Cook book blog tour,"101 Gormet cake bites" by Wendy Paul and {giveaway}

Wendy Paul 101 Gormet cake bites and Free Cook book

be still my heart! when mindy told me we were contacted to do a "cook book blog tour" i just about jumped out of my seat. mindy was gracious enough to let me do the honors of the recipe testing and review. thats not even the best part, Wendy Paul will also be giving one of our lucky followers a FREE yes i said Free copy of her cook book! i know another fun giveaway, we just heart our followers!(rules will be posted at the end of the review.)

first let me start by saying i love all things mini, mini cup cakes, mini cookies, mini the mouse lol! i have made "cake balls" in the past for parties that i have hosted so i was somewhat familiar with what to do. when i saw the adorable recipe book i couldn't put it down! thank goodness it was nap time for the kids because this book is so addicting. one of the reasons is because it has so many pictures, which is a must for me. chances are great if there is a picture to go with it i will try it.

i really liked that the recipes are quite simple and that the ingredients are commonly found in your pantry. their are really no crazy ingredients like the nectar of a hibiscus plant, or the milk from a Himalayan  mountain goat... you get my drift right? i can't be the only person who was jazzed about a recipe only to find out that i have never even heard of the ingredients let alone own them and they have to be special ordered from Timbuktu

as i perused through the book i stumbled upon my two favs, chocolate and toffee. in my opinion their has never been a better couple than those two right? and to top it off, sweet caramel! oh so succulent i had to try it...my three year old wanted to do the "cookie dough" but she can't read so it was easy to trick her! unfortunately she did know she was tricked, " mom how come ours don't look like da pictures?" ( this is a very tipical response to all my cooking...but not this time. )ha ha she is on to me! she did like the ones i chose though so its good.

Things you will need

 

One cake, baked, cooled, and crumbled.

Large mixing bowl

Big spoon

Small cookie scoop

1lb. melting chocolate per batch of cake bites plus vegetable oil

2 forks or spoons for dipping cake bites into melting chocolate

Wax paper for cooling

Sucker sticks for cake pops

Foam for sticking cake pops in to set

Sprinkles or toppings for cake bites

Other decorating supplies, pens, toothpick, and so on (per recipe directions)

Chocolate Caramel Toffee

Ever wonder what to do when a batch of toffee doesn’t turn out? Well, save the crumbs or several pieces and use them to make this delicious mouth-watering cake bite.

1 box dark chocolate cake mix

3 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup milk

Mix together

cake mix, eggs, vanilla extract, and milk. Batter will be thick. Pour into a

greased 9x13 baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 28–32 minutes or until cake springs back

when lightly touched. Remove from oven and cool completely. Crumble cake into small, even

pieces, placing crumbs in a large bowl.

add 1 cup Caramel Cream Frosting (128) or 1 cup Chocolate Buttercream Frosting (126)

½ cup crushed toffee pieces

with the back  of a spoon, mix together cake crumbles with other ingredients until a

thick dough consistency forms. Shape into evenly sized cake bites (xi) and cool 1–2 hours in

the refrigerator, or 20 minutes in the freezer. Dip into dark melting chocolate (xii). Drizzle with

melted chocolate and crushed toffee pieces.

Caramel Cream

4Tbsp. (½ stick) butter

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup dark brown sugar

2–3 Tbsp. whole milk

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

place butter and brown sugars in a medium skillet over medium  heat. Stir and cook the mixture until it comes to a boil

addmilk

and bring the mixture back to a boil, stirring constantly.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Beat mixture with a wooden spoon until smooth and creamy.

Frosting will harden when cooled completely.

i didn't take pictures of the caramel, my little helper insisted on helping me (and i didn't want her to get burned and that i thought was more important than taking pics...the other steps are very helper friendly . just know that if you are going to use sprinkles you need to add the sprinkles pretty quick because the chocolate hardens fast.

Melting the Chocolate:

Wendy recommended using melting chocolate and only melting a bit at a time, but i prefer to use the nestle tollhouse chocolate chips with a bit of oil. (its cheaper!)  i use the whole bag and melt it 30 sec at a time for a total of one min. you have to be careful not to burn it, then it will be hard and gross!  you will see that their will still be chocolate morsels even after you melted it for a min. just keep stirring it until all the lumps are out. don't keep microwaving it or it will get hard...meaning you burned it and ruined it boo...

 

baking the cake bites and rolling them are pretty straight forward. i did make mine a bit to large, i think they should have been a bit smaller. as i was making them i thought they were small enough but this recipe is very rich and the bites were quite large. also guest prefer just to pop it in there mouth instead of having to take bites out of it and having the chocolate melt on their fingers.

oh, also you want your bites to be cold. i froze my cake mixture overnight. you have to wash your hands a few times as you are rolling them because they get caked on your hands and leave a spiky texture (you can kind of see some of my bites are a bit spikey. )

use something instead of your fingers to dip the bites. you don't want to leave behind fingerprints on your guest food...eww!

after your done dipping the bites place it on wax paper and when the bites are dry place them on a  platter and enjoy!

( i found that they taste even better after they have been placed in the fridge for a while. otherwise its a bit goopey.)

now on to the giveaway

are you so pumped to try these fun little bites out for yourself? well here is your chance to win a Wendy Paul cake bites recipie book for yourself!

1.) leave us a comment that you follow our blog and for an additionl entry 2)follow us on face book. its that simple! winner will be chosen by random.org. entires will be void if a way to contact you is not listed.

winner will be announced aug 20th, no entires will be counted after aug 19th 5:00 p.m. mnt standard