I need to make a confession. While others rave about Starbucks and the quality coffee they serve, you won’t find me going through the Starbuck’s drive-thru unless I have a craving for one of their Cake Pops. As previously mentioned, I am somewhat of an icing “connoisseur”. I love icing and the more the better. I actually can’t believe it took so long for someone to come up with the idea of combining the icing and cake. A cake pop is literally win-win, everyone gets the equivalent of a “corner piece”. If made correctly, the cake pop is super moist and absolutely delicious, without an offensive amount of icing.  I have wanted to try making cake pops for a long time, but two things held me back:

1. Failure: I heard so many horror stories about how hard they were to make and how long it took to make a batch. I didn’t want to go to all the trouble only to have them fall apart and be a major fail. (Especially if I was making them for a special occasion).
2. Success: What if I make them and they turn out so well that I want to make them all the time? It is easy to resist what doesn’t exist. I rarely eat cake pops simply because they aren’t all that accessible. If I can make them successfully, I may be doomed!

I decided to give them a whirl for my daughter’s birthday party. My thinking was this. She was only having 4 girls over, so I only needed to make about one dozen cupcakes for the party. The recipe I made was large enough for 24 cupcakes. I basically made the entire batch into cupcakes and then made frosted only enough cupcakes for each of the 5 girls plus Tim, Shay and myself and few extras. I knew that 8 cake pops would be manageable and if they failed, it wouldn’t matter as they were just going to be added to the loot bags. I basically used the additional cupcakes to make the cake pops needed, so it wasn’t an overwhelming number for my first attempt.

How to Make Cake Pops:

I found a really great tutorial that was very helpful. Check out Divas Can Cook for the full tutorial.

My Experience:

• I used 7 cupcakes to make 8 cake pops, I would never have guessed that the amount of cake in a pop was close to equivalent to that of a cupcake.
• Crumble the cake with your hands, so that all of the larger lumps are out. You want fine crumbs.
• Use only a small amount of icing. I didn’t actually measure, but I am guessing I used no more than 2 to 3 Tablespoons of icing for all 8 cake pops.
• Form balls that are uniform in size.
• Dip the “stick” in melted chocolate and stick about half way in. Set the pop upside down on a plate with the stick in the air. Freeze for about 20 minutes (or longer).
• Dip the entire ball in melted chocolate. (I melted mine in my microwave.) You want to make sure that the container is deep and narrow so that the chocolate is deep enough to submerge the pop in.
• Remove the pop and gently turn the ball to avoid it from dripping all over. Basically, try to “catch” the dripping chocolate at the base of the ball.
• You can add sprinkles to the top or actually roll the ball in them.
• Stick into a styrofoam base that you have prepared ahead of time.

Summary:

I was literally able to make all 8 in about 20 minutes (plus the freezing time). They were super easy to make and I didn’t have any “do-overs”. They all worked fine on the first try. The chocolate outer shell held up well and they didn’t crack at all. The flavour was great and I’m certain I’ll be making these again!

Red Velvet cake broken into fine crumbs.

Rolled cake pop balls.

Dip the sticks in chocolate and then push them half way into the ball. Freeze.

Finished cake pops. I used white chocolate and white sprinkles.

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