Year of the Rabbit

Happy New Year: Year of the Rabbit! 2011

Having a special need child can be challenging but it seems to be the most challenging when trying to explain concepts. Like the concept of different, same, race, culture and tradition. We pretty much have tradition down: kisses before bed time, brush teeth before bath time, Halloween means candy and Christmas means lights. It is important to me that my daughter understand the concept of her Country, her State and why her Country and State are special. Finding culture in Nevada is complicated. Las Vegas is composed of millions of people born in raised in other States and Nations. Very few are native Nevadans and because of our international travelers it gets even more confusing. What isn't confusing when you live in Las Vegas is how important the Asian culture is. Asian travelers make up a huge portion of our revenue and their amazing cuisine has infiltrated our glowing city to it's core. You can find authentic Asian restaurants run by brilliant Asian Chefs in every major Hotel along Las Vegas Blvd. It should come as no surprise then Chinese New Year is a huge celebration in Las Vegas. All major Hotels decorate and pull out all the stops to welcome our Asian friends as they bring in the New Year their way.

To help my daughter understand it is going to be a special time we made cake pops. Now fortune cookies are more an American tradition but Jordan understands when we go to our local China Town to eat she gets a fortune cookie so I decided to incorporate it. Red is a very important color for Chinese New Year so I tried to incorporate it as much as possible and still make it fun for an eight year old.

For cake pops I promise you it is going to be easier if you aren't used to making
them to use a cake mix. Duncan Hines also make a vegan cake mix if
you need that for sensitive tummies or lifestyle choices.

Just follow directions on the back of the cake box and bake your cake like normal!

What you will need:



I bought this in the baking section at Michale's. I use Duff's
cake graffiti for everything, including spraying my
Styrofoam blocks for presentation purposes.



This animal sprinkle set is from Wilton. The jumbo sprinkles
can be used to make everything you could possibly think of
and we are going to use them (the orange ones) to make a Dragon!
You can find them here: Animal Sprinkle Set

We are going to use the red candy melts for dipping our cake pops.
You candy find the Wilton candy melts I use here: Candy Melts

If you were born under the sign of the Rabbit then it is your year! Happy New Year Rabbits!

If you have a Kitchen Aid get out this attachment and crumble your cake
into the bowl. If you don't have a Kitchen Aid then simply crumble
your cake into a large mixing bowl.

Add half a can of frosting (I used cream cheese but you use what ever your
taste buds demand) and mix that baby until it looks like
cake dough.



Roll into your balls/shapes and dip a lolly-pop stick in melted candy melts and place in cake balls.
Then off to the freezer they go for about 7-10 minutes to get nice and cold!

 

Dip all your prepared cake pops in the red candy melts. I use the Wilton Chocolate Pro because it makes
this process so much easier but you can also accomplish this with a microwave.



Spray your fortune cookies with the Duff cake spray.

I made mine silver but you can use what ever color you wish. Duff has a ton of different colors to choose form.

New Year Dragon. I used a torn piece of twizzler for the fire breathing effect. Just cut off
a small piece, dip one end in the candy melt and hold in place until the candy melt dries and
acts like glue.

I used the orange jumbo sprinkles to make the dragons scales. I just dipped one side of the sprinkle in the
candy melts and held in place until it hardened.

I though the twizzler for fire breathing really worked great. I also used the orange jumbo sprinkles to
make the dragons snout.