Father's Day and Independence Day

I'm back! We've been having some strange weather here. First we had 80 mph winds, then the power went out [which was out for 5 days >:( ] Then there was a lightning storm :(, and then a tornado! What in the world! Who would've thought VA was a hotspot for natural disasters :( Anyway, I've been super busy, not so much blogging, but with the baking :)

We were in NY for Father's day, but I had really wanted to make a cake pop display for my husband. I bought a super awesome cake stand just for the day :) Bought it from amazon for a reasonable price and reasonable shipping time :)

Anyway! The number of cake pops you can fit on each row made it incredibly difficult to figure out what to write. Happy Fathers Day would've left the top row blank and Fathers day would've been smushed together. Number One Dad would've worked, but again the bottom row would have only had  3 lettered cake pops on them. I ended up with Love You Daddy, which is what our son says all the time. I wanted to make sure I had alot of cake pops coated with chocolate because my husband loathes the Wilton Candy Melts. So made some grills, the original inspiration was from https://www.facebook.com/AlexLuv2Cook. I expanded on hers quite a bit though.

I made the hot dogs out of gumpaste because I didn't have any Mike & Ikes, the hamburger is a tootsie roll, and the tomatoe is a starburst.  I still wanted to add some color to the display even though I would have to use the dreaded Candy Melts :P I had seen some tie cake pops on pinterest which would also be ideal for fathers day. I made the ties out of gumpast also.

The finished product turned out really well. My husband loved the chocolate so it was wonderful and fathers day was a success :)

Then INDEPENDENCE DAY!! I so wanted to make a whole bunch of things for July 4th, but of course we lost power the week before and didn't get it back until the day before. I ended up getting invited to a BBQ 10 minutes before it was about to start. (that is not an exaggeration. l0 to six, i'm invited. Started at 6! Thanks for the notice :P) So obviously I didn't have time to make a cake. BUT, we did have some strawberries, and I had seen another idea on pinterest (yes, i'm addicted. don't judge) for patriotic chocolate covered strawberries. Luckily I had everything on hand. So I made a wonderful plate of chocolate covered strawberries. They were devoured in seconds and only took about 30 minutes to do.

Then the next day my husband told me we were invited to a BBQ on friday since he and his coworkers all had to work on the fourth. YAY! I get to make the flag cake I found on...guess where! yep. pinterest! She made hers 25 layers (who knows why :P), but I decided to make mine 13 because theres 13 stripes on the flag. I know, genius. :P I had to bake 8 cakes and make 2 lbs of icing for this monster.

 

The inside looks like, you guessed it! A FLAG! and awesome flag!

 

This cake weighed about 10lbs. We got in the car and put the address into the GPS and realized we were driving 65 miles for a BBQ. No Thanks! With a 10 lb cake on my lap :( luckily even my husband didn't want to go. Unfortunately now theres a 10lb cake in my refrigerator that would serve 30 people and only 4 people live in my house. :( Oh well! I also wanted to make some more BBQ cake pops for my husband to take to work. These ones came out SO much better than the first ones! I love them.

I made the steaks out of red starburst with an orange starburst around the outside for the "fat" and I made the chicken legs out of caramels

I made the hamburgers out of tootsie rolls and the tomatoes out of starburst

 I tried to make sure each one was different. 

I poured the red sprinkles as soon as I dipped them, to represent the burning charcoals

I did have an issue with these. When they warmed up, the sticks started collapsing :( so if you do make these, keep them cool.

I love them. They're probably my favorite thing I've ever made.

So they tasted great, and looked great, so once again, Success!!