I Swear I Only Watch for the Commercials

I was a little disappointed by the match up for the big game this year, so I focused on making something delicious instead. I made a few revisions to the chocolate buttercream used for the frosting, and I think it's the best one yet!

Football Cupcake Cake

You will need:
1 box cake mix, any flavor, and any ingredients called for on the box

Chocolate Buttercream
1/2 C butter
1 stick shortening
3 C powdered sugar
2 t chocolate extract
32 oz melted chocolate chips (2 small bags)
1/4 C milk

Make and bake the cupcakes according to instructions. The size of football that I made used 23 cupcakes. Yay! That means there's an extra one for "quality assurance" testing. While the cupcakes are cooling, mix up the best ever, new and improved chocolate buttercream by creaming together the butter and shortening. Slowly add the powdered sugar. At this point, take out about 1 cup of frosting and put it to the side. You'll need this frosting white for the seams and decorations on the ball. In the larger bowl, pour in the slightly cooled (as in, not straight from the stove top) melted chocolate chips. Mix in the chocolate extract. Start with 1/4 C of milk and add until you reach the desired consistency. Also add milk to the reserved frosting that you put to the side until you reach your desired consistency.

To decorate, arrange the unfrosted cupcakes in the general shape of a football first. This is the time to play and move them around until you're happy with the shape. Once you've achieved this, take a knife or spreader and smoosh a little frosting on the bottom of each cupcake to "glue" it into place. This way the cupcakes won't move around which is great if you're going to need to transport it. Now that the cupcakes aren't going anywhere, pipe a healthy (or unhealthy, if you prefer) amount of the chocolate frosting on top of each cupcake using a large circle tip. The more frosting, the better because it's easier to take away from what's there than to evenly add more on. Once all the cupcakes are piped on, use a knife or spreader, or an offset spatula if you have one, to smooth and level out the frosting. Fill another piping bag (or zip-top baggie) with the reserved white frosting. Pipe a thick band across each end of the football as well as a seam across the middle. Add in any well wishes or wording you would like around the seams.

Voila! A football that everyone would rather eat than throw!

Go Pack Go!

I know, I know, the Packers weren't in the Super Bowl this year. That's why the treats I made for Super Bowl Sunday were distinctly generic. But, with a few easy tweaks these goodies could easily showcase your love for your favorite team for the big game!

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Footballs

You will need:
1 bag chocolate candy wafer melts
1 bag white chocolate candy wafer melts
A bunch of strawberries (I used one small box)

First melt the chocolate wafers over a double boiler or in the microwave. Using regular chocolate chips here isn't preferred, they don't set up as quickly or as nicely as the candy melts. I tend to prefer the double boiler melting method, mostly because I don't have to take it out of the microwave and stir every thirty seconds. While the chocolate is melting give the strawberries a quick rinse and look over and gently pat them dry.
Make sure you have a deep container for the chocolate. This makes dipping the strawberries much easier. Once you have smooth, melted chocolate, go ahead and start dipping. While you're dipping, you can start melting the white chocolate candy wafers. In order to get a look that was nice and even on all sides I held the strawberries over the chocolate until the candy had hardened (only about 30 seconds). Once you have all of your strawberries coated in chocolate, go ahead and put the chocolate in a sealed container in the pantry, you're all done with it.
Once you're done with the chocolate, and your white chocolate is melted, spoon about 1 cup (or about 3/4 of a disposable pastry bag) of the melted white chocolate into a pastry bag. I chose to use a disposable pastry bag and just snipped the end off, no special tips needed! You can even use a re-sealable plastic baggie for this part if you don't have pastry bags. The white decorations were a little more tricky for me and definitely took a few tries to get it right. I found that if you hold the strawberry by the green leafy end and have the small pointed end pointed up towards you, it's much easier to simply move the bag around the tip instead of moving the berry. Again, hold the berry until the decorations have hardened, about 30 seconds. I went ahead and did all of the pointed end circles, then all of the seams, then all of the large end circle, but it's up to you if you want to decorate the whole berry at once.

Storage Tips:
Do not store these in the fridge!!! They will get water droplets on the outside of the chocolate, and will make the berries go mushy faster inside the chocolate. That being said, these are best to be prepared no more than 1-2 days in advance and kept on the counter...if you can keep from eating them for that long before the big game!