Oreo Pops!

Ever since I had my first cake pop at Starbucks last year, I've been obsessed.  (Cake pop tutorial post to come later!)  But let's face it, cake pops are a PAIN to make.  They are so darn tasty and cute, but man do they take a lot of work.  Enter Pinterest and howdoesshe.com's Oreo Cookie Suckers.  They are just as cute and fun as cake pops, but you get to cut out some of the steps!  Don't get me wrong, the process is still very involved, but how can you not love these?

Here's how I made mine.

What you'll need:
1 pkg of Oreos (I used Double Stuffed)
1 bag of white Wilton Candy Melts
1 bag of any other color Wilton Candy Melts
Sprinkles of your choosing
Lollipop sticks and Plastic treat bags (you can buy these at any craft store)
Skinny satin ribbon
Wax Paper

I have found it is easiest to complete all of one step before moving on to the next.  So first, carefully (and I mean carefully) unscrew the tops off of all of the Oreos.  Who knew Oreos were so fragile?  Don't worry if some of the cookies break, you can always glue them back together later with chocolate!

Pour about 1 cup of the white Candy Melts into a microwave safe bowl (glass or ceramic work best), and microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until they are mostly melted.  If there are small pieces that are still solid, stir the candy until smooth (they will usually melt on their own).

Use a lollipop stick to scrape away some of the filling and make room for the stick.  Dip the end of the lollipop stick in the melted chocolate.  Make sure you get a decent amount of melted chocolate on the stick -- this is what acts as the glue to hold the stick in place and hold the top on.  Place the chocolate dipped stick in the space you've created by scraping away the filling, and immediately top with the other Oreo half.  Repeat until all of the Oreos have sticks and are ready for dipping.

Now for the dipping...  Cover your work surface with wax paper.  Melt whichever color of Candy Melts you choose for dipping in the microwave using the steps above.  Using a rubber spatula, scrape all of the chocolate to the front of the bowl (as pictured below).  Hold the bowl in one hand and the Oreo pops in the other.

Dip one side of the Oreo pop into the melted chocolate to coat.  Flip over and dip the other side.  Roll the edge of the Oreo to cover the rest.  Tap gently on the side of the bowl to remove the excess chocolate.

Place immediately on wax paper.  If decorating with sprinkles, do so at this point before the chocolate sets.

Since I was making these for a co-worker's baby shower (baby boy, obvi), I dipped half of mine in blue chocolate and decorated with white sprinkles, and the other half I dipped in white chocolate and drizzled with blue chocolate.

To get this drizzle effect, you'll need to use a zip lock bag.  Fold the top down to make the process neater, and pour/scoop in some melted chocolate.  Squeeze all of the chocolate into one corner of the bag, and twist the top (similar to using a pastry bag).  Snip the corner off of the bag (the bigger the snip, the bigger the line of chocolate will be).  Drizzle back and forth over the Oreo pop in one direction, then the opposite direction.

After you've dipped and decorated all of the Oreo pops, let them hang out on the wax paper for a while until the chocolate sets.  Cut enough ribbon for each of the Oreo pops (I'd say about 7 inches long).

Once the chocolate has set, put each Oreo pop into a plastic treat bag.

Tie a cute little bow on each.

And you're done!  How cute are these?

Just imagine the color and decoration combinations.

Recipe: Beer Pizza Crust

Now that I have no more wedding to plan :( -- I can catch up on posting recipes!  I made this pizza back in November, so sorry for the delay!

There are two things that my husband can't get enough of... pizza... and beer.  So when I came across this recipe for Beer Pizza Crust on food.com, I knew we had to give it a try.  The only beer we had on hand was Keystone Light (we keep it classy), but it turned out great!  The recipe is very easy and can be made with things that you probably have on hand already.

I decided to use this crust as the base for a breakfast pizza.  Introducing -- Egg White Breakfast Pizza with Spinach, Goat Cheese, and Bacon.

