Valentine's Day Cake Pops

 While baking three cakes this weekend for a client I found myself with an extra layer of my strawberry cake. I thought it would be such a waste to throw away this perfectly good and yummy cake. So, I decided to try my hand at making cake pops. Emily had tried them once before and she said hers had come out the like wet toilet paper balled up and dipped in something that resembled chocolate. (Although, I don't think they really came out THAT bad.) Needless to say, this kinda made me scared to try making them. She's sooo much better in the baking and decorating department than I am. But alas, I put on my big girl panties and just went with it. I was surprised they turned out so well. However...some of my pictures of the process did not. But hey I'm new at this so cut me a little slack.... just a smidge. 

Ingredients:

• Box cake any flavor already prepared (Or homemade. I'm kinda a homemade girl. But hey, they are your cake pops) 
• mixer
• tub of frosting any flavor
• lollipop sticks hmmm...I'd say about 40 of 'em
• melting chocolate any kind you like
• floral foam
• SPRINKLES!!! or not...they're totally optional

1. First,  break off a piece of your cake. Doesn't have to be huge, but you don't want to be small. Put said piece into a large mixing bowl and then switch on your mixer. You mixer should do all the hard work of crumbling your cake into little tiny itsy bitsy crumbs. Keep adding cake pieces until your entire cake is crumbtastic! You might want to finger through all your crumbs just make sure all the big pieces are gone.

2. Add your frosting about a big spoonful at time, mixing well with your mixer in between additions. Once you've add all your frosting your mixture should look something like this:

 

3. Got it? Great good. Now, start rolling your mix into balls. Any size you want. I made mine just a bit bigger than a gumball. Once you get all those rolled out pop them into the fridge for about TWO hours.

4. Okay. So your two hours are up. Grab some of your candy melts and melt them in the microwave in a small bowl. Now, pull out your cake balls and your lollipop sticks. You might want to only pull out a few cake balls at a time to work with. The firmer they are the easier they are to work with.

5. Dip your lollipop sticks into the the chocolate then press them gently into the cake balls. Continue to do this until all the cake balls have lollipop sticks. After all mine were done I placed them into the fridge again to let the melted chocolate firm up. You want the chocolate to be completely firm before dipping your cake pops.

6. So, now your cake balls are cake pops. But we aren't finished with this torture yet. Now, you are going to want to melt the remainder of your chocolate melts. In the mircowave or on stove top doesn't really matter. I did mine on the stove top, which contributed to crappy production of my photos. I also added a sliver of paraffin wax to my melted chocolate because I find it makes the chocolate smoother and easier to work with, but this is totally optional. 

7. YIKES!! Is this picture bad or what? I tried taking it a few times but the steam from by double boiler kept fogging up the lens. This was the best picture I could get of me dipping the cake pops into chocolate. Once you dip your pops let the excess chocolate run off before you dip them in the sprinkles or you'll have a gooey sprinkle mess. You also want to dip your pops into the sprinkles pretty soon after dipping in chocolate or it will harden and you won't be able to get those sprinkles to stick. Or you can always just drizzle white chocolate over them. YUM!!!

8. Add the finishing touches and you got your cake pops. Place your finished product to dry in the floral foam. I placed mine in the fridge for a little while, but you don't have too. I would wait at lease an hour before doing anything fancy with them.

This is a little bouquet I did for the apartment complex I work at. I think they turned out pretty well for my first try at cake pops. Hope you enjoyed the tutorial. If you have any questions just ask. Happy Valentine's Day!!

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