Who you calling turkey?

Well, Thanksgiving was last week. For the first time in my life I seriously pre-gamed Thanksgiving. I had turkey, stuffing, etc on Monday and Tuesday for lunch. This made me declare the whole week as Thanksgiving week....in other words: No holds barred! Stuff yourself silly for a whole week.

Speaking of silly....what do you get when you put two best friends together who are up way past their bedtime making dessert? A silly movie with their newly made Turkey Cake Pops.

Ah, yes. You heard right. Turkey Cake Pops. I have no idea how to not make that sound as bad as it does. It's a ball of cake on a lollipop stick with decorations that make it look like a turkey. So there. A Turkey Cake Pop.

*sigh* See picture below for clarification.

I had stumbled upon bakerella's site of cuteness through the greatly loved cakewrecks site's twitter. I decided that I would make these time consuming cutenesses of dessert. Of course, with my friend Jen's help.

Jen and I went to Allen's for Thanksgiving. Allen and all his friends are serious foodies and professional chefs. I had to pull out the big guns to impress them, ya know what I mean? So, Tukey Cake Pops it was. It could have been a real mess. They could have looked like balls of poo. And yet, they turned out to be OH SO CUTE! So cute that one didn't want to ruin them by eating them. They were hard to gobble up (pun intended.)

Everyone loved them and they tasted great!!! I was even asked if I was a pastry chef! *one tear of joy gleaming in eye*

Turkey Cake Pops (from: http://www.bakerella.com/hope-these-put-a-smile-on-your-face/ AND http://www.bakerella.com/youll-want-to-gobble-these-right-up/)

Items needed (all can be found on amazon.com):

1 box cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13x9 cake)

1 can frosting (16 oz.)

Wax paper

Chocolate Candy melts (1 lb. pkg.)

Lollipop Sticks

Edible Ink Pens

1. After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl

2. Mix thoroughly with 1 can frosting. (You may not need the entire can of frosting, so start out by using almost the entire can and add more if you need to.) Erika's Extra Notes: Good idea to have plastic kitchen glove/surgical gloves to smush cake and frosting together and then make them into the ball shape.

3. Roll mixture into quarter size balls and place on wax paper covered cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50.) Erika's Extra Noted: Bigger sized cake balls are easier to decorate, so maybe try Susan B. Anthony sized balls.

4. Melt chocolate in the microwave per directions on package. (30 second intervals, stirring in between.)

5. Dip the tip of your lollipop stick in a little of the melted candy coating and insert into the cake balls. (Insert less than halfway.)

6. Place them in freezer for a little while to firm up.

7. Once firm, carefully insert the cake ball into the candy coating by holding the lollipop stick and rotating until covered. Once covered, remove and softly tap and rotate until the excess chocolate falls off. Don't tap too hard or the cake ball will fall off too.

8. Place in a styrofoam blcok to dry. Erika's Extra Notes: Styrofoam is NOT environmentally friendly, so if you don't have any laying around, use a cardboard box and carefully poke a scissor or exacto knife into the top to create sturdy holes for the sticks.

9. Once dry, add decorations and draw faces on with an edible ink pen.

I used chocolate covered pecans as the heads, mini sugar hearts for that dangly throat thing, cut up jelly bellies for the nose, and Mike & Ikes for the tail feathers.

Bake well and prosper!