My Birthday / Mint Chocoalte Chip Cake Pops

Hello again! Did you miss me? I know it's been awhile but I've been busy.  I turned 30, for one thing, but that's irrelevant to this post, I guess.  I got a bunch of cake pop supplies for my birthday - thanks to all who funded this hobby! :-)

I also received two rather generous gifts which I couldn't be happier with. First, my brother, sister and their spouses all chipped in to buy me the below KitchenAid Standing Mixer! They asked me to pick the color so I went with the Dark Blue, since it was the most unusual of the choices.  I know I don't need to say this, but I do love it so. It works perfectly and I use it for more than just mixing cakes!

The second item was from my brother and sister-in-law, and it was this unique Cake Pop Stand! It assembles rather easily and collapses and is very portable. I love it!

Anyway, back to the cake pops. My friend Kerri has been badgering me at work ever since I started doing cake pops to do Mint Chocolate.  Now, I personally, have a love/hate relationship with Mint Chocolate anything -- It triggers my heartburn really badly.  But these turned out really nice!  Yes, I did taste one. Just one... and they kind of came out tasting like Mint Oreo's.  And who doesn't love an Oreo?

So how did I get the mint flavor?  Simple, I started with Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix, the kind my mom used to make.  Have you ever heard of Duncan Hines Frosting Creations?  I haven't actually made the frosting yet, but I purchased a packet of the Mint flavoring and added that to the cake batter. This added a slight flavor of mint to the chocolate cake.  Turns out this step wasn't that necessary as the mint in the Mint Chocolate candy coating provides all the mintiness you will need.  But it's an easy way to add flavor to cake batter, so try it out.

The next step was to roll the cake balls.  FYI, I have started rolling the balls and letting them chill in the fridge for a full 24 hours.  This makes them so much easier to work with and guarantees they won't fall off the stick when dipping them in the candy coating later.

I have never worked with Dark Mint candy coating before but these wafers were extremely easy to work with.  Perfect consistency -- not too gloppy and not too runny.  I sprinkled the top with some green and white nonpareils and some mini chocolate chips.  Overall these are delicious and anyone who loves Mint Oreo is going to love these!  Enjoy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake Pops

I've been wanting do these for a while now. I do have an internal list in my mind of recipes I want to do and with recent business in my life I just never had the time to do them... until now! I love Chocolate Peanut Butter anything: ice cream, candy, brownies, cookies, desserts, water ice, anything. And I new making these would be very easy!  Chocoalte + Peanut Butter = Deliciousness.

This was my first time working with Make N Mold Peanut Butter Melts. 

They were very easy to work with (very thin consistency) and tasted like real peanut butter!  If you are going to try this recipe I definitely recommend buying yourself two bags.  I only bought one bag and just got by with one bag for coating all the cake balls.  I just spelled recommend incorrectly - I always want to add 2 c's.  Always.

I used chocolate cake mix with chocolate frosting.  Peanut butter candy melts and a Reese's Pieces candy on top.

Then a drizzle of dark chocolate around the sides.  The only reason I added the drizzle was to try to hide the fact that they do look like Boobs.

The results were very good.  The only thing I might try in the future is trying Chocolate cake mix crumbled with actual Peanut Butter instead of chocolate frosting.  The peanut butter candy coating does add Peanut butter flavor, but I just wish there were more.

So that's that!  I've been getting a lot of requests for Mint Chocolate Chip cake pops at work so I think I just might have to do those next.  Reluctantly... ... I hate mint.

Flag Cake Pops

Memorial Day/Independence Day/Labor Day brings back memories of my Mom making Flag Cake. To put a twist on a classic, how could I pass up the opportunity to create Flag Cake Pops?  The actual cake pops are made with classic Birthday cake on the inside. They were fun to make and they look stunning!  Happy 4th of July, everyone!

Orange Cake Pops

These were outrageously fun and easy to make!  Take a box of Duncan Hines Orange Supreme cake mix and mix it up with packet of Orange JELL-O.  Follow the instructions as normal and roll them into orange-y cake balls :-)

I made half the batch into Orange Cream pops (with vanilla coating) and half into Dark Chocolate Orange pops (with chocolate coating).

