The third most popular article was:
3rd Most Popular Article: What Cake Pops? It's . . . Cake Pops!
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| For today's article, we've decided to devote it to baking one thing in particular - Watermelon-shaped Cake Pops! But there are other types of cake pops you can make too. What a variety! |
Hey there everyone, Lizzy the Lizard here and I'm in the kitchen with my younger sister, Lily. Did I mention that she would make a great chef someday? She watches cooking shows and reads recipe books. Lily is always asking if we could bake something, like cupcakes. Well today she plans on making a batch of watermelon-shaped cake pops with mom. It sounds delicious, can't wait to try them! I decided to ask why she wanted to bake today. "I'm always in a baking mood," she replied, "I just love to bake!" I decided to ask her what ingredients were needed. "You have to have 1 box of white cake mix (Betty Rocker super moist preferred, or you could make your own . . . but that's a whole other process!), 1/4 teaspoon of pink paste food coloring, 3/4 cup of vanilla frosting, 3/4 cup of mini semisweet chocolate chips, 32 lollipop sticks, 1 bag of candy melts, 1 large block white plastic foam, 1 bag (16 oz) of green candy melts, and 1 cup of light green candy melts," Lily the lizard said. "Hey do you mind teaching our readers how to make these delicious treats?" I asked her. "Well you start off by heating the overnight to 350 degrees and spraying a 13 by 9 inch pan with cooking spray. Make and bake the cake mix and use water, oil, and egg whites while adding pink paste food color. Then let the cake cool completely," said Lily. I watched as mom and Lily baked a cake an then laid it down on the counter to cool off. As the cake was chilling, Lily took a line cookie sheet with waxed paper and laid it down on another part of the counter. She checked the cake and then crumbled it up in a large bowl. "Why did you do that?" I asked, confused. "That's how you make the cake pops." Lily explained. She added frosting and the chocolate chips into the mix and stirred it up. "Here's a fun part to me!" she exclaimed. "You take some of the mix and you shape it into a ball or an oval. You should be able to get at least 32 of them. Then you place them carefully on the cookie sheet and freeze them until their firm by putting them in the freezer. Once firm, you transfer the balls into the refrigerator." Lily, mom, and I decided to watch a movie while we waited for the pops to become firm. "Here's were it gets harder to explain," said Lily, "I think mom can explain it better." My Mom was happy to explain (she was also pretty excited to be quoted for the newspaper too). "You remove the cake balls from the fridge," she told us. "Then dip the tip of one lollipop stick into the melted white candy and insert it into one cake ball, no more than halfway in. Then you dip each cake ball into the melted white candy and cover it. After that, you poke the other end of the stick into the foam block but we just used an empty shoe-box and poked holes into it. Do it with all of the other cake balls. Then let them sit in the fridge until their dry meaning until the candy melt has hardened. After that, dip the cake balls in the green candy melt and cover it all up. Then set it back in the fridge." I watched as Lily took a lollipop stick and dipped one of the ends in the white chocolate. I saw her take out one of the cake balls and plunge the stick into it but not all the way. Then she twirled the cake ball around carefully in the bowl of white candy melts. Lily walked over to the fridge and put the other end of the stick into a hole on the top of a box for the cake pop to stand. "Later, after its been dipped in green and dried, we use a toothpick and decorate the cake balls with the light green candy to make it look like a watermelons. You know watermelons need some stripes!" Lily said, excitedly. After the cake pops were done, we each took one and are it. "Wow these are delicious!" I exclaimed. "And it really looks like you bit into a watermelon that has seeds, how cool. "Well that's it for now folks, tune in next time . . . to see me all wrapped . . . in duck tape? Bye, I've got to get another one of these cake pops, it's delicious!
