Patriotic Cake Pops Recipe

With all the ‘rage’ of cake pops lately, I’ve been meaning to make some myself. When I received a chocolate fondue pot to review, I knew this was the perfect time to try them.

After reading, and reading and reading some more about the best way to make them, I consolidated a bunch of recipes and reviews and went to town.

Of course…I had to change something…it’s like a curse or something with me. I can never just take a recipe and use it as is!

Patriotic Cake Pops

1. I began with a Vanilla Bean Cake Mix made in an 8x8x2 pan. I let it sit overnight, and then the next day had my daughter crumble it up into a big mixing bowl.

2. Then I added 4 tablespoons of Betty Crocker Cream Cheese frosting, to the cake crumbles and had my daughter mix it all up into a dough like consistency. I probably could have added one more tablespoon, while they were soft enough to roll into the balls, they did start having a few cracks on them once attaching them to the pops. Many of the recipes that I read add a lot more. This is one of the things that I read is a taste preference when it comes to cake pops. Some people find that adding a lot of icing makes them mushy – others find that if you don’t add enough, it takes away from the cake flavoring.

3. Put some candy melts in a microwave safe bowl, microwave at 50% power for 30 seconds. Stir, and then repeat. We dipped the lollipop sticks in the melted candy and then inserted them into the cake balls we made. This will help them stay on the stick. At this point we decided we didn’t want to coat our cake pops in the candy wafers because we didn’t care for the taste of them.4. Once we had all the cake balls attached to a lollipop stick, while the candy melt was setting up on the stick we took some Pillsbury Stars and Stripes Funfetti Icing and put just the icing (setting the sprinkles aside) in a microwave dish and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds at 50% power. Then we poured it into our chocolate fondue pot, which sits on top of a tea light, to keep the icing at a melted consistency.

**This is where my recipe seems to be different from most others that I’ve encountered. Most use either candy melts or chocolate to coat the cake pops. I had trouble working with both of those mediums trying to get them to not be too thick or to coat nicely and they didn’t play nice. The icing worked fabulously for us.5. Dip the cake pops into the melted icing – if you don’t have enough icing in the pot to cover the entire pop, just take a spoon and pour it on the parts that aren’t covered.6. Tap the cake pop on the edge of the pot a few times to get most of the excess icing off.7. Sprinkle the Funfetti sprinkles on the pop using your fingers or a spoon while twirling the pop around.8. Set up the cake pops on a surface that you don’t mind getting dirty with icing and sprinkles that might drip off. I used an old towel underneath a cooling rack and placed the pops inside the little grid squares. You can use floral foam, an upside egg carton, or Styrofoam as well.9. Party & Eat them all up!A couple of items to note:

1. A lot of the recipes I read said to chill or freeze the cake pops prior to dipping. Since I didn’t have room in my freezer or fridge to do this, I skipped that step. I was still able to dip them without having them fall off my sticks. Your results may vary though.

2. I really, really like using the icing better than the candy melts or chocolate. It sets up really fast and again, you don’t have to refrigerate of freeze them to get them to harden. I would suggest if you plan on doing it this way and want to have colored pops for occasions be on the lookout for the seasonal varieties that Pillsbury comes out with (green, orange etc.) – and of course you could use the food coloring gels with a white icing base to achieve colors as well.