Hello again…. Remember me?
Apparently the last time I posted in my blog was mid April and now it’s mid June…. I can’t believe it’s been that long. But don’t take my absence from the online blogging world to mean that I was just sitting around twiddling my thumbs. Well, okay … I did that too, but I’ve also been busy baking up a storm….
This weekend was actually the last order from a string of cakes that has not stopped since the beginning of the month. Yeah for keeping busy among sweets! The cakes I’ve worked on I’ll post soon enough, but for now let me share with you my second try at CAKE POPS! (I don’t know why, but it seems like there has to be an emphasis on the word “CAKE POPS” with an exclamation point – but it’s not like I’m going around screaming this at anyone)
Remember my last attempt at this cute treat? Think back – my March 14 blog. Think the yellow blobs of candy coating, surrounding the too moist balls of cake that slide off the sticks and made more of a mess than the few pictures I posted that actually survived to tell the tale? Yeah, those….. Well for some reason I actually forgot all this when my daughter’s dance teacher asked for baking volunteers to lend their services to the studios bake sale during their season end recital. She asked if instead of cupcakes, if I could come up with a basket that would be used for the raffle. You see where this is going, right???
So I baked two cakes: vanilla and chocolate.
And crumbled them down to crumbs.
This time around, I only added about half a container of icing to the crumbs and worked it in to the batches completely. The texture was still moist but much more easier to compact into firm little 2″ balls. They firmed up more in the fridge over night.
Melting down dark chocolate in one bowl and pink chocolate in another bowl via the microwave, I was ready to go to work with small groups of five balls of cake. This is the key – work in small batches, leaving the rest in the fridge until ready so that they don’t warm up and loose that firm shape needed when you slip the lollipop stick into place.
Chocolate cake balls were surrounded by pink coating and vanilla cake balls were surrounded by the dark chocolate. For extra measure, I switched colours for contrast as a topping.
And Voila!
As part of the presentation I wanted to display these in a decorated box, with cake spilling out of it. I then took the time to wrap each individual cake pop using clear lollipop wrappers (look in Michael’s or any bake store). Yes, I wrapped each one. Every. Single. One.
If you actually counted out each one by the pictures above, that would be 40 cake pops. 40 individually wrapped cake pops. Yes, a little labour intensive, but really well worth the effort when you look at the finish result.
And when I lingered around the raffle tables watching people slip pieces of paper into the decorated boxes next to their coveted prize, I could hear the soft murmur of “oohs” and “awes” at my basket. I have to admit it was flattering to watch people dropping off tickets for my cake pops. And when I glanced into the top of the raffle box – while trying to seem nonchalant about it – I grinned at how many pieces of paper were already inside. I stayed around long enough (lingering in the background of everyone else) to see the excited look of the winner of my efforts proudly claim her prize as her family looked hungrily on.
It’s moments like that,that make all of this so worth while…..
White Box Cupcakes 