Reindeers : Chocolate Covered Marshmallows

Aren't these perfect for the holiday season. I made these Chocolate covered Marshmallow Reindeers for Holiday Potluck Dinner at my office today. My team was responsible for getting the Desserts which was just perfect for me. The idea of chocolate coated marshmallows has been going around in my head since last few days, and so I decided to put that thought to work. I had seen few Reindeer cake pops on the internet, but I had marshmallows on my brain. So after little search, I found this tutorial. 

So yesterday, fighting the ice storm and slick roads here, I decided to get the ingredients for the pops on my way back from office. After saving myself from two falls, I managed to reach home(with the ingredients) in one piece. Rohit was totally shocked over my pit stop in this weather. Schools and many offices were shut, and I was out shopping for reindeer pops. It sounded funny when he put it that way. 

  

Before I started making it, I thought using marshmallows would be easier than cake pops, as I would be skipping the big step of making cake and rolling it into balls. But I was so wrong. Marshmallows was way tougher to work with.

Anyway, Kabir and I started the project with much enthusiasm. Kabir sat with me through the whole process, watching intently at first, and then trying to eat all my ingredients. By  the time it was all done, Kabir had had his dinner of pretzels, marshmallows and cinnamon dots with ocassional licking of chocolate bowl. 

Few things to remember while working with Marshmallows: 

1) Marshmallows are not frozen before coating with chocolate(unlike cake pops), so it takes longer for it to dry. 

2) Marshmallows are soft, so getting any decorations to stick to it, is not very easy. In this case, putting in pretzel antlers took some practice. I tried all sorts of ways, but what worked the best for me was scoring the sides(not top) of the marshmallow beforehand. While dipping a marshmallow into the chocolate, keep an eye on where you had scored it. And once its half dry, insert the antlers into the scored parts. 

While I was happy with the end result, my brain was working hard thinking how to feed real dinner to Kabir who was all high on sugar.

Red Velvet Cake Balls

Last week I tried my hand at cake balls for the very first time. As Kabir was moved to a new room in his daycare, I wanted to do something for his old room teachers as my way of saying THANKS. I don't have enough words to express how grateful I am for all the teachers at his daycare. I just love them. 

I got the idea of making cake balls from Bakerella. The recipe asked to use the red velvet cake box mix, which I did. Normally, I would have used my favourite recipe for making Red Velvet cake, which can be found here, but this time, I really wanted to try a box mix. What actually prompted me to use it, was a comment on pinchmysalt.com that box mixes are as good, which I knew was not true, but still wanted to try it out. So, the cake balls were serving two purpose.

I got the Duncan Hine's cake mix, and followed the instructions on the box. When I tasted the cake, I knew my hours spent in making cakes from scratch, were not wasted. It tasted like any yellow cake, and had no flavor of red velvet cake. Next time, I will be using my favourite recipe without any hesitation. Cake balls tasted very good though, as once the cream cheese frosting was added, the mixture did not taste that bad. And the chocolate dipping made it taste like heaven. After giving it to the two teachers, I had plenty left at home. So, I took a few to my office and they were all gone by lunch.  Kabir and I ate the rest :-)

I can't wait to try these balls again with my favourite recipe for cake.