So I had a call from a church to ask if I wouldn't mind baking for their Breast Cancer Fundraiser. The church is the one my sister and her husband attended before they moved to KL and I had baked something for their morning tea fundraiser last year. My aunt lost her battle with Leukaemia in June 2005 and so I feel a personal connection with anything cancer-realated and am more than happy to contribute towards the cause when I can.
So this year instead of a tea party the church was having a fashion show/ cocktail party. I decided that whatever I baked had to be small, preferably bite-sized and delicious... cake pops came to mind. Now these little guys seem to have taken the baking world by storm, they are just about everywhere! I have never made them, but have heard a lot about them and have watched numerous tutorials on YouTube. So I had some idea of what they involved. I decided I'd make cake pops.
My first mistake was not doing a trial run, I thought "how hard can this be, it's just smooshed up cake", WRONG, there is some technique involved and I should have done a trial before the actual day! Second of all I "winged" the recipe and used chocolate ganache icing with one batch and buttercream with the other. I would not use ganache again, it doesn't refrigerate hard enough like butter cream does, so the pop stick pushed through the other side of the ball. Third mistake was my dipping chocolate consistency. Mine was too thick and I was unsure as to how much shortening I could add without ruining the chocolate.
The pictures below speak for themselves...
Everything going just fine at this point....
Things begin to go horribly wrong, my stress levels begin to rise...
Some worked (buttercream ones) and others failed dismally. At this point I took a step back and thought that I should just give up, I was thinking "How do I always seem to get myself into these situations?" I then remembered why I was doing this, to raise funds for cancer research. I got to thinking about my Aunt, and how, she being a great baker, would have given anything on this earth to be baking failing cake pops at that very moment, maybe with one of her grandchildren. But she can't, and never will.
It put things in perspective for me and spurred me on. I was not going to give up, I had to make a Plan B! This is where I think my training as an Early Learning teacher came in, as there always needs to be a Plan B, C, D and sometimes E with small children! So I gathered up my failed cake balls, melted more chocolate, re-dipped the balls and made them into cake bites. I sprinkled them with glitter and tidied them up.
On my way to the church to drop them off I witnessed a beautiful sunset. It made me so grateful for my life, for the blessings I have, it put things into a bigger perspective for me, I am one small person who had a bad day in the kitchen! How hard is my life, if that is the worst of my problems? Not hard at all me thinks!
The cake pops and bites went down well, I had positive feedback from the guests. I also learned quite a few lessons that day!
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