Cake Pops. As a cake decorating enthusiast, I tend to pay attention to what's new and exciting the the cake, cupcake and cookie world. Cake Pops are the "in thing" these days and I finally gave in and made some today.
"What the heck is a cake pop?" you might ask. Well, you start off by baking a cake. Once that cake has cooled, you crumble it up into little pieces. This step alone goes against what I normally work for which is to keep my cake together so it looks nice and even when it's all decorated up. I didn't enjoy crumbling up my cake. Once you have a bowl full of crumbs, you add your icing and mix it all together with a wooden spoon til you have a bowl of cake mush. Then you take a bit of cake mush and roll it into a ball, or if you want to get creative, you can make it into a hamburger patty and use a cookie cutter to get a heart, star or whatever shape you'd like to work with. Once you have your cake ball or shape, place it on some wax or parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Then some say you should stick this in the fridge for a few hours but I put mine in the freezer just because it made more sense to me for some reason. They only need about 15 minutes in the freezer. While your cake shapes are getting nice and firm in the freezer, you need to melt your candy melts or chocolate coating. I melted my candy melts in the microwave in mugs so there was plenty of depth for when I was ready to dip my cake hearts. With your candy coating melted and your cake pops by your side, you need to take your lollipop sticks and dip the tip into the melted candy before inserting them into your cake balls or cake shapes. Then place them back on the cookie sheet til they're held firmly in place. If you've frozen your cake balls, this won't take long at all... just a couple minutes really. Now you're ready to dip your cake balls into the candy coating. Be sure to have some floral foam ready to stick your cake pops in so they can harden. One thing that many cake pop instuctors haven't mentioned is that candy melts are quite thick even when melted, so one lady (I can't remember who... probably Bakerella) suggested adding some vegetable oil to the candy melts which I did and it made quite a difference in the consistency of the melted candy. So... now that you know how what's in a cake pop and really, how to make them, here's a picture of my very first cake pops:
I didn't really like the looks of them so I added a little royal icing to try and make them prettier. 
Well, this is what I crossed off my list of "things to try" today. I know a lot of people love cake pops, and I might like them one day too. For now, I can take them or leave them. Maybe if they were covered in chocolate I'd like them better. The candy melts taste like cheap white chocolate and I don't like white chocolate. It's not chocolate. I don't know why "chocolate" is even in the name.
That's all for now! I'm looking forward to tomorrow's projects... they involve cupcakes and I like working with cupcakes :)
~Rachel
Oh yeah! For all my baking friends, if you haven't heard of Bakerella, she's the one who invented cake pops. At least that seems to be the argument that's going on on a few cake community boards. Here's the link http://www.bakerella.com/
I don't know if candy melts taste the same as white chocolate, but if they don't you CAN use the white chocolate melting wafers and dye the "chocolate" with gel food coloring. It's still white chocolate, but might taste better then the candy melts if it's better quality.
ReplyDeleteThough you may not like them, I think they look cute! You could dip them in milk chocolate and decorate with colored royal icing to suit your tastes!
I keep meaning to look for white chocolat wafers at the store when I'm there, but if they don't make it on the list, I forget to look. Really, even some things that make it on list get forgotten if they're written in a different color of ink. lol
ReplyDeleteThanks for thinking they're cute :) I think I was a little against them because I used white cake and regular buttercream so there's no chocolate involved at all. I did this because I was going to send them along with Elizabeth's snacks for playshool today as a treat to go with the oranges and strawberries but since I kept her home today, we now have a bunch of cake pops on the counter. lol