party on, jane.: CAKE POPS!!!

Cake pops are super trendy right now and you've probably seen the cake pop pans you can buy to make the little balls. If, like me, you're too cheap to buy the pan, follow these steps to make your own at home! I'm going to tackle these and make zebra cake pops for Princess P's party. Big shout out to The Speckled Freckle blog in Australia, where I found these directions. Their link is:http://www.speckledfreckle.com.au/blog/?cat=5

Now... cake pops!!

Cake Pop Recipe

Sunday, April 3rd, 2011

I made some cake pops this weekend for my daughter’s birthday party. I thought I would share the recipe and tutorial that I followed to make them. Cake pops are perfect for kids parties and they are yummy! They were a hit with the kids and they gobbled them down faster then I could serve them.

Ingredients
Cake mix {and ingredients listed on box}
1/2 package of chocolate frosting
White Chocolate Candy Melts
Candy sticks ( available on Ebay!)
Styrofoam or Oasis
Gel Food Coloring {NOT liquid}
Shortening {large spoon full}

Follow the instructions on the packet and bake your cake. I used a BASCO Gluten Free chocolate cake mix as I had children with coeliac disease attending the party. Allow the cake to cool.

Put your cake mix in a large bowl.

Use Your hands to crumble the entire cake.

Add about 1/2 – 3/4 of the tub of Betty Crocker Chocolate Frosting. The frosting acts as a glue to hold the cake balls together.

Use your hands to mix the frosting into the cake until all the cake mix is moistened.

Your cake mix should be moist enough to shape into a large ball and keep it’s shape.

Your hand should now look like this! �

Roll your cake balls into 1 inch balls using the palms of your hands.

You should get 35-40 cake balls per batch.

Now we prepare the chocolate shell. Pour one entire package of white chocolate candy melts into a microwave safe bowl. Follow the melting instructions on the package. *Be sure not to burn the candy melts or they will taste super yucky*

Pull out your melted white chocolate and stir thoroughly with a spoon until COMPLETELY smooth. Once smooth, add a large spoon full of shortening {Crisco} to the white chocolate to thin out the consistency a bit. Stir thoroughly again. We don’t have this shortening in Australia so I used a small amount of Crisco vegetable oil. If I had had Copha in my fridge I would have tried that first, The vegetable oil worked though.

Take a cake pop and dip into the white chocolate about 1 inch.

And then place it into the center of your cake ball. This will act as a glue keeping your cake pop and stick attached.

Then place your cake pop in the Styrofoam to harden. Continue with the remaining cake pops.

Now you are ready to coat your cake pops in the delicious white chocolate. This is the most tricky step of the entire recipe. It took me some practice before I was good at evenly coating the chocolate on the pop.

The key is to place the pop in the chocolate at a sideways angle with one hand. Using the other hand, spoon the chocolate mixture all around the pop. Try to do this as quickly as possible before the chocolate begins to harden and get lumpy.

Once you have evenly coated the pop, gently tap the stick on the side of the bowl to get off any excess chocolate that would drip.

Now its time to make your cake pops look extra pretty. Use the remainder of your white chocolate for the drizzle. If you run out, make more following the steps above. Add the GEL food coloring of your choice until you receive your desired color. The liquid food coloring will immediately harden and ruin your chocolate.

Fill a Ziploc bag with your colored white chocolate. Cut a small hole in one corner of the Ziploc back so that you can drizzle the colored chocolate over your pops.