Cake Pops

So, I thought my birthday was over...

But, tonight my mom decided to do a second birthday! My brother came home for the weekend and it seemed like a good time to celebrate. So, on my actual birthday I was treated to Gigi cupcakes - yum! But, I may have made a comment along the lines of.. "Oh man, no chocolate?!" I'm a chocoholic, I admit. Today I came home to my mom breaking in her new Cake Pop pans. You know, the as seen on TV things? Well she made scrumptious chocolate cake pops for me. But, she left me the fun part - decorating them! I was really intrigued because I think they're the cutest thing, but I had never done them, so it was also a little intimidating. I think they turned out great in the end! So I thought I'd share my technique here. In case you were thinking of trying to make them sometime, I hope this inspires you to go for it!

I'm going to have to skip the baking steps of this one, since my mom did that part. 

Start with the pops, baked and cooled. (I thought they looked a little more like cake-acorns at this point - hehe). The kit came with skewers for the pops, which came in handy. I used Wilson brand chocolate disks and melted them in the microwave to coat the pops. Micheal's has a fab selection of chocolate colors and sprinkles. Once the chocolate is melted, dip the end of the skewer in the chocolate and then stab the cake pop with it. The chocolate helps keep the skewer in the cake pop when you decorate it. Let the chocolate set for a good ten minutes. 

Now its time to coat the pop! I found that using a spoon was a big help. First, submerge the pop into as much of the chocolate as you can. My bowl wasn't very deep, so I used the  spoon to help coat the bare spots. The chocolate makes the pops pretty heavy, and they almost can't support their own weight with all of the excess chocolate. Use the spoon to pick the pop up out of the chocolate, and then swirl the pop along the edge of the spoon to shave off the excess melted chocolate, and to smooth out the surface. 

For some of the pops, I found that keeping the pop still and moving the spoon around it worked much better. A couple of my pops fell off their sticks. No worries though - I quickly gobbled them up before anyone noticed :) Next, sprinkle the sprinkles on to the pop, or decorate with whatever else you'd like. I used nonpareils (my favorite!) on half and flat circular sprinkles on another half (my mom said these ones looked like disco balls - haha!). I also used two colors of chocolate, pink and brown. The drying process can be a little tedious. We found a Styrofoam ball in our basement that we cut in half and put in a bowl. It worked pretty well, but flat Styrofoam would have been much more efficient. Our solution was a little bit wobbly. Well, all in all the pops came out great! We found a cute little jar to display them in, but they didn't last long. They were eaten up quickly.

I felt pretty accomplished after doing this. Try this out sometime! The possibilities are endless. Next up, we want to make Tennis ball cake pops! I've also seen watermelon ones. If only I could eat as many sweets as I wanted.. I would make dessert every meal! 


-June