Heavenly Sweets Bakery Dessert Diary

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Let's Make Cake Pops

Cake Pops or Cake Bites are very popular! They are cake crumbs mixed with icing that are molded, put on a stick and dipped into chocolate. You can have a variety of flavors and if you dip in white chocolate you can color the chocolate any color you'd like! If made correctly these delicious treats are perfect for any occasion! I've been making a lot of them lately and it's so easy I wanted to share! So lets get right into to! Let's Make Some Cake Pops!

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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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The Art Of Baking Cupcakes

Ever wondered how to bake the perfect cupcake? Not too dry, perfectly raised, won't dip in the center when they cool and form a huge icing crater! If you've been at war with your cupcakes, I'm going to show you a simple way to bake and decorate the perfect cupcakes, this tutorial will also include a recipe for delicious cream cheese icing! Baking and decorating cupcakes is an art we all should have under our belts .... everyone loves cupcakes!

Let's talk about batter:
For cupcakes you want a nice light batter, you don't want a really dense cake batter, like pound cake. A simple strawberry, vanilla or butter cake recipe will do just fine. We're going to use a simple strawberry cake batter today!

Here's what we need to get started:

If you don't have a fancy mixer, that's fine, you can use a hand mixer or just mix them by hand

You'll also need some cupcake liners, they come in all sorts of colors and patterns, choose the liners

that match your event accessories/colors

Now That We Have the tools That We Need ...

Let's Bake Some Cupcakes!

I slowly add my wet ingredients (milk, eggs, oil) to my dry ingredients already in mixer (flour etc.)

Once the batter is mixed, we're ready to pour it into the cupcake liners. I use a piping bag to do this, but you can also do this using a large ziplock freezer bag, just cut a little bit off of one of the corners, this way you can control how much batter is placed into the liner, this is the key to getting a nice shape to your cupcake. Over filling will cause it to rise over the sides of the pan which is messy and causes it to lose it's shape, it also means you'll have to cook the cupcake longer which could cause it to be dry. (and nobody likes dry cupcakes :-) ) Here's what it should look like:

Once this is done, into the oven they go. I don't usually put my cakes/cupcakes on the bottom rack close to the heating element, causes them to bake to quickly and changes the texture.

Bake at 350 or whatever temp. your recipe recommends for about 12 -15 minutes

or until toothpick comes out clean.

THIS IS IMPORTANT! Do NOT allow your cupcakes to cool in the pan. The metal is still hot and will continue to cook the cake even though it's not in the oven! It's called carryover baking and it's the cause of a lot of dry over cooked desserts.

Once your cupcakes are done baking immediately remove them from the pan and place them on a heating rack to completely cool.

While they are cooling ... let's make some icing!!

Recipe for Cream Cheese Icing:

1 stick Butter

1 pack Cream Cheese

1 2 lb bag Powdered Sugar

1 TBSP milk

Step 1 Cream Your Butter and Cream Cheese until mixed

Then turn the mixer on low and slowly add your powdered sugar and milk, continue to mix and it should turn into a smooth delicious icing.

Now The Fun Part .. Let's Decorate!

For this we'll need a piping bag (again you can use a ziplock back), 2D tip, Sprinkles, and these cute little cupcake picks.

Starting at the edge of your cupcake, put pressure on the top of the bag to squeeze out the icing, guide the bag with your finger. Lift the bag, release pressure and reapply, squeezing from the top of the bag.

Repeat this process as you begin to move counter clockwise around the cupcake. Continue until you have covered the top of the cupcake.