Ingredients:
Pizza Crust
3 cups unbleached flour (plus more for dusting)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 12oz can beer (room temperature)
olive oil

Toppings
6 egg whites
1 cup baby spinach
1 roma tomato
1.5 oz goat cheese
1 tbsp Real Bacon Bits (I use Oscar Mayer)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl -- combine.

Pour in the beer and mix well.  You may not need the whole can -- just pour most of it in, mix it up, and see how it seems.  Warning, the dough will be very sticky.

Dust your work surface liberally with flour and dump the gooey dough out, sprinkling with flour and rolling it around to coat it.

Knead it a bit to make it pliable, adding more flour if it is still too sticky.

Divide the dough in 2 (as this makes 2 nice sized pizzas).
Coat with olive oil and press into your pan of choice.

I used 2 round foil cake pans, and the crust was very thick.  You could easily get 3 pies of this size out of this if you wanted a thinner crust.

As the crust was very thick, I baked it by itself at this point for about 5-10 minutes.

While the crust is baking, add spinach and bacon bits to skillet and cook over medium heat until the spinach is just beginning to wilt.

Add egg whites and cook until the mixture is all opaque.  They can be slightly underdone as the whites will cook a bit more in the oven.

Remove the pizza crust from the oven and top with egg whites/spinach, sliced roma tomato, and crumbled goat cheese.

Return to oven and bake for another 10-15 minutes

And when all is said and done, you get THIS:

Go crazy and top with anything you want!  I topped the other crust with scrambled eggs, bacon, pepperoni, cheddar cheese, and barbecue sauce (a real MAN breakfast pizza for Zach).

I'm thinking next time I'll try out buffalo chicken pizza :)  Or maybe half whole wheat flour!

Wire Wedding Cake Topper

Gorgeous wire cake toppers, like the one below from Allegro Art, are all over Etsy.  Unfortunately, they are expensive!  This one is listed for $25.  I consider myself to be a pretty crafty person, so I pinned it to my Wedding Cake board on Pinterest and thought, "Why couldn't I make that myself?"

After searching Amazon.com for gold aluminum wire, I found some for only $6.81 (with free Amazon Prime shipping, woo hoo!).  So when it came in the mail, I got to work!  I couldn't take pictures because (1) I didn't know what I was doing, and (2) my hands were pretty busy.  Anyways, I'll do my best to give you some tips/instructions on how to make your own!

Here's what you'll need:

• Aluminum craft wire (I used 12 gauge gold, but it comes in many colors!)
• Scissors or wire cutters
• Pliers
• Pictures of script letters that you like

Here are some tips:

Find letters that you like online or by trying out different fonts.  I used wire cake toppers from Etsy as my inspiration for the "M" and the heart, and found a script "Z" (below) to copy from Google images.

When making swirls for the ends of letters, it's best to twist it with your fingers, then use the pliers to bend the middle of the swirl in further (its hard to make that tight of a bend with just your fingers).

For my letters, I left extra wire at the ends as that is what will stick into the cake.

Make sure you are conscious of the way the wire needs to bend when coming out of a loop.  Look at the letters closely and plan ahead before you start bending the wire.  Once it bends one way, it's hard to make it bend the other way and still look nice and straight.

If you want a tight swirl, like you see on the stem of the heart, wrap the wire around your pinky finger a couple of times, then stretch it out a bit.  A pen or pencil would also make a nice even swirl.

I also played around with different ways to write the word "love" using one piece of wire.  I'm going to use the initials for our cake topper, but words like "love" and "i do" are common as well!

For points of letters (like the tops of the "M" and the bottom of the "V"), an easy way to make the wire go the other direction after the point is to make a loop.   You could also just bend the wire the other direction and use your pliers to squeeze the point together.  I liked the look of the loop better, but the "M" in the sample picture from Etsy at the top of this post looks very nice!

Make sure you have extra wire!  I wish I had taken a picture of my pile of reject toppers :/  Trust me, this takes some practice, and mine still aren't perfect!  Thankfully, I had 39 feet of wire to play around with.  I ended up throwing most of it away, but I did end up with some toppers that I'm very happy with!  And who knows, now that I have a better idea of what I'm doing, maybe I'll order some more wire :)