The evolution of the cake pop!

"Life is unsure, always eat your dessert first" 

I love experimenting with new recipes and decorations.  So when my mother in law mentioned having a birthday party for my husband and his grandfather (they celebrated their birthdays within a week of each other) I knew I wanted to try something new.  I told the MIL I would make the dessert and began to try to come up with something creative that they would both like.  I knew they were both Chicago Cubs fans so I wanted to try to incorporate that somehow.  The Cubs theme combined with my husbands love for cake balls slowly evolved into the Cubs cake pops.  There was definitely some trial and error along the way (I threw out 3 lbs of chocolate!) but the end result was perfect!  The cake pops were delicious and such a difference from your typical cake or cupcakes for the birthday.  This post will be a little different as it will have pictures along the waybut I wanted you to be able to understand what they looked like.  If you are new to the cake ball/cake pop world you are probably wondering what I am talking about.  Imagine a moist cake rolled up and dipped in chocolate and made just the perfect size so that you can eat quite a few without feeling like you've ate a lot - almost sinful right?!?!?  They are definitely an addicting little addition to your baking collection. 

If you aren't sure how to make cake balls yet check out the post I did here (they are under German chocolate cake truffles).  My inspiration for the cake pops was a baseball theme modeled off the picture below.

sports cake pops

Birthday Boys

Cake Pops

Ingredients:

cake balls (see recipe above)

candy sticks

candy melts and/or chocolate

decorations

styrofoam

For these cake balls I started with 2 different cakes, funfetti and carrot cake. Both of the cakes worked perfectly although I wouldn't recommend using the sprinkles in the funfetti, when you mix in the frosting they melt into the cake and you end up with a colored cake batter rather than fun little sprinkles .  On a side note I'm definitely going to have to experiment more with the sprinkles as I think they would be so cute throughout the cake ball/pop.  For frosting I used cream cheese with both of the cakes and this really is my favorite flavor to use, it definitely enhances the chocolate coating.  To start make them like you would cake balls but stop before you put them in the freezer.  Make sure that the cake balls are rolled round and then pop in the freezer for a few hours.  Before taking them out of the freezer melt some chocolate (any kind or color at this point) in a double boiler and get your candy sticks ready.  Remove cake balls from the freezer and dip candy stick in chocolate and insert into the cake ball.  They will look like the picture below.  After you have completed them place them back into the freezer for a couple of hours until the chocolate and cake have both hardened back up.

place into freezer (carrot cake pops)

Before removing the pops to dip them make sure to reheat the chocolate or heat whichever color/flavor you would like.  On a side note here I threw out 3 lbs of chocolate because it kept seizing up when I added the food coloring.  I still haven't figured out the best way to color the chocolate as I tried 3 different types of food coloring (regular, icing food coloring, and candy food coloring) and they all caused it to seize.  I would suggest just buying the already colored candy melts (available at Michaels or other food specialty/craft stores).  Once your chocolate is melted remove a few pops at a time (so they don't all defrost) and gently swirl them in the chocolate.  After swirling tap on side of chocolate bowl a few times (gently so your cake doesn't fall off) and then place upright to dry.  

dry in styrofoam

I used a piece of Styrofoam to hold my pops upright while they dried.  Continue this until all pops are complete.  To decorate feel free to be creative. 

decorate!

You can use food decorating pens (this is how I made the baseballs), gell icing (I used this for the "C"s), crumbled chocolate (I allowed my seized chocolate to cool and then crumbled it to make the blue crumbles you see on the black ones), and sprinkles work well also.  

be creative!

Also feel free to be creative on how you display your pops for serving.  For mine I painted poster board to look like a baseball diamond and then hot-glued half of a Styrofoam ball to the top (to replicate a baseball) then I stuck all the cake pops in the Styrofoam and ta-da I was finished!

The Final Product!

I hope you enjoy these as much as we did.  They were great and so much fun.  I can't wait to try them out in other creative ways.  Below are some amazing photo's I've found of such cute and creative ways to make these.

Be inspired and Happy Cooking!
Court

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