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!