Thanks to the numerous “cake” themed cooking shows on TV, one of the hottest desserts around are cake balls or cake pops. They are incredibly easy to make, especially if you begin with cake mix and canned frosting.  Additionally, they are a fun cooking project to get your kids involved in.  Of course, if you want to go the gourmet route, begin with your favorite cake baked from scratch and use homemade buttercream frosting.  Either way, they are pretty darn cute!

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There are two ways to make caramel – with water or without. Caramel is just melted and nearly burnt sugar, how dark you get it determines the intensity of the caramel flavor.

Most recipes have you begin with a specific amount of water and a specific amount of sugar. The water acts as a buffer and allows the sugar to melt slowly, when the water has evaporated, the actual caramelizing of the sugar begins. 

Professional chefs don’t bother with the water, they just get down to the business at hand.  In the final week of kids’ classes, we did it “the professional” way. If you would prefer to play it safe, just add water to the pan with the sugar.  There isn’t a determined amount of water to add, you can add a 1/2 cup or a quart, eventually, it will evaporate and you’ll be on your way.

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One of the candies that always makes the list of peoples’ Top 10, is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

After you have this decadent ice cream, you may never want to eat a plain old peanut butter cup all on its own again!

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This is a delicious, lighter, summertime-appropriate version of spaghetti and meatballs.

Served at room temperature, it’s actually refreshing instead of hearty and heavy like your winter-warming version.

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Have kids? If so, this is a hard combo to beat; pizza and bacon cheeseburger in one easy-to-eat package.  Adults are pretty crazy about it too.

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Buffalo wings: check. Macaroni and cheese: check. Happy kids: check.  But, put the two together –  and Wow!

Another kid-favorite combo tomorrow…  oh, and Happy 4th of July!

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Once I ran out of ideas and energy for the remaining peaches in my refrigerator, I used them to make peach bread.  The mini-loaves actually fit in my freezer, so they were the perfect and delicious solution.

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The 4th of July weekend is here and here is a festive, fun, and tasty watermelon flag bowl perfect for that fruit salad you need to bring to the party. The recipe for the actual salad and dressing is way down at the bottom of the post. 

Leading up to it are step-by-step pictures to help you make the patriot melon.  Here we go….

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As I’ve mentioned several times recently, we are in our fifth and final week of summer cooking classes. And coincidentally, today is the last day of this last week… no more kids’ classes until Summer 2012 now. Well, way back in weeks 1 and 2, we had a day called Wrapper Magic, where we used either egg roll, wonton, or spring roll wrappers for each course.  One of the most popular dishes on Wrapper Magic day was these quick and super tasty appetizers.

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Just in case you missed Valley Dish and the seriously awesome dish we made, here is the LINK… and the recipe for the dish will be posted in the next couple of days… it’s so good!!!

If I’ve ever led you to believe that mistakes aren’t made here at Les Petites Gourmettes Cooking School, please forgive me. Although not necessarily every day, certainly at least every other day!  Eggs are cracked, not into the bowl as intended, but rather onto the floor. Flour has been thought to be powdered sugar when making frosting… easy to fix, just start over. Things burn, they are undercooked or overcooked, you get the idea.  Most are minor and easily repaired or corrected… while others… not so much.

Let’s see, there was a time a couple of years ago when a pair of young boys added 2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper to a pot of chili, instead of 1/4 teaspoon. That went directly into the trash. Thankfully, that’s actually rare, when something ends up in the garbage, although I was certain it was going to happen again last week…

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