It's a Bake Off!

So. My school is having a bake-off among the teachers on Wednesday. Guess what beautiful babies? I am entering that crap. The competition is on best looking, best tasting and most unique. I decided that I want a clean sweep. So I am hitting them with my cake pops (decorated with the school colors and logo) to win the most unique and best looking. I am also going to be making the chocolate chip cookies that Lauren recommended (NY Times recipe by Jacques Torres) because HOLY SMOKES!! they are awesome. They are time consuming to make since they sit for at least 24 hours to develop their caramely flavors...and they also include some strange flours (cake and bread). However, they are sprinkled with salt before they bake, they have a crispy shell with the most delicious chewy inside. So yeah, I am going for best tasting with those babies. Anyways, tonight I did my cake pops, my cookie dough is resting, and life is good.


In other news, there was a HUGE snow storm here...so school was cancelled today (Monday), there is a 2 hour delay on Tuesday and Wednesday the kids are off, so we have an in service day...I LOVE THIS WEEK!

I piped the logos in dark chocolate.

There they are, aren't they cute!?

Red velvet balls.

Dipped the sticks in the chocolate then let them chill a bit to cement them in

Diiiip

Swirlllll

Ta-daaaa!

Then ya stick the logo on

**These pics make it seem very easy, however, I must admit this was a messy and difficult process. These pictures just showcase a moment in time...It maybe means that the cake pop slid off of the stick and the logo fell off...

It maybe means that I am not perfect people.

But my pop's sure are :D

Ok, now for the cookies.

Here is the dough at first...kinda grainy.

Lets see what it looks like when it gets WHIPPED! for 5 minutes.

Look how fluffy 2 1/2 sticks of butter and about 3 cups of sugar can get.

Hey- I did not say these are good for you, but I am not the one eating them, the judges are. And guess what- BUTTER AND SUGAR TASTE AWESOME!

Look how much dough!! geesh. This recipe makes a million cookies.

A million.

A hilarious text message situation.

A random person texted Paul...and he decided to mess with them.

My cute hat and ring. I wore this too the tattoo place when Paul got his tat done on Saturday. People liked.

I just ate a lime...

So. After doing some research, I decided to try out miracle fruit. I ordered the freeze dried berries about 2 weeks ago and they came last week. We had been looking forward to trying these out since we have heard so much buzz about them. Well, since all the crazy car stuff was happening, we had to wait a few days to try them out since we were in Virginia until 930pm most nights this week (plus a hour drive home...) visiting car dealers *sigh*. Oh! and we did get a car- a 2004 Toyota corolla, woop woop!

So, back to the berries. When we opened the package from Slovenia, there was a container that looked much like a package of hard candies or gum. The little pills of freeze dried berry tasted similar to bland cranberries with oatmeal. We let the berry dissolve in our mouth for about 2 minutes while we prepared the food for tasting. Since the berries temporarily numb all receptors on your tongue but the sweet ones, we had an arrangement of sour, bitter and unripe things to try out. Lemon, lime, salt and vinegar chips, goat cheese, dark chocolate, unripe strawberries, and granny smith apples were on the menu. Weird right? right.

So we both decided to try out the lime first...ah! It smelled the same and looked the same...but would it taste the same? NOPE! it tasted like candy!! delicious, flavorful candy! So good! We ripped through everything on the plate, chips tasted creamy, lemons like lemonade, unripe strawberries tasted like the most luscious strawberry's you could imagine, 70% dark chocolate was sweet milky chocolate, goat cheese was like sweet cream cheese, and the apple! OH, the apple- delicious! You got the crispness of a granny smith but the sweetness of a Fuji. You can order some here...they are so cool! You should give them a try!

The package

The candies

The platter of sour

OMG! So good!

My look of disbelief!

Here are some more pictures of things that have been going on...

Shotzye gets so bored of us sometimes...

My new ring for school since I don't want to ruin my nice one at work.

180 teenage students+art supplies= not good for expensive ring.

(isn't it cute though?? A bow! love it.)

Makin' some butter-less chocolate cupcakes with real strawberry buttercream (what can I say I only had one stick of butter and I figured butter in the frosting was better than butter in the cake) :D

turned out just beautifully. I made up the recipe :) I am so good.

These things are so good. Paul is NOT allowed to take them to work.

These are ours only...maybe if I open my bakery you can try one :D