Cake Pop Wrecks Still Taste Delicious

I’ve been taking cake decorating classes for about six months and cake pops have always been my Achilles Heel.  I love looking at different cake pop designs.  Pintrest and Bakerella are two of my primary sources of inspirations. You can decorate cake pops in a million ways. Whether it is for a child’s birthday party or used as favors in a wedding, cake pops can fit into any celebration. Who wouldn’t like a tasty treat on a stick? Unfortunately, all of my cake pop attempts have been epic failures. I can’t keep them on the stick and when I try to dip them in chocolate, the pops never come out smooth.

I finally got the opportunity to learn a few tricks at a recent Wilton cake pops class.  While I learned a lot about what I was doing wrong, I’m still pretty far away from mastering the technique.  For the new bakers that have the patience to give cake pops a whirl, consider practicing on Rice Krispie treats before you move on to cake balls. Rice Krispie treats are dense and tend to hold up well in melted chocolate.

In theory, cake pops are not difficult to make. All you have to do is bake a cake according to instructions, crumble it and add some frosting so it sticks together. Roll the dough into balls and put them in the freezer to get cold, but not frozen.  Insert the lollipop sticks into the pops and dip them into the chocolate. Once they are dry, you can decorate them in a variety of ways.

After taking the cake pops class, my success rate dramatically improved. About 2/3rds of the cake pops actually stayed on the stick! Here is what I learned:

• Dip the lollipop stick into a little bit of chocolate to help “glue” the stick into the ball. The diameter of the lollipop sticks seem to make a difference, so consider looking for cookie sticks for your dipped treats. (I’ll let you know how that works for me the next time I make cake pops.)
• When you are tapping the excess chocolate off your pop don’t point the cake pop into the chocolate… You’ll likely tap the pop right off your stick. Instead hold the pop up in the air and use the handle of pop to tap off the excess chocolate.
•  It is really easy to make the dough too moist.  You only need a very small amount of frosting to get the dough to stick together. Start adding the frosting a tablespoon or two at a time.
• Sprinkles, melted chocolate, edible ink pens, jimmies and other candy can hide a lot of design flaws. Have fun decorating and experimenting. At the end of day, how could anything on a stick taste bad?

Have a good cake pops tip to share?  Let me know in the comments section your tricks.

Happy Baking!