The Orange Cream ones really taste like an Orange Popsicle and the Chocolate Orange ones really taste like one of those chocolate orange candies you get at Christmas!

LOVED making these and they were delish!  :-)

Golden Oreo Crunch Cake Pops

Hi! My friend Amy is visiting my work tomorrow and as a surprise, I made her these Golden Oreo Cake Pops.  These are simple Birthday cake pops, with yellow candy coating, and crushed up Golden Oreos.  Now, I originally wanted to just stick a Mini Golden Oreo on top with some white candy coating drizzle vertically on the cake pop.  However, I could not find Mini Golden Oreos..... I think they are a tough find.

I love the way these turned out - they taste delicious and they kind of turned out looking like buttered popcorn balls, LOL!

Strawberry Cake Pops

A co-worker is celebrating his birthday on Monday, and since I normally do cake pops for work on Monday's (to make Monday's slightly more bearable), I thought I'd ask him to pick a flavor.  He said he liked strawberry shortcake and to try that.  Though these cake pops aren't technically strawberry shortcake, they were very easy and fun to make.  I used Duncan Hines strawberry cake mix for this recipe.  Happy birthday, Mike!

Happy Birthday, Tom Ho!

My friend Tom Ho (his last name is Horulko so we call him Tom Ho) is celebrating his birthday today and so for his party I am bringing simple Birthday cake pops. He works at ACME so I decided to use ACME colors (orange and dark blue) for the candy coating and just some miscellaneous sprinkles I found in my collection.

Happy birthday, Tom Ho!

Coffee Cake Pops

Happy Mother's Day everyone! I have been wanting to do this recipe for a while now and it was very simple! For this recipe, you will need:

• 1 box Betty Crocker French Vanilla cake mix
• 1 packet Starbucks Via Instant Coffee (either Colombian roast or Italian Roast)
• 1 Hershey Bar or a handful of Hershey's Kisses
• (or) 1 Packet of Hot Cocoa Mix
  
  
  

Prepare the cake batter as instructed. The box will tell you to use 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, but I only use 2 tbsp. Mix the Starbucks Via with a 1/2 cup of Warm water until it dissolves. Add it to the cake batter.  Add the additional 1/2 cup of cold regular water (the batter needs 1 full cup). The batter will turn brown and smell like real coffee :-)

Bake the cake as instructed and construct your cake pops as usual.  I coated my cake balls with regular white candy coating. However, I heard somewhere you can mix a shot glass of Coffee Liquor to the candy coating as well.  I didn't try it with this batch as the cake balls give plenty of coffee flavor without any additional help from the candy coating.

You can sprinkle your cake pops with whatever you'd like.  I chose to use chocolate shavings from a Hershey bar.  Another cool choice would be a sprinkling of Hot Cocoa Mix powder.

These cake pops really have a distinct coffee flavor and were really yummy!

(I was a little lazy and didn't feel like re-displaying the cake pops on my cake pop stand so here they are, ready to go in a Tupperware).

Margarita Cake Pops

Hello again! I know it's been about a month here on my cake pop blog. I'll be honest -- I kinda hit a slump as far as new ideas are concerned.  I think that's what all great artists do... take a break every now and then and come back with a whole bunch of ideas.

For Cinco de Mayo, I wanted to put a twist on my previously successful batch of Lime Cake Pops. 

I basically copied the same recipe as before, but used 1/4 cup of Lime juice, 1/4 cup of Tequila and 1/2 cup of water when it came to making the batter.

I then moulded the cake balls into Lemons and Limes, dunking them in Yellow and Green candy coating.  Sprinkled on top is a 1:4 mixture of Kosher salt and Sugar, to give a little salty kick (as this is how you should take a Tequila shot.

I think the results came out great! Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Happy Easter!

Hello again! Today I decided to do some cake pops straight outta the book by Bakerella for Easter -- Chickies and Eggs! 

I was excited for these!  I have to say, though, these took me about 5 hours to perfect.  Simple cake pops with just candy coating and sprinkles take about 2 hours to do.  But these Easter Chickies and Easter Eggs were very detailed and required many steps. 

