August 15, 2012

Cake Pops


A group of friends my husband and I have known for quite some time formed a Dinner Club about five years ago, and we all get together about once a month to share a potluck dinner. It's something everyone really enjoys, and it's a great way for friends to stay in touch and for our kids to play together. So how does it work, you ask? Each couple in the group takes turns hosting at their house, while the rest of the members are assigned a course (typically appie, starch, salad, dessert, and the host supplies the main), and each dinner party has a theme. The most recent theme was "On a Stick," and we were assigned dessert. My husband made chocolate-covered strawberries while I made cake pops, and I thought I'd share the results (the strawberries are pretty self-explanatory so this post is just for the cake pops)!


To make life easier, I used cake mix. Bake according to the instructions on the box.

Take the cake out of the pan and let it cool completely. You can even leave it overnight covered with a tea towel.
Start breaking up the cooled cake into fine crumbs. I broke off small sections of cake and used two forks to crumble each piece.

Once the entire cake is finely crumbled, add frosting to bind it together (again, I used store-bought). Use it sparingly and in small amounts. The texture of the crumbs should be moist but still a little bit crumbly.

Roll the cake crumbs into little balls and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment.

Melt your chocolate of choice and dip one end of a lollipop stick into the melted chocolate. Insert the chocolate-dipped end of the stick halfway into the cake balls. Place the tray into the freezer until the cake balls are firm but not frozen, about 30 minutes.

At this point, I would recommend leaving the tray of cake pops in the freezer and take each pop out one at a time to dip into the melted chocolate. I took the entire tray out and as I worked, they got too soft and I lost about seven cake balls as they fell apart into the chocolate, hence the lack of chocolate dipping photos :(

If you're using sprinkles like I did, decorate the pops while the chocolate is still wet, then stick them into a sheet of Styrofoam to dry and maintain their round shape. That's it!

8 comments:

  1. ooh! looks yummy! i need to try!

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  2. These look great, Marisa! And the Dinner Club party is such a great idea!!

    xo, alison*elle

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    1. Thanks, Alison! Dinner Club was definitely one of the best ideas, I recommend everyone to start one!

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  3. Oh my goodness, you're making my mouth watery! These looks delicious Marisa!

    KT
    www.KTrstyle.com

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  4. Your cake pops look adorable and they seem so easy to make! And the monthly dinner parties are such a wonderful idea - I must keep this in mind in the future when my friends and I have our own families!

    xo
    Jen

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    1. The cake pops were super easy to make and the dinner party is a great idea you can start with your friends now! No need to wait for your own families, we all did it before we had kids and continued with the tradition after they were born.

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