Written by: Lizzy Lizard
Photographer: Daniel P. Smithwater
Edited by: Christian Ryan, Joy Hammond and Mr. Smiley
Now, the second most popular article:
2nd Most Popular Article: Dinosaurs Reproducing After Their Own Kind
Now, the second most popular article:
2nd Most Popular Article: Dinosaurs Reproducing After Their Own Kind
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| The proud new parent Brachiosaurus (top) and Parasaurolophus (bottom) pairs. |
A lot has been happening at Animal Adventures Inc. (AAI.) lately! But the most recent news is happening at Animal Adventures Institute (a section of AAI. that studies animals). In the first time in hundreds of years, some of the species of dinosaurs at the institute have laid eggs! This isn’t the first time this has happened at the institute. The first dinosaur eggs laid by the already cloned dinosaurs themselves were T. rex eggs back in December of 2009. Three T. rex babies hatched (named Jane, Little Clint and Eggbert). In 2010, the next clutch to be laid were that of the Institute’s Spinosaurus and Apatosaurus. They each hatched two eggs. In 2011, a baby Triceratops and two baby Stegosaurus hatched. Now in 2012, more dinosaur species have laid eggs. When I heard about this, my junior photographer, Daniel P. Smithwater and I had to check it out. The proud parents are Mr. and Mrs. Brachiosaurus and Mr. and Mrs. Parasaurolophus. Now Brachiosaurus is one of the largest long-necked or sauropod dinosaurs, and Parasaurolophus is one of the duckbilled or hadrosaur dinosaurs. Both parents now have five eggs each. Head scientist Dr. Steve Stevenson explains, “This is really revolutionary! No one alive today has ever seen living Brachiosaurus or Parasaurolophus eggs. Actually I take that back, no one alive hasever seen eggs from these two species, living or fossil.” The eggs are big, each one is about the size of a football. In the wild, sauropods didn’t care for the eggs. Instead, the parent dinosaur would lay them and move on. Here in the institute, the parents aren’t going to care for the eggs either, instead, they get to care for them once they hatch. “No offense to the sauropods,” Dr. Steve says, “but they don’t have very big brains. The reason why wild sauropods left their eggs was because having a very small brain meant they probably had trouble determining where their head and feet are verses where the eggs are. So that’s why we’ll return the eggs to the parent dinosaurs after they hatch.” The creature selected to care for the sauropod eggs is Mr. Oliver Oviraptor. He is a dinosaur Dr. Steve has cloned and is very capable of taking care of eggs. "Oviraptors can take very good care of eggs," Oliver says, "Even our fossils have been found of us guarding our eggs from the potential dangers of the dinosaur world." Hadrosaurs, on the other hand, did care for both the eggs and babies in the wild since they had larger brains. We know this because relatives of Parasaurolophus have been found with fossil nests. My photographer and I also had the chance to interview the proud mothers of each brood. “We are just so excited,” says Mrs. Brachiosaurus, “We’ve been here for quite a few years and haven’t had any children. This is exactly the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. We aren’t sure how many of the eggs will hatch, but hopefully at least one, or two, or three, or . . . well, I want all of them to hatch!” Mrs. Parasaurolophus also had something to say about her brood, "I am also excited about the eggs. Once they hatch, I'll be able to show how good at mothering a mother dinosaur can be!" She went on to say that baby dinosaurs hatch out of eggs much more mature than human babies. "Baby hadrosaurs can talk at a few hours," she says, "they can walk within a few months and they can run with the herd within maybe a few months to a year, it all depends on the health of the baby." So maybe Animal Adventures Institute will hear the pitter-patter of little dino-paws sometime soon. You can be sure Smiley's News will keep you posted on this one!
Written by: Mr. Smiley
Photographed by: Daniel P. Smithwater
Edited by: Christian Ryan
Now it's time for the most popular article that's ever been published for Smiley's News. The most popular article is (drum-roll please) . . .
