Oh I do love a good cake pop. They're oh so fattening, take ages (for me anyway!) to make but I still love them.
I've only ever made them once before, after travelling for 9 months, and when I was supposed to be looking for a job...
I loved how they tasted - so indulgent and moreish, but they were a bit of a faff.
Since then, I've been baking a lot more and so thought I'd give them another go. This time, I thoroughly enjoyed the few hours I spent in the kitchen - and the results were pretty good as well.
I used a variety of different recipes from the web, but just went for it on my own really - they turned out alright!
To start off, make a basic sponge cake - this can be one big cake or a few smaller ones - whatever you feel like - you'll be crumbling all this up in a bit anyway. And let it (or them) cool.
Make some butter icing. A lot of the recipes, mainly the ones from America, used "cream cheese frosting" but I looove butter icing so used this instead.
When your cake has cooled, crumble it all into a big bowl - you should have very soft crumbs. I cut off the edges of my cake as they were a bit tougher - but don't throw them out - they're still cake!
Mix in a bit of the icing - better to use too little at this point. Then comes the messy bit, get your hands in there and squish it all together. Add a bit more icing as you go - you should end up with a big ball of cake and icing that's firm but not sticky. Throw it in the fridge to harden up - anything from half an hour to half a day is fine.
When you're ready, you can start to make the cake pops. Break off small pieces of the dough and roll them into balls - small balls. This is where my greed caused a few mistakes. A big ball will be too heavy for the lollipop sticks and they'll just slide slowly down the stick. You'll have a delicious cake ball, but not a cake pop. I aimed to make them a bit smaller than a ping pong ball.
Whack them in the fridge again and while they're in there, melt some chocolate. I opted for my favourite - white chocolate. And to make it easier to work with, I added a few drops of vegetable oil into the mix - to add shine and so that the chocolate is a little looser when you're dipping the cakes. Don't worry - you won't taste it!
One more thing before the dipping begins - pop the lollipop sticks into the chocolate and push the chocolate covered end into the balls - not too deep but not too shallow. Too deep and the ball will slide down the stick after dipping. Too shallow, and you'll end up with cake pops stuck in your melted chocolate. There's no exact science I'm afraid, just a bit of common sense. Leave them for 5 minutes so that the chocolate has hardened - this will act as your glue.
Now comes the best or worst bit - you either end up with gorgeous cake pops or a big pile of cake and chocolate mess - I had a bit of both.
So, holding the sticks, dip the cake pops into the chocolate and carefully cover them all with chocolate. I used a spoon to drizzle as well, as I was terrified that too much weight would cause the ball to drop into the melted chocolate.
Carefully place your chocolate covered cake pop in a stand. Now, you can either buy one or make one. I'd just bought some furniture and so had some polystyrene in the house - perfect for sticking cake pops in. I've also seen people use egg boxes, so you could also give that a go.
Once you've dipped your cakes, sprinkle with any cake toppings you have. You could go all out at this point - some of the designs online are so impressive...
But after all my hard work of making sponge, making icing, making a dough, chilling and dipping - I threw some hundreds and thousands over them and ate them all. Yum!
They're super rich, but so good. I hope you enjoy!
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