Lemon Cake with Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting and Chocolate Espresso Cake with Nutella Frosting: Cake Pops!

One of my first posts here was a Lemon Berry Cupcake, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise to you that when I went to make Cake Pops for a Bake Sale that I turned to that same flavor profile. I tweaked it a bit here and there this time, but the key components were the same - cream cheese, raspberry and lemon. You just can't go wrong! I wanted a bit more variety for the sale, so guess where else I turned to? I took inspiration from my Bourbon Soaked Chocolate Cake and took my own advice and used Espresso instead of Bourbon. Excellent! But, first - some back story about the MN Food Blogger Bake Sale for Share Our Strength and how Cake Pops invaded my kitchen. 


So, my kitchen has been heavily neglected these days. We are in the process of moving, and although it breaks my heart to leave my wonderful kitchen, we are eager to settle in somewhere new. Because of the move, I have been scared to do much cooking or baking because I have to have the house very clean at any given moment for showings and even a simple sweep through of the house takes at least 45 minutes. The kitchen has to stay looking gorgeous, and I'll be honest - I'm one messy cook!

Well, I had to make a kitchen-mess exception this weekend for an amazing cause - Share Our Strength's Great American Bake Sale for their No Child Hungry campaign. 

Here is a breakdown on how all the donations are used:

$10 can help connect a kid with up to 100 meals;

$25 can help provide a month's worth of snacks to a child in an afterschool program;

$50 can help a family access nearly $900 in food assistance to make healthy meals at home; and

$100 can help deliver nutritious meals to a child in need for three months. 

I had never done a bake sale before, so I was a little nervous. If you've been keeping up with this blog, you see that this winter I've been doing some good baking. But, I've never sold any of my food, so I was excited to brainstorm ideas on what would be most marketable - as far as taste and looks go. My friends, Ann and Shari, are known to make some killer cake pops for their house parties. They are so delicious and they always look store-bought (I am not good with making things look pretty like that usually). So, I figured I'd take a shot at them myself.

These are such an easy way to impress! Many people use store-bought cake mix and frosting - I'm not going to tell you not to! I was looking to step it up a notch since this was a MN Food Blogger Bake Sale and there are some seriously amazing home cooks, chefs, caterers, photographers etc, I mean - I ended up filling up my bag with other people's treats - and I really don't have too much of a sweet tooth (I swear!). 

Anyway, here's how I did it this time around... Enjoy!

Lemon Cake with Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

• Simple White Cake Recipe (I googled, like I've said before - I don't have a perfect white cake recipe tweaked)
• 2 Lemons (for Juice and Zest - I used Meyer Lemons, I couldn't resist them at the Co-Op)
• 1/2 Container of Cream Cheese (softened)
• 1/2 Stick Butter (softened)
• 2 Cups Powdered Sugar
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 3 Teaspoons Raspberry Extract (you could also use 1-2 tablespoons raspberry jam )

Directions:

1. The night before, bake the cake, adding in lemon zest and juice
2. Crumble cake into teeny-tiny pieces, completely ruin it (this felt really wrong, but trust me, it's how it works!)
3. Using a hand mixer, cream butter and cream cheese
4. Slowly add powdered sugar
5. Add vanilla and raspberry extract
6. Stir together cake crumbs and frosting
7. Form into balls (wear gloves!) and put on wax paper-lined cookie sheet
8. Refrigerate at least 2 hours

Chocolate Espresso Cake with Nutella Frosting

Ingredients:

• My Bourbon Chocolate Cake (with Espresso, not Bourbon!) 
• 1 Cup Nutella (I just used the whole small can)

Directions:

1. Follow the directions above, using 1 cup Nutella to stir into cake crumbs

Chocolate Coating 

Ingredients:

• 1 Ghirardelli Baking Bar (I used White Chocolate for some of the Lemon Raspberry Cream Cheese Pops)
• 1/2 Bag Chocolate Chips
• 1 Square Parafin (I know, I know - I'm old school! I've heard Almond Bark works wonders, but it's a seasonal item and you don't want it to get clumpy or have it melt later)

Directions:

1. Boil water and set to simmer with the double boiler above the water line
2. Stir in ingredients slowly, making sure not to overheat - take off heat every now and then in case
3. I transferred the mixture to a small fondue pot that came with my crock pot for dipping
4. Coat one tip of the paper lollipop sticks (get the bigger ones) with chocolate and then insert into cake ball
5. Dip cake ball into chocolate and roll
6. Once it stops dripping dip into topping of choice (coconut, sprinkles, crushed nuts, candies)
7. Let cool

Here are some of my pictures from the Bake Sale - I obviously was busy with other things, as these don't do it justice - there were so many other amazing treats! But, they do show a couple of my favorite treats I came home with. One of which is Eating for England's Lemon-Drenched Cake - I had this for breakfast the last couple days and gifted one to my dad, who was a very happy man. 

The other being You Eat Like That Everday?'s creation - see those cute jars? Yeah, they were Local Honey, Rhubarb Ketchup and Jalapeno Honey Mustard, which is what I brought home and ate with a baguette (also from the bake sale) and some amazing cheese from the Co-Op. 

You can also see some Vegan Granola Bars from Fig & Fork, Local Food Lust's Biscotti and Banana Bread, among others. 

Oh, and I don't want to forget the lovely cookies I got for my husband. He has a soft spot for anything cardamom, so I had to pick these babies up for him. He's been limiting himself to stretch them out. They're from Nimmow Baking