Arguably the Best Present I Have Ever Received!

Oh, how I have dreamed of owning a KitchenAid Stand Mixer! Seriously, I have! I LOVE to bake, and every baker needs a great mixer.

I'm happy to say I no longer have to dream, I'm the very proud owner of a beautiful Red KitchenAid Artisan Mixer! Thank you so much Mom, Dad, and Gigi for my EARLY birthday present!! Lucky for me Beth's Birthday is a little over a month before mine, so in order to give the proper surprise we both received them at the same time!

I'm proud to tell you I broke this baby in good this weekend! We had a Trivia Night on Saturday, so I baked two different kinds of cake truffles, along with pudding shots for this event. I was also in charge of Beth's Birthday cake.

Since everyone is always asking me for my recipes...I'm including them!

I didn't take pics of the pudding shots, I'm going to share the basic recipe. The flavor combinations are endless. I made Coconut Creme - yumm!!

Pudding Shots

1 small package instant pudding(I used coconut creme)

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup booz(I used Malibu)

1 8 oz. container extra creamy cool whip

In a bowl combine pudding mix and milk, beat until smooth. Add alcohol and beat until thoroughly combined. Fold in cool whip. Package in "shot" containers(I use the same ones I use for Jello Shots - 2 oz. clear cups with lids), store in the freezer.

My sister made chocolate ones using Godiva liquor and vodka - also a big hit!

Cake Truffles

Next I made cake balls, I think I'd rather call them cake truffles though. Bakerella makes really great cake balls, hers are actually balls - or really fun shapes and pops. I love Bakerella's great ideas, her stuff is adorable, but for everyday baking I don't share her attention to detail - instead of spending all of that time rolling each one into a perfect ball I like to use my cookie scoop which gives me a really nice even amount of cake with a nice flat bottom. I'm okay with the little pooling and drips of chocolate around the bottom. I think it gives the cake truffles character. I also would just rather call it a truffle than a ball - doesn't that sounds more appetizing?

Anyway, cake truffles are great. There are tons of flavor combos, I love thinking of all of the possibilities. For Valentine's Day I made chocolate covered strawberry(strawberry cake, cream cheese icing, dipped in milk chocolate). This weekend I was in a coconut mood, so I made coconut rum flavored cake truffles and also chocolate - because you can never go wrong with chocolate!

Here is Bakerella's basic recipe for cake balls.

For my coconut rum flavored cake truffles I used a white box cake mix and substituted Malibu coconut rum for the water in the package directions. I chose to use a store bought frosting, I picked coconut pecan flavor which had lots of nice pieces of coconut, which I then jazzed it up a bit with a shot of Malibu. After scooping into balls and freezing for about a half an hour I dipped them in white chocolate.

For my chocolate cake truffles I used a devils food cake mix, milk chocolate icing, and dipped them in milk chocolate.

Both flavors went over equally well at trivia, I took the left overs to work today where they were quickly gobbled up by my co-workers.

Beth's Birthday Cake

After receiving our new mixers last week it was decided that I should make Beth's birthday cake so that I could use my new mixer - as if I needed an excuse! My sister shares my affection for Bakerella's adorable website, and had been wanting to try the recipe she suggested for Peanut Butter Fudge Cake. It was very good, and very rich! No calories involved here - all in all this cake included two whole bags of Reece's Peanut Butter cups!

Bella thought it was yummy in her tummy - she even showed us!!