First of all thank you to everyone who came out for our Open House today at the shop. We had a great day and really appreciate your support. After the last open house we published Mandy's husband's Pulled Pork recipe so this time we thought we would show you how we made our Cake pops for this open house!
You will need:
1 cake mix baked as the box directs you:
3/4 of a container of frosting:
(We chose Lemon flavor to go with our vanilla cake but you can pick as you like.) Wash your hands cause you are going to be playing with your food!
When your cake is completely cool you will break the cake apart in a large mixing bowl.
The best way is to rub it against itself as shown.
It falls apart in just the right size crumb for the most part. Make sure you don't have any cake looking bits left
Next mix in 3/4 of a tub of frosting.
Mix it with a spoon until it forms a dough:
Now roll it into balls about 1 1/2" in size.
It helps to re-wash your hands a few times as you make the balls-- they stay smoother that way. Lay them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night.
(You get between 40 and 50 per cake)
Now to prepare for the dippin'!
We used a piece of styrofoam (from Lowe's)
cut down to about 15" x 18".
Using a wooden skewer we poked holes about 3 finger widths apart forming a grid ( like the dreaded dot game!)
In the morning....leave your cake balls in the fridge while you prepare your work area and melt your candy. First get your topping out and ready, we used rainbow sprinkles in a small dish:
You will need about 3 lbs of candy melts or chocolate coating to cover your cake pops. Put the coating in a small deep bowl and melt as directed in the microwave on the package. We used chocolate and white chocolate almond bark together. Here it is starting to melt it is important to stop and stir it frequently while melting it happens quickly!
All the way melted and ready to use:
Take out a few cake pops at a time so they stay cold:
Take one lollipop stick and dip it about an inch into the melted coating and then stick it right in a cake ball, (it helps act like glue):
Then dip the ball into the coating
making sure it covers all the way to the stick!
Take it out slowly and let the excess drip off into the bowl.
As soon as it isn't drippy anymore give it a dunk in the sprinkles:
Wah-lah!
Stick it in one of your prepared spots on the styrofoam and allow it to harden.
Repeat for the whole batch!
Tips:
Every 10 dips I had to reheat the coating a quick blast in the microwave ( 15 secs) to keep it loose enough to dip into.
We also made a chocolate cake- for those cake balls we melted minty candy coating wafers and dunked them in crushed peppermint candy.
You could vary the cake flavor and/or the toppings!
Don't color your candy coating with regular food coloring- you have to use oil based/candy coloring or buy the candy coating already tinted. It is sold in the Wilton/Baking aisle at Hobby Lobby or at Joann's and in some grocery stores.
Have fun and enjoy!
