cake pops

about a year ago, i was introduced to a new concept that i loved- cake pops! i learned about these when my best friend ash and i were attending the wilton cake decorating class at our local michaels (which, by the way, was great fun!) cake pops are awesome. the possibilities with cake pops are endless. so basically, a cake pop is a ball of crumbled cake, mixed with icing, dipped in candy melts. yes, they are super rich and super unhealthy. and yes, they are WAY cute.

from bakerella.com, the creator & founder of all things cake pops

cake pops have been quite the rage. all over the blog world, in pinterest, in stores, and i've even heard that there is a cake pop truck in some parts of the world.  my favorite coffee shop, starbucks even has them now.

three flavors! tiramsu, rockie road, and birthday cake

my personal favorite, the tiramisu with a big for-here cup of cappuccino. yum! and, at starbucks, each one is under 200 calories- a steal! :)

about a month ago, ash and i decided it was finally time for us to try our hands at cake pops. we had exchanged pictures of them, she even bought bakeralla's cake pop book, and we had talked about how fun it would be. a girl in our lifegroup was pregnant and we were planning the baby shower, so we thought it would be the perfect time to showcase our work. the theme of the shower was a safari/monkey theme, matching the bedding of the baby boy's room. after surfing the web and looking through the book, we decided to make 2 different cake pops- the lion & the monkey. we followed the directions from the book, and had everything ready. here's some pictures detailing our adventure in cake pops:

our workspace all ready for us! i baked the chocolate cake the day before, and early that morning, we mixed in the white icing and rolled out the balls, putting them in the freezer for a bit then moving them to the fridge. its hard to tell, but that is a big foam rectangle that we had pre-poked holes in for the sticks to fit in. also, we had all of our decorative elements pre-portioned out in cupcake liners- a tip we picked up from bakerella.

here we go! ash dipped the stick first into the melt, then quickly inserted it in the ball, then dipped the ball in our peanut butter flavored candy melt.

lions first, these are drying, waiting to be decorated by me

and here is the finished guy, drying off. here's the details- for the mane, we used reeses peanut butter chips. we attached them with some of the peanut butter candy melt for the eyes, we colored a blue dot with icing onto a large white sprinkle, which we also attached with the candy melt. the nose was a brown m&m cut in half, and then we drew on the mouth with icing.

ta-da!

the monkeys were much harder. we dipped them in plain chocolate flavored candy melt, then before they dried, as  soon as ash lifted them from the candy melt, i shoved in two giant peach colored sprinkles for ears and two reeses chips for eyes. them, once dry, we affixed an unmelted peanut butter candy melt as the nose (they were a little splotchy when we took them out of the bag and not totally smooth, so i took my thumb and rubbed them ever so gently until they looked right). to that, we added a brown rainbow chip, and drew on the mouth, and to the eyes, for pupils, a dark sprinkle. these didn't turn out quite as good, but we think it was because the balls were too cold when we dipped them (the chocolate kept cracking from where the balls expanded from the heat)

needless to say, they were a hit!

so there you go. they took a lot of time- about 6 hours just to dip & decorate, but they were such a hit at the party. i definitely couldn't have done it without ash. we have often dreamed and talked of opening our own bakery someday. mostly just dreamed. we make a great team, and its such an honor to have her as a best friend!