Cake Pops How-To

Recently, I was asked to make cake pops for a child's 6th birthday. Never having made cake pops before, I took on the request though I didn't make any promises for success. The procedure is pretty straightforward but it's a finicky process. A finicky process that I'd like to share with you.

To make the cake pops you will need: cake and icing of your choice, sticks for the cake pops, candy melts and sprinkles/decorations to decorate as desired

1. The first thing you'll need to do is bake a cake. I used a basic chocolate cake, and chocolate icing for the cake pops. 

2. Once the cake is cooled, crumble it up into a large bowl, and add a few cups of icing (you may want more depending on how much cake you have - you'll be able to judge an appropriate amount), combining the two thoroughly until the mixture can be shaped into balls.

3. Once you've reached the desired consistency, shape the mixture into balls, and position them on a tray, cookie sheet, or other flat surface that will fit in a fridge or freezer. I used a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

4. Allow the balls to cool in the refrigerator overnight or in the freezer for a couple hours until they are chilled through and hard.

5. Melt the candy in a microwave-safe bowl or over a double boiler. Dip the sticks in the melted candy and then insert them into the chilled cake balls. Allow the sticks to sit for a couple seconds so that the candy hardens.

6. Coat the cake pops in the melted candy. At this point, you'll want to decorate them (if you're choosing to do so). I used candies to make eyes, faces, etc. You'll want to be careful here. The candy melts, while still wet, will run off the cake pops to some extent and your decorations could run off. However, the candy melts harden quickly, so waiting too long will make it impossible to attach the decorations to the pops.

7. Once the cake pops are dressed to your liking, allow the candy melts to harden completely, and enjoy. While the candy melts were hardening, I used a strainer so that any candy that dripped off had something to drip into, and the holes in the strainer were a good size to hold the pops apart from each other while they were drying.

The cake pops turned out alright. They were not nearly as pretty as I would have liked, however there is something of a learning curve when it comes to getting them to look nice. Until I've mastered the art of decorating them though, I'm just going to say they're supposed to be alien cake pops. And now, you know how to make them too!