I finally overcame my fear of creating cake pops. Although these treats look to be easy - they're far from. Two valuable lessons I learned are patience and then more patience when you lose that first bit of patience. The entire process takes approximately 5 hours or more. It really depends on how creative you want to be.
I started off by making a cake recipe I know I am good at - that eliminates the unnecessary trial and error or messing up the first step in making cake pops. I've had a recipe for a few years now that always seems to be a hit around the holidays - Red Velvet Snowball Cake. I baked the cakes first and let them completely cool - as per the cake pop instructions I found on Etsy.
Usually, this cake yeilds 16 servings so you can imagine I had plenty to make about 50 cake pops. I also made the frosting that goes along with the Red Velvet Snowball Cake recipe. The cake & icing itself are actually pretty easy to do. I'll include that in another blog post. You can easily use a store bought cake mix and your choice of icing.
The challenge came when it was time to create the cake pops themselves. You need both cakes to be completely cooled. I allowed mine to cool for a few hours before attempting the next step. Once both cakes were completely cooled, I cut them into 8 sections so they were easier to crumble. Ah, the crumbling - a VERY important step. You have to make sure there are absolutely NO cake clumps in the bowl. I ran my hands through the completed cake crumbling for about 2 minutes, just to make sure. Eventually I reached a "sand-like" texture.
Next up is the frosting! You will need to slowly add in the icing because too much can make the cake balls overly moist. Keep in mind, you can always add but never subtract when baking. When in doubt - add slowly until you reach the right consistency. I started off by adding in 12 oz of frosting. Be sure to use a metal spoon, you're going to be putting a lot of elbow grease into this mixture. Once the mixture became a huge ball I flattened it out some and felt it needed a little more frosting. I'd say that I eyed about 6 more ounces of frosting. Maybe a little too much I thought, but in the end I am glad I did. Begin making the cake balls by taking a small handful of cake and roll it into about an inch size ball. In my opinion, it may be better to do them a bit smaller. I thought to myself "maybe if I make them a bit smaller, people won't get too full and it'll keep them wanting more". Again, this amount of cake should yield at a minimum; 50 cake balls.
Place the cake balls on a wax sheet and chill them in the fridge for a few hours. Yes, hours, chill them for at least 2 hours. You need them nice and firm in order for the lollipop stick to stay put.
After a few hours of chilling the cake balls you will need to begin by melting the chocolate or candy. I opted to try Ghirardelli white chocolate morsels and also two different colors of Wilton's melt-able candies. I found the Ghirardelli white chocolate to be difficult. As it melted, it stayed pretty thick, making it hard to "dip" the cake ball. It was more like I had to keep rolling it around. Wilton's definitely takes the gold in my opinion. Melt the candies according to the instructions on the bag. You'll need at least 3 inches deep of melted chocolate for easier dipping and full coating.
Take the lollipop stick and dip about 1/2 an inch into the melted candy and then insert it into the cake ball. Be careful not to insert it too far or else you may break apart the cake ball. From there, dip the cake ball into the melted chocolate. Let it hang for a few seconds over the chocolate or melted candy so the excess can drip off. If you're thinking about tapping the lollipop stick to drip it - STOP! Don't do that. You will risk the cake pop falling off the lollipop stick.
At this point there are two options when it comes to letting the melted candy or chocolate harden. Either place the lollipop stick upright into a sturdy styrofoam square or take a piece of wax paper and turn it upside down. I opted for the wax paper, myself. Either way is fine.
You can either have a plain colored cake pop or get as creative as you want. I chose to put colored sprinkles on mine. It came out looking pretty cute if it was for a birthday celebration. For the upside down harding method I used a base color and then drizzled the second color across them. To do this you will need a small size ziploc bag. Put a few spoon fulls of the other melted candy inside and squeeze it down to the corner of the bag. Take scissors and cut off a very small end of the corner (I stress VERY small). You can continue to pipe what ever design you like from there.
Happy Cake Popping to you!!
