sweet jesus, cake balls and more

i am obsessed with my brother's brand-spanking-new canon something-or-other dslr. he came over yesterday and i grabbed that camera, went outside and just snapped photos of everything. the leaves, dried berries on a tree, the dirt, my kids, myself, everything. the photos are amazing and i only used one setting, the automatic one. i have been dreaming about the endless possibilities of photos i could take if only i had a camera like his. sweet jesus, i want one.

i was lucky enough to take a photo of my version of cake balls and cake pops. i'm guessing you remember me gushing about bakerella and i hope you took a moment to check her out because she's awesome. really, she is. if you need more proof, check out her newest post: candy cane christmas tree cupcakes. anyway, i attempted to make her cake balls and pops and realized it really is pretty darn easy. mine aren't as neat and probably won't ever be but they are yumm-o. i used her recipe as a guide but chose to use a chocolate fudge cake mix and frosting. this is what i did:

•  baked cake and let it cool completely
• dumped cake into a big bowl and crumbled
• mixed in full tub of frosting (going forward, i recommend only using 1/2 or 3/4 instead of full tub. it's mushy otherwise.)
• made round balls with my very clean hands and placed them on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (it's really important to follow bakerella's directions to make the balls quarter-sized. i missed that and my balls might have been half-dollar sized which made them way too heavy to be pops. i ended up with upside down pops.)
• refrigerated overnight
• melted chocolate discs (from the craft store) in microwave on defrost setting, 30 second increments until fully melted (stir frequently)
• dumped ball into chocolate and rolled until covered (i later learned not to roll. look here for details.)
• placed ball back onto cookie sheet and sprinkled with crushed candy canes...for my own version of peppermint bark. i later sprinkled parchment paper with crushed candy canes and then sprinkled more on top if needed.
• refrigerated to cool and then stored them at room temperature
• sampled...mmm
• for the pops, i inserted the stick into the ball before refrigerating. my balls were heavy so they slid down the stick which is why i had to turn them upside down. still working out the kinks on that one. 

i think these little balls are amazing. sure, they lack the smoothness bakerella seems to have mastered but they are exactly me: messy,  my crafting signature.

just look at that photo, though! and this one...

and this one...

and look at these little freckles i just can't get enough of. seriously, i can stare at these all day long. i call them sun kisses and they give me a happy heart.