Farewell to the LJ baking: Cake pops, brownie cups and birthday cupcakes

Today marks my first Monday not as a Journal-World employee. It's quite strange, particularly because I'm hanging out with family on a night when I should be trying to fall asleep before work. I'm on to my next job, but have been sad to leave the people at my last one. I had a wonderful going away party last Friday, but I know it won't be the end of seeing them all. Excitement on the other side of this, though, is that I've found myself an apartment in Kansas City, which makes this new job (that starts Thursday!) all the more real. It's only a few minutes from my office, it's a one-bedroom and it's in a renovated warehouse/factory sort of building...way cool! Now I need to work on updating all my college-crappy stuff to slightly less crappy stuff. Wish me luck!

So last week I wrote about the first of my work going-away treats, my soda cupcake trio. My next treat was these chocolate cake pops. I've never done chocolate before, and as expected, they were rich and wonderful. They're my good friend Nick's favorite dessert, so I saved him all my rejects as my farewell from work. His going away present to me? A 1937 Tonganoxie community cookbook he got at the swap meet. I was a little terrified when he said he got me something at the swap meet, which could have meant a carburetor or some trashy t-shirt, but luckily he didn't do that. My favorite terrible old recipe in it: laxative fig and date bon bons. Ew. But there are plenty of good recipes in it too!

For Friday's going-away sweet, I went with my friend Whitney's request: peanut butter brownie cups. These made an appearance on her Friday blog, along with a farewell message to me (it was so sweet!). I had two bake sales to bake for: our Relay for Life team one and the Blogger's Bake Sale. These are super simple desserts (they're actually easier to make without a KitchenAid mixer!) and they are soooo good. And rich. Beware of that little detail.

And last, but not least, on Friday I also made some special cupcakes for my coworker Mark Fagan. Fagan has two children who have become a couple of my absolutely favorite dessert consumers. He always brings back reviews of what I've made, sometimes accompanied with photos or video. One time I even got a card! Well, Saturday was his daughter's birthday, and she wanted me to make cupcakes. The parameters: vanilla cupcakes, the creamsicle cupcake icing (marshmallow-flavored), favorite colors of green and purple, and a love of peace signs. I found these perfect peace sign barretts, then just went with a multi-colored frosting. My 9-year-old self was pleased. And from what I hear, she liked them too! (P.S. - Posting these to Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday!)