It's Tulip Time and Bridal Shower Time.
I am blogging Lyndie's Lemon Cake Pops for Becky's shower.
Delicious!
Julia Child — 'A party without cake is just a meeting'
Becky's bridal shower was one week before the annual Tulip Festival in Pella.
Pella's beautiful tulips.
Pella's Jaarsma Bakery
Yes, we did purchase some Dutch letters before the bridal shower.
Each Dutch Letter is an "S" shaped puff pastry about eight inches tall,
with moist almond paste filling, baked to golden perfection and sprinkled with a touch of sugar.
They are so good!
Back then everyone's favorite treat, the Dutch Letters, were made only as a special treat for Sinterklaas Day (the Dutch Santa Claus Day), December 6th. They are typically shaped into an "S" for "Sinterklaas". In this old photo Harmon Jaarsma is baking a pan of Dutch Letters.
For history on the Jaarsma Bakery go to:
Since 1935, the community of Pella celebrates their Dutch heritage
with the Tulip Festival featuring gardens filled with over 28,000 tulips.
Keith, Ethyl, and Doug
I am trying on some wooden shoes.
and tiptoed through the tulips,
on to the bridal shower.
Lyndie's Cake Pops:
This recipe has been unedited as penned by Lyndie:
Enjoy!
I don't have pictures of the steps that Lyndie took in preparing this, so I will insert the recipe between the bridal shower pictures...
Ingredients:
Lemon cake mix (Cheapest one...you're crumbling it up not decorating it)
Can of WHIPPED frosting (It's really important to get whipped)
Bag of white chocolate chips (I used 2 bags but I waste and eat a lot of it)
Bag of decorative chocolate chips or other candy (I happened to get mine at Easter so there were pink and yellow chips)
Stuff to make lemon cake mix
You will also need:
Cupcake tins (Preferably not paper ones)
Cake Pop Sticks (You can get them literally anywhere except Target)
Prepare the lemon cake as directed. Bake it according to the instructions, but take it out about 3 minutes sooner than you were planning. When it is cooled enough to take it out of the pan, cut it into 4ths and put the chunks in a large bowl and put it in the freezer.
After enough time has passed (or one episode of SVU) take the cake out of the freezer. Carefully cut off the bottom and sides of the cake. I hate that part, but taking off the hardest edges of the cake really improves the consistency of the cake balls. You can eat the edges at this point.
Wash your hands (probably should've done that at the beginning as well) and start crumbling the cake with your bare hands in a large bowl. Get it into as small of pieces as you can without demolishing it into cat food consistency. Add scoops of frosting 1/2 cup at a time, combining the cake and frosting with your hands. Continue adding scoops until you're able to form balls out of it that aren't sloppy and sticky.
Use your hands, spoons, lemon scooper, ice cream scooper, or anything that makes a circular shape and make as many lemon balls as you can fit on a large baking sheet that is covered in wax or parchment paper. Put them in the freezer for 20 minutes.
Melt about 1/4 of the bag of chocolate chips in the microwave in a small bowl. The smaller the better because it cools off quickly and then there is no point in doing this step. After melting the chocolate, coat about 1 inch of the end of the cake pop sticks in chocolate and then push them in the frozen cake ball. Make sure there is enough chocolate to coat the entire stick with extra on the sides. If you are feeling very motivated, you can make a hole in the cake pop with a stick and then put the coated stick in the same hole.
After putting sticks in all of the cake balls, put them back in the freezer for two episodes of SVU, or overnight if you really want to be sure they are set. The next day or whenever, melt the rest of the chocolate chips in a small bowl and dip the balls in the chocolate until it is coated. To get it coated the best, I spin the pop in the chocolate as I lift it out. You have to be careful not to pull the stick out, but it's not too hard.
Immediately set the cake pop in the cupcake tin and quickly add the chocolate chips if you want them to stick. If you are doing some other decoration that doesn't need to be set in the chocolate, you can leave them be for a little bit to harden. The great part about these cake pops is that the chocolate doesn't have to look perfect on the top because they are upside down in a cupcake tin. That also means you can have more chocolate on the outside of the cake pop!
Congratulations Becky and Alex!
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