Homemade with Love

I am NOT saying this is my husband, but....

Thank you, Cheryle!

Look at what was waiting on the porch for me this afternoon! My dear friend Cheryle, who lives in Tennessee, sent me a CKU (Creating Keepsakes University) in a box. There are three classes included: a card class, an album class, and a journaling class. All the materials and instructions are included. Yeah me!

A few years back Cheryle and I attended a CKU together in Nashville and had a great time. She and I were in the same playgroup when we both lived in Elk Grove. Notice that I said WE were in a playgroup and made no mention of our children being in the playgroup-not a mistake. We had the best playgroup ever. We threw awesome parties, went on field trips together, scrapbooked, and just had fun being together.

I miss you, my friend. Thank you so much.

Not like the original

But they're okay for a first try. Here is the link to Bakerella. She was on Martha and has a blog dedicated to cupcake art. First of all, these aren't really cupcakes. I made a chocolate cake in a 9 by 13 pan. When it was still warm, I crumbled the cake and added a container of chocolate frosting. The result is like a truffle center paste that hardens a bit in the freezer. The tough part for me is that these are pretty large and I still rolled about 3 dozen cupcakes. I should have made them smaller, but I could only find the larger flower cookie cutter (if you read the instructions on her site, you'll know what I mean). They are a bit labor intensive, but I think they are pretty tasty. So, I may make these again, but just as truffles or "lollipops". Also, they really didn't look too much like cupcakes, because I dipped them too far into the milk chocolate, so the chocolate formed a puddle when I put them on the parchment to harden.