Elegant Food with a Sense of Humor

When I began to plan for a large Halloween party, I wanted to serve interesting

desserts that didn't take a long time to make. Cake pops being the "in" thing, I decided to give these a try. I bought a cake pop maker and began to experiment with boxed cake mixes. It took a few tries to get the hang of it, but they came out pretty well. I decided that I would serve balls rather than pops, because I could arrange them on Halloween serving dishes. I also decided to give them a candy coating rather than frosting to make them a little neater to handle. I used white cake, orange cake and spice cake, coated with white chocolate, orange colored vanilla candy and orange colored pumpkin candy respectively. I also made chocolate cream cheese cake balls by baking brownies, crumbling them up in a food processer, and then rolling them into balls using just enough cream cheese in each ball to bind the crumbs together. I coated the chocolate cream cheese balls with dark chocolate.

A word about candy coating: I used Ghirardelli white and dark chocolate melting wafers, and these melted beautifully in the microwave, following the instructions on the package. (Beware - never add water to melting chocolate. The chocolate will seize (turn hard) and cannot be salvaged.) For the vanilla and pumpkin candy, I used Wilton's melting wafers. These were a disaster, saved only by the good people of the internet. The wafers turned into a soft paste but would not melt any further, regardless of how many times I microwaved them. The solution was to add vegetable oil and mix it in until the mixture was a smooth consistency. I was surprised at just how much oil I had to add to get it right, but they were beautiful in the end. Thank you, internet gurus!

Of course the white balls became eyeballs!

Pros: Easy to make in large batches and a variety of flavors.

Cons: There are definitely tricks to making cake pops and melting candy. Consult the internet.