With all the ideas from my Pinterest page to inspire me, I made my plan.
Here is part 1.
1. Figure out how to make, roll, dip and decorate cake pops.
At first glance cake pops seemed simple enough.
It’s just a tiny ball of rolled cake, dipped in something to coat it and then decorated.
Seriously, how much skill could this take? (Way too much sass!)
As I started to look for ideas on the internet, it quickly became apparent that it takes quite a lot of skill.
I read horror story after horror story, about how difficult they were to make.
There were so many potential pitfalls with each step along the way,
and what one person advised as a tip/trick, another said to avoid.
Come on, really?
What’s a gal to do?
Well, after considering my options (cry, run away, rage about the inequality of it all, open another bottle of wine…)
I decided to just make them and see how it went.
It wasn’t a total disaster but it wasn’t pretty either.
Most importantly though, I learned a lot!
After a few more attempts (over the course of several months), I finally got it!
It took the perfect cake and icing combination to achieve the right consistency and taste.
I used a Duncan Hines box mix and made it according the directions. I baked it in a 9X13 glass dish. I let it cool completely and then cut away any rough edges. I cut it up into 8 squares and then crumbled each square into the bowl of my stand up mixer. Once it was all crumbled I used the paddle attachment and mixed it for 2-3 minutes which further broke it down.
Time for the icing.
I made a homemade buttercream and added a little fine grain popcorn salt to balance the sweetness of the overall pop.
Be careful here, this is a potential pitfall that can ruin your cake pops.
The go to icing for cake pops is the pre-made stuff you can buy off the shelf at the market but buyer beware,
it’s too sweet and artificial tasting to be paired with the too sweet and artificial tasting candy coating you’ll be dipping them in.
You must balance the sweetness in the cake ball itself by taking the time to make a homemade icing,
you’ll be so glad you did (so will all those who will be eating them).
The second potential pitfall is not quite as easy to avoid.
It involves the amount of icing to use and the problem here is, each cake is different.
If your cake ends up being really moist you need very little icing, maybe a 1/4 cup for a 9X13 cake.
If your cake ends up dry, you may need 1/3 cup or a little more.
It’s a feel thing and it’s really hard to describe but you want the dough to hold it’s shape when you squeeze it.
You don’t want it looking wet or sticky and I promise it’ll get easier the more you make them.
My best advice is to start with 1/8 cup icing and mix well.
If you cannot compress the dough into a shape that holds, add another 1/8 cup and so on and so forth.
It took the perfect size of ball.
After trying three different size scoops and not being satisfied with the size of ball, I opted to pull out the kitchen scale.
I formed my perfect size ball to fit the 6″ lollipop stick and it weighed 25 grams.
I portioned out all the dough into 25-27 gram pieces and kept them covered so they didn’t dry out.
It took the right rolling technique.
Once the dough was portioned out, I rolled them into balls.
I found that cupping my hands and rolling the ball yielded the perfect shape.
You want a perfectly smooth outer surface because once dipped, any imperfection gets magnified by the candy coating.
You need to round it and smooth it but not compress it.
If the ball has been compressed too much (from the flat hand technique of rolling in your palms)
it will break though the candy coating causing cracking as it relaxes and expands.
If you see little cracks in the dough as you’re rolling, pinch the sides together and smooth it out.
I can’t stress enough how important this stage is to the final look of the cake pop.
It took a good couple hours of chilling the balls between steps.
Once the balls were rolled I covered them with plastic wrap and refrigerated them for 2 hours.
I melted some candy melts, dipped the sticks into it and then inserted the stick about halfway into the cake pops.
I wiped off the excess at the insertion point so there wasn’t a big glob of dried coating.
I covered them with plastic wrap and refrigerated them for 2 hours.
You could refrigerate overnight if you wanted to dip/decorate the following day.
It took a thin, but not too thin, candy coating that drips off without leaving thick ripples of coating on the cake pop.
I used Wilton candy melts, they were readily available in decent colors and after a lot of trial and error,
I was able to get it thin enough to work great.
Here’s how I did it.
I melted one bag of candy melts in the microwave at 50% power for 1 minute,
stirred (even though it may not even have looked melted yet)
and then did 30 second intervals at 50% power stirring well after each time.
When the candy melts were almost completely melted I added a couple teaspoons of melted paraffin wax and kept stirring.
You want a thin coating, so when you lift the spoon, it just easily runs off.
This is a feel thing too, again one of the pitfalls in making cake pops.
If it’s too thick it sucks the cake ball off the stick when you dip it and the excess doesn’t come off.
Candy melts are temperamental so you have to be really careful.
If they get overheated, by using the microwave at full power or for longer intervals, they will seize and there is no turning back.
You’ll need to do more stirring than microwaving, that’s the trick.
I put the melted candy coating into a crock pot on warm and dipped right out of there.
The dipping and decorating.
Once the candy melts were ready, I dipped the cake pop straight down into the candy coating right up to the stick
and then removed it straight up the way I went in.
Once out of the candy coating, I tipped the pop to it’s side and twirled the stick in my fingers to get the excess to drip off.
I then tipped the cake pop up and tapped the edge of the stick, closest to the cake ball,
on the edge of the crock pop to get any remaining candy coating off.
I admit this was a risk as most cake pop makers avoid any and all tapping
but I wanted a super smooth coating so I had to get the excess off.
If you take the time to anchor the stick,
use the right size cake ball
and tap very close to the cake ball you should be fine, just beware.
I decorated them immediately after dipping and dripping so the sprinkles… would adhere to the candy coating.
I dried them cake pop down/stick up on parchment and as the candy coating settled it created a nice little base that kept the cake pop stable.
Don’t you love it when things work out!
These bite sized treats nearly put me over the edge!
Seriously you have no idea, unless you have tried making them yourselves,
what an incredible challenge these delicious little balls of cake are.
Hey MasterCard, here’s a new idea for your next commercial:
One Duncan Hines Cake Mix: $2.00
One bag of Wilton Candy Melts: $2.47
One bag of 100 Wilton 6″ Lollipop Sticks: $3.99
One cake pop: PRICELESS!
Time to move on. I was so glad to have cake pops checked off my list of things to do!
Here’s the buttercream recipe I used for the cake pops!
Vanilla Bean Buttercream
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
12 ounces vegetable shortening
1/2 tsp popcorn salt
1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste
1-2 tablespoons milk
2 pounds sifted confectioners sugar
- In bowl of stand up mixer with paddle attachment, beat butter and shortening on medium speed until pale and fully combined.
- Add salt and vanilla, mix to incorporate.
- Add in confectioners sugar 1 cup at a time mixing well after each addition.
- Add enough milk to achieve desired consistency and then beat on high for 1 minute or until icing is fluffy.
Oh wow Kim…..I’m usually such a visual, hands on learner but your directions and descriptions were so great. They look lovely! Thank you!
Thanks! I had every intention to take pics every step of the way but that didn’t happen. Maybe next time!