Cake Pops

Cake pops are all the rage these days and I first saw the recipe on the Pioneer Woman's site.  I made my first batch of cake pops as a favor at my friend's baby shower.  I found some adorable little celophane bags at WalMart that fit a single cake pop perfectly. I found my first go at cake pops to be a timely venture and they turned out well but I knew it could be better.

Once I started looking around I found that Bakerella seemed to be the original recipe-creator and there's a wonderfully helpful video by her on youtube.  I highly recommend checking out that video before doing cakepops. Then my friend got me the oh-so-fantastic Cake Pops book and I had to do it!  Bakerella has come up with so many adorable ways to turn  a cakepop into almost anything, it's really impressive.  If you fish around on her website you can find all sorts off adorable ideas!

Last August I made this adorable apple cake pop bouquet for my son's Meet the Teacher night at school and I am just getting around to blogging about it now as I prepare to make a batch for Meet the Teacher night tomorrow! Instead of buying a little candy for the leaf, I used leftover frosting and tinted it green.

Cake pops can be made in any assortment of cake/frosting combinations.  Our favorites are spice cake with cream cheese frosting, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, and yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  At first I thought it couldn't be right to use a boxed cake and a jar of frosting, but then I realized that if Bakerella and Pioneer Woman did it, I could too.  However, you should feel free to make cake and frosting from scratch if that floats your boat. 

A few cake pop tips I've learned:

1. Don't use the entire can of frosting, it's too gooey.
2. If doing pops, pour the melted candy melt into a glass to dip.  The deeper the chocolate the better!
3. Add 1-2 Tb. vegetable oil to your melted candy melt or almond bark, if the chocolate is thinner it will dip easier and will be a prettier end product.
4. Dip the pop stick in the chocolate before attaching the cake ball, it will stay in the ball better.
5. Have all the ingredients set out and be prepared and dip fast because the dipping chocolate will cool quickly.
6. Don't freeze the completed cake pops or they will get condensation on them as they thaw.

Basic Cake Pops
recipe slightly adapted from Bakerella

1 box cake mix, your flavor choice, mixed and baked according to directions
1 can frosting
1 package white or chocolate bark or candy melts
lollipop sticks
wax paper or styrofoam blocks

To make the apples you'll also need:
pretzel sticks, green icing, red candy melts

Once the cake is completely cool, use your hands to crumble the cake finely into a bowl.  Stir in 3/4 (or more) of the canned frosting and mix until your desired gooey-ness is reached. Roll the cake mixture into small balls, or use a small cookie scoop to scoop the dough, the recipe should yield 40-50 cake balls.   Chill the cake balls for several hours.  Heat bark or candy melts in the microwave according to directions.  Dip the tip of a lollipop stick into the melted chocolate and push the stick into the cake ball being careful not to push too far.  Then dip the cake ball into the melted chocolate.  Stick dipped cake pops into styrofoam blocks or a styrofoam egg carton or let it rest on a piece of wax paper until the chocolate is dry. Repeat until all the balls are dipped.  (To alter this recipe and make it less complicated, simply dip the cake balls without sticks and let dry on wax paper.)