Bakerella's Cake Pops

So a few months ago, I stumble across a baking website, Bakerella.com. I think I followed a link from my Manic Mommies podcast. Anyway, she has these little desserts full of awesome cuteness that she calls cake pops! When I read the recipe, it sounded super simple. So simple, in fact, that I thought to myself, "how on earth did this lady make a whole website off of this? That's not hard or complicated, and doesn't take any skill!" Well, I suppose I am now about to eat my words, because these are a little harder to do than they look. :)

Well, the decorating part is. The recipe is still pretty simple. I will summarize it here, but you can go to her website to see how she makes cake balls and then how she turns them into cake pops.

1. Bake a cake and let it cool completely.
2. Get a can of frosting.
3. Crumble up the cake.
4. Mix in the frosting.
5. Roll mixture into millions of tiny balls. (I got about 6 dozen+)
6. Insert sticks.
7. Dip in Wilton's candy melts or almond bark or dipping chocolate.
8. Decorate however you'd like.

Simple, right? Well, here is how mine turned out.

I started with a Duncan Hines Devil's Food cake mix and Cream Cheese frosting.

Then, I crumbled up the cake.
Then mixed in the frosting.
I left some cake in the pan so we could all have a taste. This may become important later.....
Here is the mixture all balled up and ready to go into the fridge overnight. Her website says several hours, but it was getting late and I figured overnight couldn't hurt. Plus, I'd have more time the next day to do the dipping.

The next day......

Here is where it gets tricky. I think my first attempt at making the balls was not good. I made them too big. I also had trouble getting the sticks to STICK. They kept coming out of the mixture. My only guess as to why was in the amount of cake I used. I'm wondering if leaving that 2 inch wide piece of cake in the pan made the balls have too much frosting and not enough cake.

So I ended up cutting all the balls in half. I kept the sticks in one half, but then just dipped the remainder as cake balls, instead of turning them in to cake pops. I still had trouble with the sticks not sticking though.

Here is the dipping chocolate I used. On the left is Wilton's chocolate candy melts, in the middle is vanilla flavored almond bark, and on the right is chocolate flavored almond bark.

Wilton candy melt coated:
Vanilla almond bark coated:
Chocolate and almond bark coated:
(I had to get creative somehow!)

And lastly, the excess I removed from the sticks to form regular cake balls:
Here is Beta holding up her favorite: the Wilton chocolate coated ones.
How did they taste? Good! Incredibly rich, though. So I could only handle a few before my sweet tooth craving was more than satisfied. Today, the majority of them are residing at Jim's office's breakroom. Or at least they were this morning. :) I kept a few here for us. We all like them! Including J4 who had 2 last night and wanted more, but I put my mom foot down and decided he didn't need that much. :)

As for the decorating, go look at her site. Her Pop Stars page has TONS of cute pops! I guess these are professionals submitting these photos? I mean, mine looked fine for homemade, but the ones on her site (and that she does herself) are out of this world! How do they get the balls so round? How do they get the coating so smooth? How on earth do they decorate like that? Where do they find the time??? (these women must not have children.... or they are professionals and do this at work, I guess.)

Well, there you have it. My foray into the world of cake pops! I think I may stick with making cakes the regular way. It's easier and way less time consuming. But these were fun to try on a boring, hot, summer afternoon. Try some yourself!