures. I'm sooo helpful in a crisis.)  Good times.

by the way, they got the chocolate up with clorex wipes, I think

So in conclusion, when you make cake balls don't add 4 times the amount of oil the cake recipe calls for and try not to drop the balls on the ground.  See what we had to go through, Shanzie.

Did we end up with any successful cake balls?  You will find out tomorrow in the riveting conclusion, 'Cake Balls-Part 2'. 

Scavenged...

In case you haven't heard, this weekend I participated in a Scavenger Hunt Birthday Party Extravaganza for my friend Shanzie who just turned 30.  The scavenger hunt consisted of 5 teams of 3 to 4 people.   These people then ran around local stores and restaurants taking pictures of things (like a Maryland license plate, a person with a cool beard, the giant horse in front of PF Changs) and collecting items (menus, brochures, pennies, etc).  There were also several extremely hard riddles to solve (ok, apparently they were only hard for me).  My husband, B was in charge of planning and scoring the scavenger hunt.  Below is my hard hitting interview with him...

Tallying up the scores...

Please give a brief description of the scavenger hunt?
B-This was your typical scavenger hunt. You had a list of items that either needed to be found or photographed.  I kept it limited to The Friendly Center (local outdoor shopping center) and downtown to try to limit the travel time.  There were a total of 68 items, including 10 riddles to solve. And the riddles were hard.  There was one that was so hard that no team got it.  Granted, I had a typo that made it impossible to figure out, but still.

How much time did this take to plan?
B-Hard to say. When you are doing something you love, you just lose track of time.  But in all seriousness, all of my hourly charges are detailed in the itemized bill that I sent to Shanzie.

What was the funnest part about organizing this?
B-I enjoyed coming up with what people had to scavenge, particularly the riddles.  I enjoyed the looks of frustration on both my wife and Shanzie's faces when I told them I couldn’t give them any details of the scavenger hunt because that would have been inappropriate.  That was all a lie though, I could have told them, but I really enjoyed that feeling of power.  Also the friendships.

Do you think you did a good job?
B-I included a Comment Card for Shanzie to fill out rating her experience.  I will wait to see what comes back, but I would say it was an A to A+.  Some comments that were overheard Saturday night during the post-hunt party...
“This was the best birthday party ever, including the time when my parents got me a bouncy castle”- Shanzie
“I am in a moment of euphoria, scavenger hunt high is so much better then a runners high”- Beezus5
“After watching you host and lead a scavenger hunt, my love for you has increased twofold. I am the luckiest woman alive”- JM
“I am an expert on Ashton Kutcher”- Curly T
***all of these where made up, except for Curly T.  She is an Ashton Kutcher expert.

Did you have a sense of fulfillment once it was over?
B-You know, I did.  It might have been because while everyone else was out scavenging, I was drinking at the bar (special shout-out to Old Town Draught House).  But I would say it was about 70% sense of fulfillment, 30% beer.

What if anything would you change about the hunt?
B-It was pretty much perfect.  But I would look to limit the driving. Both Beezus5 and Mrs. Acorn may or may not have run over a pedestrian.  (Note-No participants or innocent bystanders were injured in this scavenger hunt)

Do you think Hobie was mad that you were doing all the planning in front of him and then didn't even invite him to participate?
B-Hobie and I are cool.  He understood that with his heightened sense of smell, he would be at an obvious advantage in regards to scavenging.  He said as long as I didn’t include his bone in the hunt, he was ok with not being invited.

Which team did you want to win?
B-I had a soft spot for Team Mo-Tif-vated.  I mean, they only had three people, two of which were from out of town.  I think they did well for all they had working against them. Plus, they were the only ones to put together a team outfit.  Oh, and JM’s team.  We made a pact 2 years ago to always support each other through better and worse. I know you are thinking it was our wedding vows.  Nope, it was an OIB Olympic Games Unbreakable Vow overseen by Beezus5.

Why didn't you give your wife more of an advantage over the other teams?
B-One, I put JM on the team with the only participant who could fit into Harry the Happy Dragon. (PHOTO needed.) Two, JM and I have been to 99% of the places on the list together. Three, she lost because of a key tactical error. I gave everyone 10 minutes to strategize before the hunt began, but Team Mo-Tif-Vated was the only one to take advantage.  Yes, they finished last, but still, she should have focused on the higher point riddles.  That’s Scavenger Hunt 101.

Team Member with Harry the Happy Dragon-5 Points

Would you consider the Scavenger Hunt Extravaganza a success?

B-The goal of every scavenger hunt that I have ever put together (well, this was my first one) was to get people to spend two hours taking pictures of themselves looking silly while I hang out at a bar watching college basketball.  So yes, in that regards, Scavenger Hunt Extravaganza was a rousing success.

Thanks B!  Even though my team only got 3rd place, (I mean we did only have 3 members whereas most other teams had 4 players) I had an excellent time.  Yes I think I pulled a muscle when I was trying to photo myself in front of the PF Chang horse and yes I was profusely sweating after running from the Harris Teeter to REI to PF Changs, but still, I had fun.  I would like to give a special shout out to Mrs. Acorn's husband who was willing to sprint in any direction we told him although he usually had no idea where he was going (since he just moved to this city) and of course to Mrs. Acorn for jumping into the Harry the Happy Dragon ride without thinking twice.

Team Photo-5 points