St. Patty's Day Treats

I've been totally sick and out of commission since Sunday, but I came back to the land of the living just in time to do my Saint Patrick's Day treats. The hubby was helping my brother-in-law move last night, so when I got home from work I had the rest of the night to finish these beauties. I couldn't decide between making cake pops or cupcakes, so I did both, and the only casualty was my pointer finger that was badly burned on an oven grate. Good times.

I decided on doing a green velvet cake with cream cheese frosting for both my Shamrock Cupcakes and Pot of Gold Cake Pops. Here we go.

I bought cake mix and ready made frosting, but when I got home I just decided to do everything from scratch since I would have the time. When I make red velvet cake I always use Martha Stewart's recipe because it always comes out moist, light and deliciously perfect. Other recipes I've tried have left my cupcakes dense and dry, so I stick with Martha. You can find her recipe here

Of course since this is for Saint Patty's Day I used green food coloring instead of red. And yes, you'll need the whole bottle, so pour it all in.

So after mixing up my batter, I poured half into a 9 inch round cake pan and poured the rest into cupcake tins. Her recipe says to bake for 20 minutes, but everytime I've done it, it's taken more like 25. I pulled everything out to let it cool and started on my cream cheese frosting. I also use Martha's recipe, which can be found as a link at the bottom of her red velvet cupcakes recipe I posted the link to. Once my frosting was all ready, I dumped the 9 inch round cake into a mixing bowl and began crumbling it. I started mixing in some of the cream cheese frosting, you'll know when you've got the perfect ratio of cake to frosting. I started rolling them into balls and placed them on parchment paper. I heated up some of the green coating chocolate, dipped the cake pops sticks in and stuck them about half way into the cake balls. I threw them into the freezer to chill for about 20 minutes, so while they were chilling, I piped my cream cheese frosting onto the cupcakes and topped with shamrock sprinkles. Adorable and done.

I was afraid of the cake pops coming off of the sticks while dipping them in, so I took each cake pop out of the freezer one by one. It about killed my back since my freezer is on the bottom of my fridge, but oh well, no cake pops fell to their death, so I guess it was worth it. I put the cake pops upside down on parchment paper so they would get that little lip, making it look like a pot. I let them all dry and then brushed on a little extra coating chocolate on the top of the "pot" so my gold sprinkles would stick and I am quite pleased with the results.

St. Patty's Day treats - check. And they were delicious. The cupcakes were moist and fluffy and the cake pops were pretty much to die for. I took them to a family dinner at my mom's house and they were a total hit. Yum!