sweet tooth

the actual making of these cakepops was rather uneventful, however the day i made them, was not. see, lots of people have a completely irrational fear of the dentist… while i suffer from anxiety disorders, i do not have a fear of the dentist, despite my experiences. i understand that this may make me insane.

here is a brief recap of my dental history, before i get into how to make these darling treats:

• when i was a teenager, my orthodontist had one of his tools facing the wrong direction and started drilling through my cheek; i needed to be rushed in to surgery
• novocaine generally doesn’t work on me. i was afraid of anesthesia since my friend had an allergic reaction just prior to my wisdom teeth extraction, so i did the whole ordeal wide awake, feeling just about everything. oh, right, i forgot to mention that they were impacted so bad that my jaw had to be cut. i am pretty sure i will never forget some of the feelings i had that day. i can’t take painkillers because of stomach problems, so i had to deal with the pain after as well, which was delightful
• my former dentist used to have to give me so much novocaine that it lasted 8 hours or so, which is not a good feeling for someone who likes to have control of their body
• a new dentist didn’t believe me that novocaine doesn’t usually work, so during a cleaning, he busted out the needle and shot me up. for no reason other than to try to prove me wrong. i won….as much as someone who had a needle jammed into their gums can win
• i have a particular molar that has lost its filling a couple times before– one of which resulting in an emergency trip to the dentist on the way to the airport– well, a couple weeks ago it cracked in half. this felt about as pleasant as it sounds, and looked even worse. it was a saturday late afternoon so i was calling the emergency number of every dentist in town; the only one available was the aforementioned new dentist, who put some putty on it, which fell off the next day (yep, i swallowed it). i went back monday morning and instead of a crown, he gave me the largest filling ever…just about half the tooth is filling. i am not looking forward to when this falls out
• while i was there, i made an appointment for this past week to get other fillings taken care of. you would think that since my chart had notes that i have heart problems (you used to have to tell your dentist this so they could give you antibiotics) and anxiety disorders (they know it because i had a mild panic attack in their old office, where the chairs were all next to eachother and i was sitting 2 feet from someone getting some extensive work done), and every time i had been there they had given me the novocaine without ephedrine in it, that they would give me the same one they usually do. nope. since my regular dentist was not available, aforementioned new dentist was at it again. the prior week he needed to keep coming back giving me more shots to get it to do anything, so this time he gave me several shots up front. this wouldn’t have been a problem if they gave me the right stuff. at first i thought i felt a little funny because i got so many shots at once, but then i started to feel *really* not right. not right at all. and then i started to panic. when the hygienist came over, i asked if they gave me the one with ephedrine and she said yes. at that point, i had the largest panic attack that i can remember ever having. i couldn’t see, my legs were shaking so bad (presumably from the ephedrine) that i fell down, which caused me to freak out more… i was hyperventilating so badly that they had an oxygen mask on me for the duration of my visit. despite having an oxygen mask on my nose and a cold towel on my forehead, i had them get my sedatives from my car, and asked that they proceed with doing the fillings on all three teeth

i have had a few other fiascos, but those are the main ones of note. and yep, still no real fear of the dentist, and still going back for more in a couple weeks. if you know me, and my fears of most things, you will truly appreciate how odd this is.  now…for cake pops. you want to start with baking a cake– go ahead and use a box mix, it’s okay.

then, with a rubber spatula, destroy it (and this time, i don’t mean eat it…literally destroy it by turning it into crumbs)

then, mix in about 3/4 of a can of frosting in (if you are going to use homemade frosting, go with one that has a shortening base)

use a melon baller or cookie scoop and roll the mush into balls

sorry…i don’t have pictures of me dipping them in the melted candy melts, nor pouring nonpareils/sprinkles over them (i think that would have required a timer, or three hands), which resulted in my entire counter being covered in sprinkles, or wedging them into the styrofoam block, but they should look something like this when you are done:

ta-da! try not to eat too many though…or else you might end up like me in the dentist’s chair  (o;