Four Varieties of Donut Holes

Last week I broke down and finally ordered a cake pop maker.  I chose this one, the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker CP-12.  It came with some lollipop sticks, a metal fork to pick up the cake balls, and a cake ball holder.  Bonus!  It's purple.

The first day I made a batch of donut holes from the little recipe book.  They were ok, but called for apple cider and I just used some instant stuff. 

Today, I decided to try a different recipe, so typed "donut holes" into Pinterest and chose the first result.  It led me to Blogilates and proclaimed this to be somewhat healthy.

Here are my results!

The recipe said it would make 36, but it actually made 50!  I had two types of coating and two types of batter.  On the left you can see the chocolate donut holes, which I created by adding a couple tablespoons to the batter.  Half are coated with powdered sugar and half are coated with cinnamon sugar.

It was super easy!  See my set-up below.

After the first batch had finished baking, I moved them to the white cooling rack and added another batch's worth of batter into the cake pop maker.  While the second batch cooked, I rolled the donut holes in powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar.

It takes about 5 minutes for each batch of one dozen to cook, which is the perfect amount of time to coat the last batch.  After two batches, I added the cocoa powder to the batter and mixed it up.  Doing it this way means one less dirty bowl.  Yay for laziness efficiency!

The result is four different types of donut holes that are great for snacking or a light dessert.  If you can stop eating them, that is! 

Things I Learned:

• The recipe was way too thick, so I added 1/3-1/2 extra liquids.
• Unless you have a perfect 1 tablespoon measuring tool, there's going to be some that are small and some that spill over.  Tear off the extra bits and call them mini cookies!  Or just munch on them while you finish making the donut holes.
• Coatings stick better if the donut holes are still quite warm.  Work fast or get a friend to help.  My first batch had way better coatings because it was a 2-person team.
• Chocolate chips in the middle are possible, but you have to have superhuman speed to get them all in so the donut holes are still cooking at the same time.
• Put a little less batter in the first holes you fill because they will have started to expand and make a mess by the time you finish filling the rest. 

First Fondant Cake From Scratch (Sorta)!

Ok, this cake was a long time in the making.  I went to Cakemix a month ago and decorated my first ever fondant cake.  Then I decided to make my own fondant with marshmallows and powdered sugar.  I didn't really know what kind of cake to make, but finally found someone to make one for!

 

Ta-da!  I definitely learned a couple things with this cake.  Like, you always need more powdered sugar to keep the fondant you're rolling out from sticking.  And, add more powdered sugar, gosh-darn-it!  

 

Did you know that cutting a hole in a ziplock bag to use as a frosting bag doesn't have results as good as using actual frosting tips?  Yeah, I probably should have known.  But I really wanted something that I could just throw away and not have to handwash.  Next time, I will definitely splurge for the frosting bags!

It turned out way better than I expected for my first try, so I'm happy!  I'm definitely going to be making more 2-lay 6" cakes in the future and decorating them with fondant. (Especially since the batch of fondant I made has at least another cake's worth!)