With no return date to school in sight, my go-to reprieve from ruminating about the unknowns and "what if's" is stress-baking. For the first time, though, I've baked what has literally been on my mind: coronavirus. Is this a recipe for disaster?
This frankenstein of a recipe was not an exact science. I do not have exact measurements. It was more of "let me throw a handful of this" and "oh, what if I tried that."
The result? I present to you the Coronavirus Pops
Ingredients
- Baked chocolate cake
- A tub of vanilla icing
- Green sprinkles
- Green food coloring
- Mini yogurt pretzels
- Cake pop (or popsicle) sticks
Making the core of the coronavirus pop (holds the genetic material, RNA, which makes the virus infectious)
1. Bake a chocolate cake* and let cool enough to comfortably touch.
2. Crumble up cake in a big bowl.
3. Melt icing* in microwave.
4. Add melted icing to crumbled cake in increments and mix together with your hands until it's just enough to be moldable. Save remaining icing for coating the pops later on.
5. Roll heaping tablespoons of cake mixture into cake pop balls.
*While I enjoy baking from scratch, I started with a boxed cake mix and pre-made icing so that I could focus on how I was going to replicate the virus in all its microscopic glory.
Coating the coronavirus pops with a viral envelope (a plasma membrane that is like the "skin" of a virus)
1. Stab each cake pop ball with a stick.
2. Chill in fridge for 20 minutes.
3. In a glass measuring cup, add equal parts of remaining vanilla icing and candy melts and microwave.
4. Add green food coloring to cup and stir.
5. Dip cake pops into the green icing mixture.
6. For some added gnarly texture, let pops slightly cool and roll in green sprinkles.
Attaching the envelope glycoproteins (the trademark little arms that enable the virus to infect host cells)
1. Roughly crush mini yogurt pretzels into knobby shapes.
2. Place crushed pretzels in glass bowl over boiling water to soften the yogurt coating.
3. Drop in green food coloring and mix.
4. Take bowl off water and let slightly cool.
5. Stab pretzels pieces into the virus pops so they stick on.
Keep calm and bake on!
What is your pandemic pastime?
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