Cake Pops

How to make cake pops!
Made famous by Bakerella and ubiquitous by Starbucks, cake pops are the latest trend in dessert culture.  Here I walk you through the steps to make your own cake pops at home!  Whether you use homemade or store-bought cakes and icing, you can still customize these adorable treats to your heart's content.  Decorate them for any occasion!  The process may be time consuming (be patient!) but the rewards are well worth the effort.

Just to make it a bit easier, I've provided links to everything I used in this recipe - or something similar!

Tools:

• Mixer
• Baking Pan
• Silpat or Parchment
• Cake Pop Sticks
• Cake Scoop
• Chocolate Melter (opt)
• Cake Pop Baker (opt)
• Cake Pop Stand or Styrofoam

Ingredients:

• Cake mix (or homemade)
• Frosting (or homemade)
• Candy melts - I prefer Merckens and am thrilled by the color selection you can get! 
• Colored Sprinkles
• Colored icing tubes
• Other neat stuff for decorating
  • Fun Shapes Sprinkles
  • Candy Eyeball

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Either make your favorite from-scratch recipe or follow the instructions on the box.
I chose strawberry. I thought pink would be cute. Next time I'm sticking with chocolate.

Once your cake is cooled - really cooled - crumble it up into a bowl.
Stir in your jar (or homemade) frosting, a little at a time. Once it reaches a nice consistency that will cling together when you roll it in a ball, you're there.

Stick it in the fridge.

Once it's nice and cool, you'll want to start rolling it into balls.

This is really baker's choice - how big, what shape and how to make them.

I don't have one of those little melon-baller gadgets, but I might get one for the next round - my hands seems incapable of rolling a sphere - they all come out like footballs. It took some work to make the beautiful spheres you see here.

Nonetheless! Roll your cake mash into ball-like pieces. Mine were about 1 ¹/₄" in diameter.

Next?

Stick em in the fridge.

These candy melts are super easy to use.

Following the instructions on the package, I put them in a bowl in the microwave, on 50% power for 1¹/₂ minutes.

Then I stirred them and zapped them again at 50% for 30 sec.

Repeat until nice and melty, then repeat once more for superior dipping quality.

I melted up some pink, yellow and white.

Get those cake balls outta the fridge!

Get your lollipop sticks ready, and dip them slightly in the melted candy before inserting them half-to-three-quarters way in to each cake ball.

This is where I would say "Stick it in the fridge!" but when I did so at this step, I think it worked against me. So don't. Or, try it without sticking them in the fridge at this point, and if it turns out to be a hot mess, then, well. . .. stick 'em in the fridge.

Dip your newly-sticked cake pops into the candy coating and rotate to ensure even coverage.

Stand the dipped pops into cake pop stand or styrofoam to let drip-dry.

Now it's time to get creative.
If you had any pops that didn't turn out so hot, practice on those.

I don't have any pictures of my decorating process, but I just used what I had in terms of glitter and confetti and such. The ducks' noses and wings were more melted candy coating, and the feet were little orange stars that came in the confetti mixture. The eyes were dotted on with the tube decorator icing.

The eggs were made by using the decorator icing and glitter/confetti.

So what should my next ones look like??

Trust me, these babies are not to be eaten on one's own. They are potent sugar-bombs!

Bring them into work or to the next party you have. Share them with your friends! Bet someone a dollar they can't eat a whole one in one bite!

Then go call your dentist.

Thanks to everyone who has found the source of this inspiration!  Since finding her blog, I've become a huge fan of Bakerella.  Rock on!