Have you ever heard of cake pops? No? Here you go.
A guy from work and his wife are expecting (any day now, actually) their first little one, so we threw him a pretty embarrassing baby shower. We played all sorts of games that were actually kind of fun. This coming from the girl who stays away from those kinds of games mostly because I always lose...and I hate losing. He and his wife (who sadly couldn't come) did sneak away from the whole thing with a pile of baby clothes and goodies.
All of the ladies of the office signed up to facilitate a game, bring prizes or supply food and drink. I volunteered myself to make cupcakes (I knew there would be an extra batch for me to keep at home teehee). Instead of just making cupcakes, however, I got a little ambitious and tried my hand at cake pops.
In preparation, I went to JoAnn Fabrics to just get a few supplies. Turns out they have like five ailes entirely devoted to cake popping fun! I went a little crazy with the candy melts, sucker sticks, molds and sprinkles...but it was well worth it.
They were so easy to make and even easier to eat :) I decided to make my own frosting instead of buying a can/jar from the store. I stuck with a classic vanilla buttercream!
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened (but not melted!) Ideal texture should be like ice cream.
- 3-4 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar, SIFTED
- 1/4 teaspoon table salt
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- up to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream
Beat butter for a few minutes with a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed. Add 3 cups, 1 cup at a time, of powdered sugar. Turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the sugar doesn’t blow everywhere) until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter. After all 3 cups have been added, increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and 2 tablespoons of milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add remaining milk 1 tablespoons at a time.
I just used a classic white cake mix - follow the directions on the back of the box. *Next time I might try making my cake from scratch*
Directions:
- After the cake has cooled completely, cut it into four sections and crumble with your hands into a large bowl. Make sure there aren't any chunks of cake in the bowl.
- Add about 3/4 cup of the icing and mix into the crumbled cake with the back of a spoon. The mixture might take a few seconds to start forming together, so don't get antsy and add more icing - you don't want them to get too "soggy". You should be able to roll the cake/icing mixture into 1/2 inch balls with the palms of your hands.
- Place the balls on a cookie sheet or tray lined with wax paper (or whatever you have) and place in the freezer for about 15 minutes.
- Melt any color/type of candy melts that you have in the microwave at 30-second intervals, stirring after each turn, until melted.
- Dip/spoon the semi-frozen cake balls in the chocolate until coated. If you want to decorate them, now is the chance to do it. Sprinkle on the fun before the candy coating hardens and place back in the freezer for another 15 minutes. Cake balls are ready! They can be stored in a container in the fridge if you are not serving them right away.
If you want to make cake pops...
- Melt any color/type of candy melts that you have in the microwave at 30-second intervals, stirring after each turn, until melted.
- Dip the end of a sucker stick (found at JoAnn Fabrics) into the candy melt and then insert into the semi-frozen cake ball. This helps the stick to stay.
- Now you can either dunk the cake pop into the chocolate or drizzle it over the top. To help hold it's circular form, I stuck the cake pops in a block of styrofoam and then decorated!
- Place them back in the freezer for 15 minutes. Cake pops are ready! They can be stored on the styrofoam (make sure it fits) or in a container in the fridge if you are not serving them right away.
- Melt any color/type of candy melts that you have in the microwave at 30-second intervals, stirring after each turn, until melted.
- Get out your mold (TONS of options at JoAnn Fabrics) and fill them about 3/4 of the way up with the chocolate. Place a semi-frozen cake ball right on top and push down until the chocolate comes to the top of the mold.
- Once the tray is full, place in the freezer for 15 minutes, or until the chocolate is frozen. (The cake balls will stay connected)
- Melt another bag of candy melts (I used pink, since it was a girl baby shower!)
- Pop the cake poplettes (made that name up) out of the mold and quickly dip them in the newly melted chocolate. Only dip the cake part in, leaving the molded chocolate on the bottom exposed.
- Decorate them to death, then place back in the freezer for 15 minutes. Cake poplettes are ready! They can be stored in a container in the fridge if you are not serving them right away.
I can't wait until I come up with another excuse to make these bad boys.
No comments:
Post a Comment