The Continuance of Cake Pops

A little bit of heaven on a stick. Chocolate encased in chocolate. Just a few ways to describe those little delights called cake pops. Remember this post about holiday inspired cake pops? Remember how excited I was about showing you the result and didn't show you the process? Well now it is time for the process and many salivating pictures.

The past few weeks have seemed to need a lot of cake pops. Many special occasions happened and cake pops were needed at all. No, no one requested it. I just thought it was needed. But let's start at the very beginning (it's a very good place to start...ahh The Sound of Music). First, just bake a sheet cake just like it says on the box.

Mmm, don't you want to eat it right now? NO! Don't do it. We will make it even better but first it has to get a little messy. It is time to grab a fork and fork up that cake until it is a pile of fluffy crumbs.

Now, if you are in need of a little taste test, you can take it here. There will be some big chunks of the crustier outside. Feel free to eat those as a little snack, Now its time to make it double chocolate (or double vanilla). Grab your favorite flavor of icing - both chocolate and vanilla work. I tend to go double chocolate! Spoon up a big glob of that icing and start to mix it! This is where it gets tempting to just stop and start spooning it up.



The finished product should not be too wet but malleable enough to form into balls. Putting the whole can of frosting in usually works - never more but sometimes less.

Now it is time to round it into about 1 inch balls. Once those are done, make sure to give them time to firm up in the refrigerator. Since it takes so long to get to this point I usually make these before one day and then finish up the fun, decorating part.

Now we can skip back to the holiday cake pop post to pick up the rest of the steps. To give you a quick run down, gather colored melting chocolate, lollipop sticks, and any sprinkles and decorating icing. All of these can be found at craft stores or Walmart (don't hate me that I put Walmart in my post - I am trying to be frugal). Melt the chocolate, dip one end of the stick into the chocolate, and then into the cake. Now dip the whole ball into the chocolate. This is where you lose the ball if you don't let them firm up. Note: if you put them in the freezer and then directly begin this process the whole chocolate will crack in the hardening process as it expands in the unfreezing process. Then it is time for decorating - sprinkles, icing, whatever moves you!

Ready for some final products? I am! First up, we had a going away party for someone at work who got a different job. He worked in Information Systems and the pops were decorated accordingly. This also shows how you can write messages!

If you can't read it, it says "Thank You Gary" and "BCPSA".

(Note: if you use Styrofoam, it has an expiration date as the holes get big after a few uses. The result is floppy cake pops that make it hard to display. Huge fan of the white cardboard stand I found at the store specifically for cake pops!)

So these might have been a fail. Look at the green on green. I wrote "Info" and "Sys" on two cake pops and then I tried to draw a phone and computer on the two in the middle. Bet you couldn't tell what those pictures are without me telling you!



Next event: another friend getting a new job! Does this mean the economy is turning around?! I surprised her with her own special cake pops!

"Congrats Katie" it reads!

Tried to make it a little fun!

Tried to get artsy to make up for the yellow cake pops in my yellow tinted kitchen when taking pictures at night, meaning no natural light to offset the yellow. Don't know if it worked except to show the drips!

Final occasion, a cookout to celebrate spring. So I thought I would keep them simple and colorful!

Whew! That was quite the cake pop tour! Hope you liked it. Maybe next time I fill get a little fancier ... thinking Easter egg cake pops?!

Holiday Cake Pop Extravaganza!

I love dessert. I also don't consider it dessert unless it has chocolate. So when my friend Clelie and I decided to try and make this new phenomenon called cake pops for a work function (we used to work at the same place), a new chapter of my life opened up!

So what are cake pops? Well they are little chocolate balls of cake on a lollipop stick and dipped and chocolate. They also offer endless ways of decorating them to customize them to specific holidays and situations. Since we have begun to make these we have celebrated birthdays, childbirth, making cake pops for our own leaving work party (we left within weeks of each other and brought our own cake!), and holidays like Christmas that I will share with you today!

Clelie even bought this book to help us get started:

Buy it on Amazon here.

Cake pops are easy to make but are time consuming and require patience. We have found it easier to make the cake (or brownies in this post!) a few days before we decorate. So pick your favorite flavor of cake (we have used chocolate, red velvet, and brownie mix). Bake it like normal and let it cool. Then crumble it up with a fork. Add 3/4 can of your favorite icing (chocolate and white both work well). Stir the cake crumbles and icing together until it makes a malleable mixture - not too sticky but not too crumbly. Just right! Once you have this mixture use your hands to roll them into balls about 1 inch in diameter. Store these in a container in the refrigerator (not freezer or they will crack) until using them. It is important to keep them chilled until making them or your may lose them off the stick! (Oops! Forgot to take pictures of that part.)

When you are ready to continue the process you will need to make sure that you have chocolate candy coating. They sell this in your local craft store in various colors. We have used dye to color the white chocolate but it changed the consistency of the chocolate and made it harder to use. I highly recommend using the colored chocolate. You will also need to have all the decoration supplies you may want, like colored sugar or sprinkles and colored gel to draw on them. Here are our supplies all ready to go:

Now it is time to heat the chocolate. Chocolate is very easy to burn (see my fudge post for melting tips) so we used a double boiler and this worked great! If you don't have one melt carefully in the microwave. Take one lollipop stick and dip it into the chocolate just a little bit. This helps it grip the pop.

Then stick it into the cake pop almost all the way through so it is on there firmly.

Next roll the pop in the chocolate. Use spoons/spatulas to help cover it completely. You may want to shake it lightly upside down to get rid of excess chocolate.

The hardest part of cake pops is storage. Styrofoam works really well in holding the pops but it can be a little hard to travel with. This is the option we chose to dry ours. This is also a good place to decorate them. We decided to use white M&M's as a Santa hat topper and used white gel to pipe a fuzzy part of the Santa hat. Instant holiday treats!

We also decided to just make some cake balls using white chocolate and holiday sprinkles. They are harder to photograph but still delicious and festive!

As this was a present for a friend, we decided to dress it up a little for delivery. So we used a jar, holiday M&M's as filler, and a pretty bow to finish it! I think this may be the best batch ever!