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Sparkle (7)
This post is a follow up to the letter I wrote to Starbucks a few weeks ago. I finally managed to snag one of the Starbucks cake pops (they hide them behind the counter, BTW) and they were pretty good. I mean, they were fine. Whatever. It got me thinking: There's no reason that I can't recreate a little cake pop magic in my own home. It's not like cake pops are some complicated thing. It's cake on a pop. I attempted to make my own lovely little cake pop creations and they turned out awesome. It wasn't even that hard, either! While ordering a singular cake pop from Starbucks is arguably way less time consuming than making 50 of them from scratch, we should all know how to make cake pops on our own. You know, in case of an emergency. So....
Eat Your Heart Out Starbucks: It's a Cake Pop Tutorial
Materials (makes approximately 3 dozen cake pops):
- 1 box of white cake mix (and whatever ingredients you need to make the cake)
- 1 container of white frosting (I used whipped frosting, which is lighter, so I ended up using an entire XL container)
- 2 packages of candy melts (I used the pink ones from Michaels) They carry a variety of different colors, or you can buy the white ones and dye them to your liking. Only use gel food coloring to dye candy melts, as the liquid stuff won't work.
- 1 bag of lollipop sticks (also from Michaels)
- 2 tb of shortening
- sprinkles (optional)
- large foam ring (found in the "wreath making" section at Michaels)
You don't need to do anything special. Just follow the instructions on the back of the box. Let it cool off completely before you work with it.
Step 2: Crumble the cake and mix in the frosting.
You really don't need to overthink this part. I suggest adding about half a can of frosting and then going from there. I crumbled my cake before I put the frosting in because I'm anal like that, but you really don't have to. Keep adding more frosting to the mixture until it gets sticky enough to roll into a ball, but not so gooey that it won't hold its shape. I used a spatula to mix the cake and frosting together, but you can totally use your hands.
Step 3: Roll the cake/frosting mixture into balls.
Get out a cookie sheet lined with wax paper first. Next, take small portions of your cake/frosting mixture and use your hands to roll them into small balls and place them on the cookie sheet. The balls should be the size of a large gum ball. If you make them too big, they will fall off the stick during the candy coating process. Also, their circumference grows when you coat them with the candy, so start out making them smaller than you want your end product to be.
Step 4: Insert the lollipop sticks.
This is what makes the cake a pop! Prepare your candy melts using the directions on the back of the package. I used the microwave directions and melted the candies in a small round tupperware container. Follow the directions carefully, as you do not want to burn the candy. Ew. The consistency of the candy melts should be similar to that of honey. Dip one end of the lollipop stick into the melted candies and then insert the same end directly into the cake ball. After all the cake balls have lollipop sticks in them, put the cookie sheet in the fridge or freezer to set. This keeps the cake ball from falling off the stick during the coating process.
Step 5: Cover the cake pops with the candy coating.
