kentucky derby "k-derby" event

This past weekend my Kiwanis group hosted a horse racing fundraiser called the K-derby

Kevin & I dressed like we were headed to the real Kentucky Derby

Kiwanis is a world wide community service organization that has individual groups (like the Normal Kiwanis Club that I'm a part of or the Bloomington Kiwanis Club that my boss is a part of) that meet together and serve their community by doing service projects and providing financial support to not-for-profit organizations.

 

The fundraiser was sooo much fun! We watched a series of horse races and "bet" on which horse(s) would win. If we were right then we got to enter our winning tickets into prize buckets for a chance to win prizes donated by a local business.

This was the first year I've been able to attend the fundraiser and I already can't wait for next year!

I was on the planning committee, and specifically, I was responsible for the food. I worked with our venue for most of the food and then made serveral cupcakes & cakepops to cover the sweet stuff!

 

I got lots of compliments on the goodies so that was certainly nice, but mostly I was glad to be able to share the treats I enjoy baking so much!



There was chocolate oreo cupcakes with cookies n cream frosting



Coconut carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

Margarita cupcakes with tequila lime buttercream

(to celebrate our fundraiser being held on Cinco De Mayo)

 

Chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes with chocolate buttercream

You might think it'd be hard to beat those yummy looking cupcakes, but the big hit was the cake pops!

I made:

 White chocolate devil's food cake pops

Milk chocolate vanilla cake pops &

Peanut butter chocolate cake pops

 

Luckily, I had a few left over so now that I'm dying for a cake pop after writing this post... I'll go have one of my last hoarded treats :)

halloween themed cake balls

Here's the low down on the cake balls I made for Halloween, first seen here.

First you make a cake (I just used a box mix)

Let the cake cool, and crumble into a bowl.

Add enough icing to form ball shapes

(I used 3/4 can prepared milk chocolate icing)

Roll into 48 1" balls

Refrigerate for an hour or freeze for about 10 minutes.

Prepare candy coating

Melt candy coating in microwave (do 30 seconds at a time).

Push popsicle sticks 1/2 way through cake balls working with a couple at a time

and leaving the rest in the refrigerator.

Dip cake balls into melted candy coating and let excess drip off

(I tapped the stick to the sides of the bowl).

For the "slime balls" I used the extra candy coating, a frosting bag and #2 tip to drizzle on the "slime"

For the Jack O' Lanterns I used white melted candy coating colored black to draw the faces

and colored green to add the stems (still using a frosting bag and #2 tip).

These keep in the refrigerator really well. I even made them a week ahead of time.

The basic cake ball was much easier to make that I first thought it would be. The time consuming part was adding the details, but I love how they turned out! Definately worth the effort!