It's a tradition, established more than a year ago, that I'm trying to keep up. I started rewarding my students for finishing their final exams by offering them my scrumdilly-dilly-umptious homemade chocolate chip cookies. This means that during my own final exams, I would slave away in the kitchen until late at night making my dear class their cookies. I call this selflessness and thoughtfulness. Others may call this procrastination.
This semester, I just couldn't stomach the thought of making batches and batches of chocolate chip cookies. I decided to make cake pops instead. And I don't know if you are familiar with the wonder that is cake pops, but basically it's sheet cake mixed with cream frosting, rolled into a ball, stuck with a Lollipop stick, and dipped in chocolate. And they are pretty much amazing. I am making 150 of them, which means three sheet cakes, three packages of whipped cream frosting, 150 sticks, 150 treat bags, and 150 twist ties.
This gets a little messy. And I'm more than neurotic when I'm in the kitchen. I prefer all surfaces to be clean and tidy as I'm cooking. Home ec, 6th grade, taught me that I should wash my dishes and clean as I go, and boy, I have never remembered a lesson as well as that one. I'm currently - yes, like as I type - balancing the baking process, the whipping process, and the dipping process all at once. And somehow I've got to keep chocolate cake off the floor, because I have dogs, and they like to eat what's on the floor. They aren't picky, and these are prime pickin's, but a girl's gotta watch where cake falls. Like where it should: INTO MY MOUTH.
In approximately 6 more hours, I should have 150 beautiful cake pops, ready for my students to devour them. What I most look forward to is the cognitive dissonance that flashes across their face like, damn, these are good...and I gave you a bad evaluation last week. I shouldn't have been such a shithead.
Actually, I have yet to get a bad evaluation -- but it is fun to think about what they are processing as they bite into that cakey goodness.