cake pops

Cake pops are the hottest fashion for serving your favorite cake. Between cupcakes, cake pops and whoopie pies; cake is sure taking the center stage on many websites, blogs, shops, and even TV shows! For my work Christmas party I wanted to contribute something fun and festive and of course have the opportunity to bake so I decided to make cake pops. Let me just tell you that that cake pop making experience may be my first and last! Those puppies are not easy to make. Luckily I did not try to cram it the steps into one day or even two. Please forgive the lack of pictures throughout the steps, I was too focused on trying to get the steps down that I gave up taking pictures after the first step.

Step 1: The first day I made 2 different types of cake red velvet (I thought the red would be fun for Christmas) and chocolate (cause lets face it, who doesn't like chocolate). I could have just made one and it would have been enough, but I learned from my mom and always make too much food for parties, so 2 cakes I had. After they cooled I stored them to use later for step 2.

Step 2: I crumbled each of the cakes into their own bowl using a fork. For the red velvet cake I mixed a jar of cream cheese frosting. (This made a really soft mixture and I would recommend using 2/3 -3/4 of the jar of frosting rather than the whole thing.) The frosting mixes in completely so eventually you don't see the frosting and it is about the consistency of cookie dough. For the chocolate cake I mixed in 2/3 jar of milk chocolate frosting. This yielded a much better consistency for step 3.

Step 3: Step 3 is done on the same day as step 2. You can use a spoon or a small ice cream or cookie dough scoop would be helpful to take a piece of the cake mixture and roll it into a ball (Mine where about the size of a ping pong ball but they could definitely be smaller.) Place on a lined cookie sheet or cake pan. Once the pan is full place in the refrigerator or freezer (I had read that the freezer makes them too hard but my fridge didn't get them cold enough to do step 4, so I had to put them in the freezer). Leave them chilled.

Step 4: This step can be done the day before you wish to serve them or even the day of. Using a double boiler, melt chocolate (I used colored chocolate from Micheal's Craft Store). Not until the chocolate is melted should you take the cake balls out of their chilled location. Place the cake ball on a stick to make it a cake pop or leave alone to have just a cake ball. Cover the ball or pop in the melted chocolate then if desired immediately sprinkle with some decorative sugar sprinkles, or candy, or whatever! I allowed mine to harder while stuck in a Styrofoam block; if you decided to have them cool while lying on wax paper you will have a flat side to your ball. Once they cooled and the chocolate hardened I gently layed them flat on a cookie sheet and covered in plastic wrap.

Step 5: This step should be done the day you plan to serve them. This step was the most fun part for me, it's all about the display! I decided to make a cake pop bouquet with mine. I placed Styrofoam into a Christmas-y container and then covered the foam with shredded paper and red tinsel-y strips. The cake pops where placed into the foam and stayed pretty well (that is until I had to put the arrangement into my car and drive to the party and it fell over : (, luckily not too much damage was done and they still tasted great! I have also seen people place the cake pops upside down or the cake balls themselves in cupcake wrappers. You can get creative with how you display your cake pops/balls and regardless of how they are displayed everyone will be excited to eat them!


Cake Pop Bouquet!



Here you can see the moist cake inside with the sprinkle covered white chocolate outside!