Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Bake Sale for Japan

I wanted to take my cake balls further than I have before, and I found the perfect excuse to do this over the weekend. At Matt's work, some of the animators (mostly Tiffany) decided to do a bake sale for relief efforts in Japan. We all thought this was a great idea and decided to do another baking day at Kate's place.

I already knew that the pops would take a long time so I made the cake the day before, and I also went to the store to get some candy for the decorations on my pops. You can cheat, and look down the blog a bit to see what I made, but let me tell you what it is and why I did them.

The bake sale was to take place at Oktobor, where Matty works; they animate (and do other things) for the TV show Penguins of Madagascar, so I thought it would be really cute to make the cake pops little penguins. I took a picture off of google as my model, then went to the store to see what I could find to use as the wings, beak and feet. Here is what the candies looked like before and after cutting them into the shapes I needed.
 I am so glad that I did some prep the day before, because even without doing that I was in way over my head! I dont know how Bakerella does this so well, because I was super exhausted and I didnt even get nearly as many done as I wanted to. But man was it fun! Here I am at the beginning of dipping.


Yum, chocolate!


This is Kate, getting me back for the picture I put of her on the last blog post :) haha.


Some pops that had been sitting for a while in the fridge and a fresh batch going in.


Here I am starting out the decorating process. They started with a layer of dark chocolate as the base and I am making the eyes and the body with white chocolate. My lovely mom :) sent me some food writers from the states, because I havent been able to find them here, and I used the black marker to make the pupils of the penguin.


And here I am with one of my finished products! This is another victory pose; I couldnt believe I actually did it! I have to say that I was pretty proud of myself, for these only being the third time I have made cake balls, and my first time actually making them into something. I do, however, also have to say that I was expecting to get about 40 of these made, and only 16 made it to penguin shapes. I was really afraid I was going to be at Kate's house until it was time to take them to Oktobor! But luckily, I got enough done, and the rest just stayed chocolate.


Matty said that I gave birth to 16 penguins! And let me tell you, it was hard labor! Haha :) Here's my babies.


And a close up...


The bake sale took place at Oktobor, in the kitchen area. Here is Tiff's amazing cheddar and jalapeno cookies, and she even cut out "Japan" and some hearts! Too cute!

Here's all the goodies we were selling. Kate made some lemon slice and hedgehog. Those both seemed to be a big hit. Tiff made her savory cookies and some chocolate cupcakes. Dan's wife made rice crispy treats and strawberry white chocolate chip cookies, Mercedes made some other cupcakes (not sure what they were), Claudia made two amazing cakes that were gone before you could blink your eyes. Cant remember what either of them were though either, and I made my cake pops, which were chocolate cake with white chocolate chips and chocolate frosting.  We didnt expect a lot of people to contribute and eat the goodies, but boy were we wrong! It was gone in a matter of 30 minutes!

Here is Dan (and Tiff's Matt behind him) holding a cake pop to take to his kid at home :) 

Our money jar. In the end, we raised over $700 that is all going to the relief fund for Japan. Pretty cool! 

The amazing Tiffany who organized the whole thing! We are all thankful for her for doing that. She is holding a cake pop. I still am not sure if she has eaten it. She just couldnt find it in her heart to kill the cute little thing! :) 

On the last post, I said that I was so jealous to be in Kate's apartment and whether I said it or not, I got a little spoiled baking in her great kitchen. Well I can no longer say that, and unfortunately my blog is no longer going to be valid being called "Cooking Without a Kitchen". As of tomorrow, we will be in a new (and much bigger) apartment. I will have to show pictures of what it looks like when we get in there, but the kitchen is also much bigger and there is an actual oven. So unfortunately, my blog name isnt as valid, but the point will still stand; that I am learning to bake in a new country and discovering my passion for it! :) We are excited!

2 comments:

  1. Great job girls! Amazing penguins Carla! And all for a really good cause!
    Well done!
    John

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  2. LOVE LOVE LOVE it! :) AMAZING Cake balls!~ I KNEW I should have kept those a secret :) haha!!!

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