Cake Pops

Bake your 9×13 cake. When done, allow it to cool. Cut your cake into quarters or 2 halves. Crumble each part into a large bowl using your hands or a food processor. I like the ease of the food processor, your choice.

After the entire cake is crumbled, spoon in your buttercream or canned frosting. Usually for a 9X13 cake you will need 1/2-3/4ths of a can of frosting. If using your own buttercream, put in 2 tablespoons at a time until the mixture can pull together into a ball.

With your hands, roll out pieces of moistened dough into 1-inch balls. Make 40-45 balls. Set all the rolled balls on a baking sheet and place in the refrigerator.

In the meantime, have your lollipop sticks ready and a Styrofoam block or colander handy for your finished pops to be placed on.

Pour each of the candy melts into a separate microwave safe bowl. Follow the melting instructions on the packaging. Always use 50% power and do not to overcook the chocolate.

Once completely smooth and melted, pull out of the microwave. Add in 1 tablespoon of vegetable shortening each (1 tablespoon for an entire package). This helps with consistency, keeping it smoother, longer. Stir.

Take out a chilled batch of 5-6 cake balls out at once, you want them firm when dunking. Take a lollipop stick and dip one inch of the top into the candy mixture. Place the stick into the center of the cake ball. The chocolate will act as a glue to keep the cake on and stick together.

Keep the pop at an angle and tilt the bowl of chocolate. Roll it completely in the chocolate by rotating the hand that the cake pop is in, until entire ball is coated. Once coated, tap the wrist that’s holding the pop to get rid of excess coating. Make sure you catch all of the bald spots.

Once you’ve evenly coated the cake pop, have some coating trickle to the underside of the cake ball and cover the base.

Now you get to decorate! Do this swiftly, otherwise the coating hardens and sprinkles slip off. Stick the bottom of the stick into your colander or styrofoam block. Let the pops stand until chocolate is hardened. Repeat with the remaining pops.

If not served the same day, set pops in the fridge until 10 minutes before serving. In some warmer climates (like where I’m living), these might fall apart if left out for a stretch.

(Inspired by Bakerella.)