Most Popular Article: New Animal Face-Off Series Beams Success
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| These are all the animals from the new series! |
A lot of you probably already know that my good friend Nigel Milligan is the CEO of Animal Adventures Inc. (AAI.). An “under-business” (if you will) of AAI. is Animal Adventures Studios(AAS). This is where the company makes movies and TV shows. Their latest and so far biggest project yet has recently been released on television. This series is called Animal Face-Off. “After completing our second short, ‘Jurassic Park: The Game – Triceratops Troubles’, I was eager to get on with bigger projects,” Nigel says. “So I thought an Animal Face-Off series was a great idea.” This series is quite different from most other documentary series you’ve seen. There are nine episodes in season one. These episodes are:
- Lion vs. Tiger
- Hippo vs. Bull Shark
- Elephant vs. Rhino
- Velociraptor vs. Protoceratops
- Velociraptor vs. Ankylosaur
- Tyrannosaurus vs. Ankylosaurus
- Tarantula vs. Scorpion
- Tyrannosaurus vs. Spinosaurus
- Special: Battle at Kruger
Each episode (with the exception of the special) starts out with a little introduction to each animal. Then the narrator, another friend of mine named Christian Ryan, tells the audience the strengths and weaknesses of each animals in the face-off. Finally the face-off is revealed, and the endings can become quite a surprise to some viewers! Finally, the narrator then tells us why the winner won the face-off. The series mainly positive reviews from a wide range of critics and as of January 24, 2013, each episode has had a lot of views:
Lion vs. Tiger - 1,301 views
Hippo vs. Bull Shark - 1004 views
Elephant vs. Rhino - 921 views
Velociraptor vs. Protoceratops - 484 views
Velociraptor vs. Ankylosaur - 408 views
Tyrannosaurus vs. Ankylosaurus - 328 views
Tarantula vs. Scorpion - 667 views
Tyrannosaurus vs. Spinosaurus - 395 views
Special: Battle at Kruger - 285 views
The series ran from September 13, 2012-December 31, 2012. After a successful series such as this, some might be wondering what Nigel plans to do next. So that was what I asked him. “I like to stay ahead of things,” says Nigel. “So well before the Animal Face-Off series was finished, we were also working on a documentary series called ‘Planet of the Dinosaurs’. In this series, we will be taking viewers back in time to show them what dinosaurs were really like after the Fall of Man and how new fossil evidence is revealing some of the most amazing creatures that God ever assembled. I mean, lots of the dinosaurs in the series were only discovered in the past few years. Thanks to scientific advancements, we’ve been able to unlock mysteries that have puzzled scientists for decades and go deeper into fossils than ever before; and thanks to the invention of the Time-A-Tron we are now able to literally go back in time and film the amazing creatures in their natural element. At this very moment, my film crew is back in prehistoric Wyoming, filming a few days in the life of one of the most terrible killers of the Jurassic lands: Allosaurus!” I then asked Nigel if his series is the first series to use time travel to film the prehistoric animals. “No, we aren’t. The first people to do so were with the BBC channel where they went back in time to film a series called “Walking with Dinosaurs.” They went on to do other popular series such as “Walking with Beasts” a sequel to WWD and “Walking with Monsters” a prequel to WWD. Other series using time travel include: Prehistoric Park, When Dinosaurs Roamed America, Dinosaur Planet,Dinosaur Revolution and most recently, Planet Dinosaur. And my series, Planet of the Dinosaursis the next great dinosaur documentary series. With the Lord’s blessing, this series will be a huge success and will help shed light on some of the lesser known animals of the Mesozoic lands (by “Mesozoic”, he is referring to the lands the dinosaurs lived in, not the fictional time periods that secularists say dinosaurs lived in).” Before I ended the interview, I had one last question to ask: what are some of the animals to expect in this new series? “Well, while we will have episodes devoted to famous dinosaurs – T. rex, Triceratops and Velociraptor – we plan to shed light on other less familiar species, such as the intriguing Spinosaurus, Rugops, Guanlong, Gigantoraptor and etc.” This series is in the works and is scheduled to be released sometime in April. I can’t wait!
PS: To see the new series, click here: Animal Face-Off.
Written by: Mr. Smiley
Photographer: Daniel P. Smithwater
Edited by: Christian Ryan
I hope you enjoyed reading through the most popular articles Smiley's News has ever published and I hope that we'll be able to enjoy another great year of Smiley's News!
Written by: Mr. Smiley
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