Cake Pops

I discovered cake pops several weeks ago and have been wanting to make my own ever since.  I'd heard of cake pops here and there and had seen a few pictures, but hadn't been sure of what they were until I discovered the Bakerella at http://www.bakerella.com/.  She just came out with a book called Cake Pops that I desperately want to add to my collection!  

These are cake pops.

A cake pop is cake and frosting mixed together and coated in chocolate on a stick.  You can pretty much use any kind of cake (from a box or homemade), frosting and chocolate.  I used a boxed chocolate cake, homemade cream cheese buttercream frosting and chocolate bark.  I made the cake and frosting one night and did the ball forming, dipping and decorating the next night. 

I love making frosting!

Cake wrapped in saran wrap and frosting ready to go for the next night.

Everything worked ok until I began melting the chocolate.  I originally was going to use white chocolate and tried to color it very unsuccessfully.  It was bad.  An epic failure actually.  I learned you have to use oil based food coloring when mixing with chocolate because the water most other food coloring does all sorts of bad things to chocolate.  It was grainy, started clumping up, and a horrible color. 

So bad. Embarrassing.  Please, don't judge.

The blue stuff got put into the garbage can and I started over with regular chocolate. 

That's better!

In the meantime, I had mixed my cake and frosting, formed it into a ball and stuck it into the freezer so it would be cool and hard when I dipped it into the chocolate.  Once the chocolate was melted, I dipped the lollipop sticks into the chocolate and then stuck them into the cake balls so the frosting would harden the stick would stay in better.

Cake balls with with sticks waiting to be covered in chocolate.

Covering the cake pops in chocolate was the hardest part!  My chocolate was a bit too thick to begin with and I ended up adding about 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil to thin it down a bit.  Dipping is not hard, just dip the cake pop straight down into the melted chocolate and pull out.  Tap the pop several times and let the excess chocolate drip off.  Once the chocolate is dripped off, stick the stick into styrofoam and let the chocolate harden.  At that point, you can decorate it with sprinkles or whatever you want.  I had the most trouble with the chocolate dripping off after I stuck the cake pop into the styrofoam, thankfully most of it dripped onto the styrofoam and not onto the sticks or other pops. 

If you don't have styrofoam, you can also set the cake pop on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper.

Overall, I was a little disappointed by the outcome of my cake pops.  Next time, I will add a little less frosting to the cake so the middle is not so gooey.  And I am going to try a different kind of chocolate.  But I am already ready to make another batch and try them again!

Because I am just learning myself, I don't feel like I can give a good recipe.  So, if you are interested in making cake pops here are a few links.
For a cake, icing and cake pop recipe go to: http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.fc77a0dbc44dd1611e3bf410b5900aa0/?vgnextoid=b9dccd66f1b09110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default
For info on Cake Pops and a video by Bakerella go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Cake-Pops-Tricks-Recipes-Irresistible/dp/0811876373/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283476787&sr=8-1
Also, http://www.bakerella.com/ has a ton of information!