Cake Pops!

I've done it. I've finall done it.

I...made...cakepops!!!

Cake Pops were created by Bakerella and they are delicious! Basically they are cooked cake and frosting rolled into a ball (cake balls) and then put on a stick (cake pops)! People go crazy with them!  I am frequently daunted by the amount of creativity people people put into them.  Bakerella has make them into anything from a mini cheeseburger to Micky Mouse!

So I decided to take my own Valentines day advice and make cake pops for my one and only.  Since I was making these for valentines day I decided to make them in the shape of a heart with a cute cookie cutter I already had.  I had originally intended to make red velvet just as Bakerella did in her Red Velvet Cake Balls but apparently in my town red velvet boxed cake is not to be found....anywhere.  So I moved onto plan B and decided to fall back to our favorites: Pillsbury Funfetti cake mix and Betty Crocker Rainbow Chip frosting!  Traditionally Bakerella uses cream cheese frosting but I seriously cannot resist rainbow chip.  

These are the ingredients I started out with but do to unforeseen circumstances I did not end up using the white chocolate and red food coloring. *sigh*

 So I cooked the cake, cooled it, crumbled it and mixed the cake with the frosting just as instructed in: red velvet cake balls and but to make the cake pops themselves I looked at her blog for instruction. I also watched the video she posted on her amazon page for her book.  Its a good instructional video! Check it out at Cake Pops or click on the cake pops picture.

Once the cake mixture was ready I rolled the mixture into a giant ball flattened it out slightly on a cookie sheet and then cut out the shape I wanted with a cookie cutter. I used the heart shape for valentines but you could use any shape....maybe even a shamrock or an Easter egg?

Melt a small amount of the chocolate. I used semi-sweet chocolate to balance out the sweetness of the cake, but you can use any kind of candy melt.   Dip one end of the candy sticks into the melted chocolate about a 1/4 to a 1/2 of an inch and then place it into the shaped cake about half way.  Then pop the cake pops into the freezer until they are very firm and will hold their shape.  

While the cake pops are freezing melt the rest of the chocolate either in the microwave or in a double broiler.  Once melted dip the cake pops into the chocolate.  DO NOT stir the cake pop in the chocolate instead use a spoon or butter knife to help cover the pops with chocolate.  

 I found that to keep the shape of the heart I needed to form some the chocolate with a butter knife.  Otherwise the chocolate wanted to clump up at the top of the heart which made it look more like an oval. I would recommend putting the shapes onto a stick because shaping the chocolate without a stick was more work then it was worth.

Then Bakerella suggests that you set each cake pop stick into a brick of Styrofoam so they will stay upright.  I...um...forgot to buy one so I just put some in mugs or laid them down on some foil. I found in both cases the cake pops looked great! The photo below shows some of my different alternatives to styrofoam. 

Let the chocolate cool and Wa-La you have cake pops!

Once they all cool I put them all together and made a candy pop boquet! 

So you may be wondering what happened to the white chocolate and food coloring  that I have in the first picture.  Well I was going to drizzle the white chocolate on the cake pops and make them look more festive.  Then I thought if I add red food coloring to the white chocolate it will look even more amazing BUT for some reason when I added enough food coloring to the chocolate it change from super creamy to basically a solid! Weird! Next time I am buying the colored candy wafers!