On the inside of the pops is simple vanilla birthday cake.  They came out gorgeous!  Below are some pics of the cake balls (before they become pops) and the finished product.  You also get a glimpse of my secret weapon -- a miniature cookie dough scoop that helps me produce uniform cake balls.  I don't know what I'd do without it!

Happy Easter everyone!!!

Cherry Cordial Cake Pops

Oh hello again!  I took a short break from cake pops.  I made Funfetti Spring cupcakes last week for a girl at work who was leaving.  She told me she likes my cake pops but LOVES Funfetti cupcakes.  So for her last day, I made those instead.  Didn't take any pics since they were simple cupcakes, but they turned out awesome!

With just one week til Easter, I wanted to get one last recipe in before I do Easter cake pops.  I got the idea from Cherry Cordial Cake pops after the success of the Lime Cake Pops, I wanted to try something similar with Cherry JELL-O.

I used regular white cake mix mixed with 1 small box of Black Cherry JELL-O.  The cherry cake balls were coated with Dark Chocolate candy coating.  The results were mixed... The cake didn't blow me away with the taste of cherry like the Lime cake pops did with lime flavor. 

French Vanilla Birthday Cake Pops

Hi! Katherine & William, my twin niece & nephew are celebrating their 2nd birthday this coming weekend.

For their birthday party, I made some of my classic Birthday Cake Pops.  But I added a bit of a twist.  I have seen Betty Crocker French Vanilla cake mix on the shelves the last few months of my cake-pop-making and have been tempted to test it out. 

So that's what I did for these cake pops.  I crumbed the French Vanilla cake along with a dollop of Cream Cheese frosting.  I further coated them in some multi-colored candy coating and topped with random nonpareils and confetti sprinkles.  They turned out tasty!  And the French Vanilla cake certainly is different!

Conversations with the Creator

When I first started to get into Cake Pops, I was so excited!  Frank bought me a book for Christmas written by Angie Dudley.  You must visit her website at Bakerella.com.

So anyway, I sent Angie the below email:

Hi!  My boyfriend got me your cake pop book for Christmas and I am super excited to get started!  I am a newbie in the cake pop world and have been wanting to try and get started for awhile now.  Not as a career -- just a hobby.
I have the basics to get started and am going to try two simple recipes this weekend.  Gonna try to make Birthday cake pops and Rocky Road pops too.
LOVE the book ... the pictures are great and the recipes/ideas are very well described.
A bit nervous to do the candy coating but we'll see.  Thanks!

Angie replied with:

Good luck. Don't be nervous.
They'll still taste great no matter what.
Bakerella

SWOON!!!!  I would love to meet her someday!

Lime Cake Pops

People at work keep requesting Mint cake pops and a couple of people specifically suggested Mint cake pops for St. Patrick's Day.  It seems Mint has a stigma attached to St. Patrick's Day due to the Shamrock Shake.  I, personally, don't like Mint very much because I think it triggers heartburn.

Anyway, I decided to shake things up this year and make Lime Cake Pops.  I have been making cake pops for about 2 months and these rank up there as one of my favorites!

There were two tricks to making these work.

Trick #1: Lime Jello Mix

Trick #2: Lemon Cake mix instead of Vanilla cake mix

Here's the breakdown:

• 1 box Betty Crocker Lemon cake mix
• 2 tbsp. Vegetable Oil (Disregard the 1/3 cup on the instructions)
• 3 Eggs
• 1 3oz packet of Lime Jello mix
• 5 tbsp. Lime Juice
• 1 cup water (Disregard the 1 1/3 cup on the instructions)
• About 10 drops Green food coloring
• Lemon frosting

Bake the cake in a 13x9 pan.  Bake per the instructions on the box.  Cool the cake.  Crumb your cake. I find that Betty Crocker cake mixes come out SUPER moist, so there might not be a need for any frosting in the mixture.  I wound up using about 1 tablespoon of frosting but I probably should have started out with only one teaspoon.  Any leftover frosting stays good in the fridge for about 1 month.

The batch yielded about 52 uniform cake balls.  I dipped them in Make N Mold light and dark green candy coating and sprinkled with seasonal Shamrock sprinkles.

These look marvelous and they really do taste like Lime!

Next Week: Cherry Cordial Cake Pops!