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CAKE POPS-Worth the Effort?

Many magazine covers are decorated with cute cake pops smiling or glaring from their candy coating.  Since these were so popular, I tried making them to celebrate birthdays.

Luckily I did a test run before embarrassing my daughter with my un-artistic decorations.

CAKE BALL PREPARATION

Clear the top shelf of your freezer so you have enough room to place the finished cake pops standing up on your styrofoam.
Cut a piece of styrofoam that will fit this freezer shelf
Have glass bowl for melting candy in microwave.  Best to have a bowl with straight sides and small to medium size.  You need the candy deep enough to dip the cake balls into.
Place paper on your cookie sheet.  You can use parchment paper, wax paper, or aluminum foil.
Arrange your counter with large bowl for cake ball ‘batter”, lined cookie sheet, microwaveable bowl for candy melt, lollipop sticks, and styrofoam.

BASIC CAKE BALLS

The recipe is simple, but you spend a lot of time working in small batches  keeping the others in the freezer or refrigerator.  I used the freezer because I was so slow with my decorating that I was afraid they would become pliable if only refrigerated.

Bake a sheet cake from a cake mix.  I used a plain white cake mix without pudding or extras in the mix.

After cooling crumble the entire cake into small pieces.  A friend told me to use my food processor, but I liked this step of crumbling the cake so I continued to do it by hand.
Mix the crumbles with canned frosting.  I used white whipped frosting (Betty Crocker) and added 3/4 of the container to the cake.  Stir with a large spoon coating every piece of cake.   Shape into balls about the diameter of a quarter (25c piece American).  These balls are the heads for your decorated cake pops.

When you have the first ball shaped, eat it.  I thought it tasted like paste.  At this stage, I should have added more cake until I still had enough frosting to keep the mixture together, but had more taste.  I thought the candy coating would make enough of a difference, so I proceeded with the above recipe.  Big Mistake!

Place all the shaped balls on a cookie sheet lined with paper (parchment, wax, or foil).  Freeze for at least 15 minutes.

Melt your candy coating.  I had one bowl of white candy coating and one bowl of chocolate candy melt.  Only prepare one flavor at a time as you don’t want the second one hardening as you work with the first batch.

Prepare to put your cake balls on the end of a stick for presentation and eating like a lollipop.  You can use popsicle sticks, stirrers, or the lollipop sticks that you can buy at Michael’s.  Have ready a piece of styrofoam to secure the sticks.

Working in batches of 6 cake balls each, stick your lollipop stick into the candy about 1/2 inch.  Then stick that coated end of the lollipop stick halfway through your cake ball.  Gently dip the cake ball into the candy coating to cover the entire ball.  Let the excess drip off your ball, but don’t shake it as you will lose the ball off the stick.  Place the lollipop upright sticking the handle end into the styrofoam.

I found that the candy kept dripping down my stick, but it is easy to remove once it hardens.  After dipping 6 cake balls, place the entire styrofoam in the freezer, and start a second batch.

After all batches are in the freezer, clean off your counter and get ready to decorate.

DECORATION PREPARATION

Buttercream frosting
4 cake colorings
4 frosting bags with writing tip
or edible color markers
or chocolate and candy tubes for writing
marshmallows
drying rack
4 small bowls for coloring
spoons, toothpicks,
Lots of paper towels (some damp)

I decorated my cake pops with a birthday hat of marshmallow.  You can cut a large marshmallow into the shape of a hat pretty easily with scissors.  I had cake coloring in bowls and dipped the marshmallow hat to tint.  Let that dry on a drying rack well before frosting.

Next, I proceeded to paint my faces with eyes, nose, and smiling mouth.  I had a pack of Wilton FoodWriter edible color markers, but they did not work well.  I don’t know if I got a bad batch or what, but mine were so dry that I had to abandon them.  You can use the tubes of chocolate that have a small tip for writing by softening them in a cup of warm water before use.  I also had 4 bags of frosting ready with smallest tip.  I am no artist, and it shows on my rather strange looking cake ball faces, but I tried.  With practice you can do much better than I did.

After the faces were complete and in the freezer for at least 15 minutes, I started putting them together.  A dollop of frosting on top of the ‘head’ secured the tinted marshmallow hat.  Then I decorated the edge of the hat with a decorative tip and frosting.  This also helped secure the hat.  Final touch was a ball of frosting on top.

Back to the freezer.

I spent all day on this project and while they are creative and cute, I don’t think child guests at a birthday party will care.  It reminds me of Thanksgiving dinner (which I love), when you bake several days and eat it in half an hour!

TASTE

They still tasted pasty even with the candy coating and all that frosting.  It is just too much sweet in a compact bite or two.  I also wonder about kids running around with these sticks.  It’s easy for them to fall off the stirrers I used.

CONCLUSION

I will try to make them again with some adjustments, but I don’t think cake pops are worth the effort.

I prefer having my guests sit at a table, present a birthday cake with lighted candles, sing “Happy Birthday,” then cut and eat the cake with ice cream at the table using manners and talking among the guests.