Last week I had an order for cake pops, never mind that I had never made cake pops in my life. Of course I had seen it done, I have a whole book on them, and the concept seemed like common sense. How hard could it be?
Very.
Somehow, I came up with a finished product that I was proud of and tasted awesome. But, like many of my baking adventures lately, it was a journey of chaos.
Cake pops are a two-day project. No one has the sanity to play with cake balls for more than four hours, not even me.
Day one of Project Cake Pops was a breeze and a ton of fun. Bake a cake, any cake you want. Pick a frosting of any kind. (I confess that I used box mixes since this was my first time and I correctly projected there would already be enough stress.) Let the cake cool completely.
I watched The Office (baking orders has gotten me up to season seven now!) during the next part. You will need something to entertain you, as cake balls only provide so much excitement.
Ready for the fun part? Take a section of the cake, about one fourth, and crumble it into a bowl. Crumble it all up so there are no large pieces.
Once you've crumbled your whole cake, mix the crumbs with your frosting. My book says to use 3/4 of your frosting. I think I probably should have used more - my cake balls weren't very firm and several of them broke when I tried to coat them. I'd recommend using enough so that the mixture is firm and not too crumbly.
Next, take a cookie scoop and make little balls. One cake will yield 48 cake balls. 48!
If you're being smart and making this a 2-day project, keep your cake balls in the refrigerator overnight. If you're Superwoman and you're going for it in one day, place the balls in the freezer for about 15 minutes.
Project Cake Pops: Day Two
Recommendation: proceed with wine
This part could be fun if you know what you're doing, and if you're not very messy. I am neither of those things most of the time.
Melt almond bark as you would for making chocolate pretzels. I first tried using candy melts and the mixture was too thick. (First mini breakdown: driving to WalMart to get almond bark.) The thinner the candy coating the easier it is to coat your cake balls. Now, the "book" says to place your cake ball in the candy coating and cover it, pick it up with a spoon. It also says to dip it in with the stick in place. This all makes sense if your cake balls are set and firm. Mine were not.
One dozen crumbled cake balls later, my candy coating was speckled with cake and my kitchen was speckled with candy coating. Broken cake ball after broken cake ball is frustrating to say the least. I managed to get my head on straight and keep the balls in one spoon while using another spoon to coat them. That worked pretty well.
After they're covered, put any sprinkles you want on there and set them on wax paper. I put the sticks in after they dried and that worked out fine.
Obviously, I'm not too advanced yet in decorating cake pops, since I'm at entry level in assembling them. But they are intriguing and very popular. I'd like to get better with them since they'd probably make a great seller.
It will take a lot of wine to get over those broken cake balls, but I'm not ready to give up on them.
One day, I'll be whipping up cake pops like these!
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