1) bake your cake, any box cake or cake recipe is fine. Let it completely cool. Make your icing, I make my own icing but you don't have to .. any type of icing that you like will do, and you don't need a lot of it either. Too much icing will cause your cake pop to turn into a MUSH pop and no one wants to eat MUSH!! Melt your chocolate! Here's what you'll need:
I use Ghirardelli chocolate b/c i'm a chocolate snob but you don't have to, nestle, almond bark, any chocolate that you like will work, you can also use milk chocolate, you just can't color it. I melt my chocolate in the microwave (watch it carefully, it burns easily) then I put it into my chocolate fondue pot to keep it warm (love that thing) it's also go the perfect depth for dipping! One 9 x 13 inch cake makes about 40-50 small cake pops, and 1 bag of chocolate will make 30 - 40 pops.
2) Make sure you're hands are clean b/c you'll have to dig in to this recipe. Break your cake into a large bowl and continue to break it until you have crumbs. I only crumbled about 3/4 of the sheet cake. I don't like using my hands to mix things but this is just almost impossible to do with a spoon, trust me I tried!!
3) Once you have your crumbles you add your icing .. THIS STEP WILL MAKE OR BREAK YOUR CAKE POPS ... If you do this correctly you'll have cake pops .. if you get too happy with the icing you'll have Mush Pops, if you don't add enough icing you'll just have a mess, lol! The purpose of the icing is to hold the cake crumbs together so that when you make your cake ball it won't fall apart and will cling to the stick when you dip it in the chocolate! Your cake is already moist (hopefully ;-)) so you only need a little icing to "glue" the cake crumbs together. I only used about 2 tablespoons of icing (cream cheese icing since i used red velvet cake) for mine and they came out perfect!
Mix the icing and cake crumbs until the icing and crumbs are completely mixed, no large icing blobs
4) Once you've got them mixed then your ready to press and mold your crumbs into small cake balls, I used 1.5 tablespoons to make mine and they were a good size. It's kind of like playing with play dough once you start pressing it should mold into a ball or any shape that you want, at this point you can use molds, cookie cutters or anything else to shape your pop.
5) After you make your ball it's time for the fun part ... dipping it in chocolate! But first you must secure the stick into the pop, so take your lollipop stick, dip it into your chocolate and then stick it into the cake ball. once you're done with all of your cake balls, stick them in the freezer for about 20 mins. this allows the chocolate and the cake to set and it also chills the cake so that when you dip it in the chocolate it will set faster and not drip and drool everywhere.
6) Once your pops are all set and chilled, just dip them in your melted chocolate, pull it out and let it drain for a moment, then stick it in a piece of styrofoam or just set them on wax paper if you don't care about having a perfect ball. If you are going to sprinkle the pops you must add the sprinkles immediately after dipping, before the chocolate cools and sets, otherwise they will bounce right off your pop!
7) And we're done! Put your pops in the refrigerator for around 10 - 20 minutes, just enough for the chocolate to set, then enjoy if you'd like you can wrap them in syran wrap with a bow or you can jsut get the lollipop packaging from Michael's or Wal-Mart, twist and finish with curly ribbon.
Happy Cake Pop Making! This is a fun thing to make own your own or with your kids! Play around with colors and sprinkles, Be creative and just have fun! Remember baking is easier than you think!
Gwendolyn JonesOwner, Heavenly Sweets Bakery
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