Disaster Averted.

This year for my birthday I received a gift from a friend that included cake pop making tools and cake pop recipes. I had never made cake pops before, they always seemed as if there were one of those "too good to be true" recipes, "deceptively hard" recipes, and besides Starbucks right up the road makes the best birthday cake pops and I could always run up there to get my fix when I needed it. Despite these odds I wanted to try to make them, I was in the mood to make something other than cupcakes. In the end I did end up being wrong, these little morsels of flavor are not THAT hard to make, just takes a little finesse, time and practice to result in a PERFECT creation. I stress that and perfect here, as in it will take a little patience and some trial and error but hopefully my tips I'll share below with you can help you skip a few of those missteps I encountered. Also to help cut back on the learning time and just dive in head first to a new recipe I decided to skip the part of making my own cake batter and went straight for the box mix, and store bought icing, semi-homemade is ok right? Plus I mentioned before that I love cake batter and I might have been needing a spoonful or two. No matter what happens with these cake pops, just remember that sometimes baking can take some practice, enjoy the process and be open to learning something new, after all, all the elements are sweet so you can always eat each little piece of disaster you might create. 

CHOCOLATE COVERED YELLOW CAKE POPS

CAKE

1 box yellow cake mix

1/2 cup + 2 tbs vanilla frosting

Follow the baking instructions on the box.

Bake cake 3/4 of the way. 

Most recipes I researched were calling for baking the cake for only 1/2 of the instructed baking time on the box. I found the cake to be too wet at this point and was most satisfied with 3/4 of the way. In actuality you could probably bake the cake fully, it's just that the cake balls will not compact as well and won't have a dense enough consistency.

Place the cake on a cooling rack and allow to partially cool.

After the cake has rested for about 5 minutes and is still relatively warm, using a knife trim off edges of cake and top and bottom of cake. 

You do not want any darker areas that are also more firm, you need only the moist, sponge like areas of the cake. Do not trim too much of cake though, only remove areas of discoloration and discard, or reuse/eat to your liking. WARNING: If you are doing this on cooling rack place a paper towel underneath to catch trimmings, as well since the cake is not fully baked and is still relatively warm the cake as a tendency to break apart easily and you want to be able to save as much as possible, plus have an easier clean up.

After you have trimmed the cake, in a large bowl crumble up the remaining cake into very fine crumbles, no large pieces. 

When the cake is crumbled properly it should resemble a consistency when graham crackers have been crumbled.

Next mix frosting in with cake crumbles. 

Dig in at this point. It's best you use your hands to squeeze together the cake and the frosting. 

Continue to mix with your hands until a dough forms.

Shape mixture into 1 1/2 inch balls and place them onto a baking sheet.

Freeze the cake balls for at least 2 hours. 

Most recipes I found again said to only freeze for 10 - 15 minutes, however I felt the cake balls had not firmed up enough yet and were still too easy to reshape and I worried how they might melt when covered in chocolate. 

CHOCOLATE COATING

1 12oz package of chocolate candy melts

24 cake cop sticks

1 large piece of flat styrofoam

Take the styrofoam and stick all 24 sticks spaced out evenly into it. Make sure that each stick is at least an inch apart so that while the cake pops are drying they do not touch each other.

Remove sticks and set aside to be used later for cooling purposes.

Using a double boiler (or in medium sauce pan filled 1/2 way with water, bring water to a boil and place glass bowl over top) place in candy melts and occasionally stir allowing candy to melt.

Once chocolate is melted, turn burner off and begin working with each cake ball individually.

If you leave the burner on the chocolate will stay too warm and will not hardened in an appropriate amount of time and will melt right off the cake ball.

After allowed to freeze, working with one cake ball at a time, place a stick into the center of each cake ball.

Once a stick has been placed dip in chocolate.

If you tilt the glass bowl up and allow the chocolate to accumulate in one area it will be easier to dip the cake ball. When you dip into chocolate start at top and roll towards bottom allowing a small amount of chocolate to get onto the stick, this will further help hold the cake ball in place and prevent from falling off stick. Continue this on each side of the cake ball, until it is full covered in chocolate. Dip quickly, as with each pass cake is rewarming and will expand and not stay on the stick very well.

Once covered in chocolate place the cake pop in the hole you created earlier with the stick in the styrofoam. 

If the chocolate is not drying fast enough and you can see chocolate melting off you can always place this entire piece of foam in the freezer and help with the cooling process.

Continue with each cake pop until all are fully covered with chocolate.

If you wish to add decoration to your cake pops, simply melt other colors of candy melts and drizzle on top of cake pops.

Allow cake pops to cool in fridge for 1 hour or 20 minutes in freezer and enjoy. 

Cake pops can be left at room temperature without melting or be kept in refrigerator.