Photography/Cooking (sort of)

Over the weekend I finally bit the bullet and, after many months of research, ran out and purchased my first DSLR camera. I am by no means a photographer: I've used the school's DSLRs on occasion over the last few years and even halfway payed attention in class about how to use them properly.  That being said, I was fully excited to dive right in to my new toy and take pictures of... something.  Sadly, that something ended up being whatever happened to be in my kitchen cupboards that day.

For Christmas my grandma bought me a Babycakes Cake Pop maker.  If you don't know what that is, that's fine.  I didn't know what it was even when I was staring at it on my lap.  Nevertheless, I jumped right into it over break, trying my hand at what my family not-so-elegantly named "cake balls" (mostly because I was too lazy to put the sticks in them and decorate them).

This is the part where pseudo-baking meets college laziness: I rarely (never) posses eggs, butter, or consumable milk in my refrigerator.  At one time someone mentioned to me being able to bake a box cake mix by mixing it with a can of Diet Coke, so that's where the cooking/photography journey began this weekend.

I had one random box of cake mix shoved in the back of my cupboard that I had purchased on a whim (at BigLots, no less), so I was all set.

If you're thinking the mixing-powder-with-soda event sounds moderately disgusting, you are correct.  The carbonation creates a strange texture, but once you get it mixed thoroughly the texture is basically the same as if you had made it with real food ingredients.  Once it gets to that point, my loads of previous cake ball creation experience told me the next important step was to pour the batter into a gallon Ziploc bag to properly inject the cake ball holes.  As easy as this sounds, it is messy and ridiculous to try to do alone.  I probably should've thought twice about exposing my new camera to such circumstances, but everyone made it out alive this time.  Anyway, after the batter is in the bag and the corner is snipped off it's time to go to town squeezing it into the molds and waiting about 4 minutes for them to bake.

If the stars are aligned correctly and the world decides to spare you the disappointment of raw-inside cake balls, they come out cute and delicious.  Well, not as cute as if you have the patience to decorate them properly, I guess.

I ended up with a big bowl full of Cherry Chip cake balls, which is ordinarily something I'd be thrilled about, but it turns out Cherry Chip cake is pretty freakin' gross.  I donated them to a friend to take home to her family, which is lovely because even the smell of them was a bit too much for me.

A learning experience, times 4.