Happy Birthday Blog!

I think this blog just might stand the test of time- it's been a whole year since I started it! Last year, I wanted a place to record the things I learned about cooking/sewing/crafting/baking, everything! I do feel like I've learned a lot in the past year. However, I also feel like I haven't had a real direction in my learning. I still need to work on planning things out before I start them- I need to research how to do a project, rather than just digging in and regretting it. So hopefully that's where 2013 will take me!

For my blog birthday, I wanted to make a treat- last year I made some nutella cake pops, and they were delicious! Cake mixed with homemade nutella frosting, dipped in chocolate, and covered with nutella glaze and nuts. I was pretty happy with them, but they took about 5 hours start to finish...so I haven't attempted cake pops since. Well, I did it this weekend!

These cake pops weren't nearly as good as the nutella ones. I started with a white cake mix, crumbled it up in my food processor (which actually made it easy to crumble, and made great uniform small crumbs), and mixed it with two different kinds of frosting. I made one batch of "chocolate caramel" cake pops, and the other "key lime pie." These are both in quotes because honestly...they don't take anything like those flavors, and they don't even taste much different from each other.

I attempted homemade caramel frosting, and while it was good, I think that caramel without doing the official caramel making process...just isn't caramel. And the key lime pie were okay, but again, the frosting wasn't really that lime tasting. I honestly think what ruins them for me is that they both taste entirely too much like white cake mix. I actually thought I liked white cake...but I guess not when I really want them to taste like something else!

So in the end..these are just pretty balls of overly sweet bland cake mix. The chocolate ones have nuts and caramel glaze, and the key lime ones have graham cracker crumbs and lime glaze. I wish I could have enjoyed these more! But for next time I've learned: 1. If I'm going to attempt caramel, go all out. Don't even try to fake it, because it won't be worth it. 2. For dipping things, it's really best to get the candy melts. I used milk and white chocolate chips...and they're not quite the same flavors. 3. It's okay if I don't make the best dessert ever. I really struggle with this one..because every time I make boxed brownies they turn out great, but every time I attempt a fun dessert that I'm super excited about, it usually fails. But I'm trying to learn that's okay. It's okay if I throw away a sewing project after a few months, it's okay if I make a dessert and throw away the rest if we don't eat it in a few days...it's just okay. I'm learning! And I need to try to actually learn when I make these things, rather than fail and not try to learn from it.

So there, it's been a whole year, and while I probably haven't learned much, I've at least learned that I want to learn better!