The New Fad: Cake Pops

I freely admit that I launched on to the Cake Pop fad like no tomorrow, making them left and right.

Since most of our baking is gluten-free, I have a feeling that the mere fact that these little babies often tasted like ding dongs was a glorious reason for why they were made so often.

No joke, go out and buy on of Betty Crocker's Chocolate GF cake mixes, add a package of chocolate pudding (for moisture) and then use a chocolate fudge icing to mix... and bingo instant GF ding dong. 

An added bonus I discovered during Gabriel's birthday is that he loves these things.  The boy can't stand cake, even turns his nose up at cupcakes, but hand him a cake pop and he'll eat them till he is sick.  Even his brother and sister loved them (needless to say, his birthday party turned out to be a big hit with those three!).

Easy peasy instructions -- but they do take some time.

What you need:

• A cake mix of your choosing
• Tub of icing of your preference
• 1 bag of candy melts 
• Candy sticks
• Foam of some sort to hold cake pops while dry

Grab a cake mix and prepare as directed.  Let the cake cool and then crumble away (I admit this is my favorite part - the cake is soooo fluffy!).  Mix in 3/4 tub of your prefered icing and mix until it disappears.  Grab a bit and roll it into balls.  Place on a covered cookie sheet and stick in the freezer.  The colder you get these things the better they are at standing up to the candy coating step!  Generally I found 10 min in the freezer was good... or 30 min in the fridge.

While the cake balls are getting cold, melt the candies as the directions state.

Using a spoon, place the balls into the melted candy and cover, do your best to shake off excess candy.  If you are going to put them on sticks and truly have 'cake pops' - dip the stick in the candy melt before inserting into cake, and let dry by placing stick on foam.  Alternatively, you can just have 'cake balls' and bypass the stick part, just place them on the cookie tray to dry.

I got a little creative with these around Valentine's Day.  I found some candy mould trays and filled them with the cake mixture, then placed the trays into the freezer.  You can then pop the cake out of the mould and dip in candy coating, giving you little cake hearts, etc.  (I know I have pictures of these project somewhere... but alas they seem to be missing at the moment.)  

Have fun!