Tuesday 7 June 2011

How to make cake pops....

Hiya! I'm back and ready to go! I have lots to post but lets start with a little tutorial on how to make cake pops:


These are the ones that actually worked!

You will need:
*A ready made sponge cake (or you can make one if you have time!)
*Lollipop sticks (I bought cheap lollies and hit the actual sweet off the sticks with a hammer!)
*A tub of ready made icing - I used Betty Crocker Vanilla frosting
*Decorations - hundreds and thousands, sugar glitter, silver balls etc
*Chocolate drops to cover the cake balls

And a bowl and spoon!
You will also need something to stand up your cake pops on whilst they are setting. The best thing to use is a block of polystyrene covered in cling film but I used a cardboard box and poked holes through it with a corkscrew (proper DIY!)

Get all your ingredients ready.....



Open up one packet of sponge cake and crumble it all up into a bowl. Add about half the tub of icing and mix together to make a dough. This makes about 15 cake pops. You can use the other cake and icing later if you have the patience!


Top tip - mash your cake into finer crumbs than this! You can use a blender but then you'll have more washing up to do....


Prepare your lolly sticks and something to stick them into so the chocolate coating can set....

Then roll the dough into small balls! Pretty easy so far....


It is a good idea to put them in the fridge for about 15 mins whilst you are preparing your coatings. This is a good time to wash up!


Get your toppings ready and melt the chocolate chips in a bowl. Dip the tip of the lolly stick into the chocolate and then push it into one of the cake balls.
* I didn't take a pic of this bit as I was somewhat occupied but there are lots of good videos on youtube that show you how to decorate cake pops  :)

In case you can't find any - here is a rough description of the method:
* When you have dipped the stick into the cake ball, leave it to set for a few seconds and do the same with all the other cake balls. This insures that the cake sticks to the lolly stick and want fall off so easily.
* Start with the first cake you prepared and dip it in the chocolate. DON'T TRY TO TURN IT AROUND IN THE CHOCOLATE!!! It will fall off. Trust me.
* Dip it in the chocolate and cover it fully (with a spoon if necessary) and pull it out again. Lean it against the side of the bowl and very GENTLY tap it to get the excess chocolate off.
* Hold it over a bigger bowl and sprinkle it with whatever decoration you are using.
* Push it carefully into your holder and move on to the next one.
* I recommend putting the whole stand into the fridge to make the chocolate harden....




As you can see, some of mine were a massive FAIL and fell off the sticks....cue angry Becky! I sort of got the hang of it though and some were quite good as you can see at the start of this post!

My top tips would be:
* Let the cake mixture set between stages and let the chocolate joining the cake ball to the lolly stick set properly before attempting to dip them.
* Make the effort to get polystyrene instead of a cardboard box!
* Get a big bowl for the chocolate and try to make the chocolate deep enough to fully submerse the cake ball.
* Don't get stressed out and shout at everyone. It's supposed to be fun!

Well, I hope you enjoyed that......here is a reminder that some of them worked and tasted as good as they looked:



P.s I don't know how many calories there are per cake pop and I don't care!

1 comment:

Michelle Morgan said...

I love them, Ingenious! May have a go myself. It would be a very good way to use up some cake that you werent going to eat, or has gone abit past its best too! Which is alsp much cheaper. :D
I hope that when you bashed the sweets off the hammer, you ate them afterwards! Would hate to think of them being wasted, but im sure you couldnt either.

Michelle

Check out my blog, at http://eco-centricity.blogspot.com/

www.eco-centricity.co.uk