What's Cooking: Cake Pops

Brad has been obsessed with Starbucks cake pops. They're like $1.50 a peice so I figured...why can't I make these. They look easy enough ... even for ME! So armed with my trusty Google search engine I found this fabulous step-by-step recipe for making Cake Pops!

The first day I did everything up to the cooling of the balls. (I'm sorry, but I giggle when I say/type that). The second day I stuck the balls and dipped them. Here is my journey captured in photos...

The ingredients

So here's what I started off with. Pretty cheap considering what I spend at Starbucks for a single cake pop. I figured at this point I could get at least 20-30 cake pops out of this.



the cake

  So I baked the cake according to the directions. I decided do to the white cake with sprinkles inside for Easter...thinking it would be fun for the cake pops. I'm not much of a cake person...let alone the box cake. But we were going for simplicity here - and box cake mixes are just that. SIMPLE.



cake crumbs

 Seems counter-intuitive...but the next step was to break down the cake you just baked in to tiny peices - or put it through a food processor. So I took my tiny food processor out and started breaking down the big cake in to chunks and processing the crap out of it. After it was all said & done it was crumbs with tiny flecks of color. So much for the confetti cake idea for Easter. Oh well...I push on...



cake crumbs + frosting = mooshy mess

 Here comes the fun part for all you folks who like to get your hands dirty - literally. You take your cake crumbles and add in 1/2 the container of frosting and mix it together. The recipe said to mix with your hands. Um. Really? Ick. So at first, I decided to use gloves. HA HA - found a solution where I don't actually have to get my hands dirty (I'm a freak, don't like getting my hands really dirty). So I put on some trusty gloves and went to it. Now for those few readers who don't know...I'm a pretty small/short person. 5'1" to be exact. My hands aren't exactly big...not even normal size. They're small. Carni hands as my husband puts it (no offense to those working in the carnival profession out there). So the gloves we have are too big. The fingers go about 3/4 of an inch past where my actual fingers end. So as I'm massaging this gooey mess together, my gloves are getting heavier and heavier because it's sticking to the finger tips of the gloves. Eventually one of my gloves literally slips off from the weight. UGHHHH. So I take the both off, wash my hands and sink them in to the mixture to finish off mixing and then creating the little balls. My mixture - before ball creation - didn't look as pretty and smooth as the cake pop recipe author's did. Maybe it was that she used chocolate and I used this weird confetti stuff...who knows...

The balls - pre-chill

I got about 30-something balls out of that mixture...about what I had originally hoped for. I chilled them over night in our garage fridge since it had the room. The next day after work I whipped out the chocolate and peanut butter chips to melt to dip these guys in. I started off with the chocolate. I didn't exactly follow the directions on the back of the bag to melt them. I tweaked it a little hoping to speed up the process. Um. Yeah. You know those commercials for that mousse stuff that they put in the little pudding cups? Well...my bowl ended up looking like a chocolate version of that - but as hard as cement. CRAP! So I moved on to the peanut butter chips...I totally followed the instructions on those...took my time and the chips melted perfect.

I started with my first pop - dipped the stick in first, then stuck the ball on the stick, then dipped the ball in the melted peanut butter. I sprinked some chocolate sprinkles on top. Opps. forgot something at Joanne Fabrics. I forgot the styrofoam to stick the pops in so they can dry standing up. Umm...fast thinking here. stick your hand in the freezer for a few minutes. Nothing. Blow on it. Nothing. Finally it hardened and I could put it down. SERIOUSLY? I have to do this for all 30-something pops? I thought I'd be there all night. I only ended up doing about 12 based on the melted peanut butter I had.



the cake pops!

 Bradley tried one...and L.O.V.E.D. IT! After all that was said and done...mission accomplished. I made my son happy. Definitely need to work on this recipe a few more times to refine my "technique." If you're looking for some true cake pop inspiration check out www.Bakerella.com. She actually has a book on cake pops...they are adorable perfection!