Do you like cake? Silly question! Well, here's a blog entry all about CAKE!
#omnomnom
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| I made this cake for my mum's birthday. Jeanette - #whatababe |
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| picture quality - not da best... |
Yep - you read correctly, it's like cake and lollipops all rolled into one! (Literally...I rolled them myself!)
Cake Pops are excellent for all sorts of occasions. Birthdays, picnics, occasions where it's weird to have a cake, but awesome to have cake at the same time. You know the type - finger food occasions. Cupcake occasions. Cake Pops are like the baby cousin of cupcakes. The cute little cousin who looks kinda like the rest of the family but gets all the attention because of his cutie-patootie cheeks and wobbly little back knees.
HOW DO I MAKE TASTY CAKE POPS?
It's pretty simple, or pretty intricate, depending on what you want to achieve. Starting simple is a wise idea, but less fun than trying and failing and making your first cake-pops in a goopy fun mess!
WHAT DO I NEED?
- Cake (you can make it from scratch or get a packet mix - it doesn't matter)
- Icing sugar
- Cream cheese
- Melting chocolate or icing or Candy Melts
- Fun things for decoration
- Little sticks (I use lollipop sticks...not used ones...you can get them from
kitchen stores or Spotlight or sometimes the supermarket)
METHOD (and also madness)
1. Make a cake!
Simple really. Any cake you like. Cook that bad boy!
2. Mash up your cake
Excellent fun, mashing up a cake. Good therapy if you're feeling cranky. But mostly just fun...particularly if you're a generally destructive person...you know...that type that jumps on your brother's sandcastle just as he finishes it...)
3. Add some icing sugar and cream cheese to your mashed up cake.
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| Good focus, camera! |
Look, I'm sure there's some kind of ratio that I could tell you to stick to, but just pour some in till you can roll your mashy cake mixture into balls that stay ball-shaped. Pretty much you want to make your mashy cake mix feel like playdough
4. Put le mixture in le fridge for a while.
Half an hour...a day...however long you like, really.5. Make some sick shapes!
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| These ones are mushrooms (don't stick the stick in yet though...next step) |
Anything you like! Balls are good to start with if you're new. but you can make anything! Birdies, mushrooms, TARDISes! Use your imagination!
6. Put le shapes back in le fridge
You do this to make them firmer. Easier to mould. Easier to cover with
chocolate meltedness. The colder your balls, the quicker they will get hard
again. Wow...sorry...7. Cover your balls! (really...sorry...)
This is the potentially messy part. Using melting chocolate can be a little tricky, icing is easier, but there is less scope for decoration. Not sure about candy melts - never used them. I gather they are the easiest.Anyway - first, melt some of your chocolate and dip your stick into it. Pop your stick straight into the bottom of your cake shape. When you've done that to all of them, stick them back in the fridge again for a bit! Trust me - there's nothing worse than your cake pop falling down its stick while you're decorating it. Annoying! (well, usually it just means that you probably ruined that one cake pop and should probably just eat it right then and there...which is totally a shame...right?)
Once you've done that and you're satisfied that your cake pops wont fall down like a pair of oversized board shorts in the surf, start to cover them. I wish I could tell you the easiest method, but alas - I am still stumbling through this step myself. Most of the time, melting the chocolate in a little container or bowl and then just dipping your balls in will work fine. (wow...still sorry) If you feel you need to double dip, feel free! I recommend waiting till the chocolate has hardened completely though :-)
8. Decorate!!!
Here's the fun part! You can do whatever you like! Just use your
imagination! Dip your cake pops in some sprinkles for a simple and totally cute
decoration (for this one, don't wait till your chocolate has hardened!) You
could use some food dye and paint them if you like! Food dye sometimes doesn't
like chocolate covering though. It does that thing markers do on glass and goes
all separatey. Try mixing a little bit of icing sugar with your food dye. That
can help! I paint my cake pops with food crayons. You shave a bit off with a
knife, add some alcohol to make a paste (I've taken to using vanilla essence
because I don't make a habit of keeping vodka around the house. More fool me!
:-P ) You can paint faces, letters, numbers, entire animal bodies, anything you
like! Sometimes I also add some fondant shapes. Once I made an owl so I used
fondant for the wings and the beak. Anything is possible
And that's CAKEPOPS!!!
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| Hello Kitty Pop (same decoration!) |
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| Birdie Pop (covered with white chocolate and painted with crayon) |
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| Ewok Pop (same as the first two) |
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| Dalek, 10th Doctor and TARDIS (covered with fondant) |
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| This is not a cakepop. But it is fun. It's Batcake! (but mostly, look at the crayons behind it. That's what I used) |
Voila! :-) Also Viola!
