Cake Pops

I have heard of them, read about them, seen them but never tried any. Cake Pops. I was first super-happy about making them but the longer I was making them the weirder it felt. I made cupcakes instead of cake because I thought it would take less time to bake, although really it didn't. Then came the weird bit, uncasing all the cupcakes, crumbling them all up, making frosting (which was sane), and then mixing it all up into this mass of cake and frosting. When I finished that I just kind of just stared at the brown sticky lump in my bowl. After I got over the fact that I entirely destroyed a dozen cupcakes, and ten mushed it all together. Then I rolled them all into little spheres, stuck popsicles sticks into them and dipped them into dark chocolate. I used my favorite chocolate cake, and vanilla cupcake recipes. I only used half of each recipe.

Chocolate Cake-(from the back of a hershey's cocoa box)

• 225g (2 cups) sugar
• 165g (3/4 cup) cocoa powder
• 1&1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1&1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• (1&3/4 cups) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 250ml (1 cup) milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 eggs 
• 125ml (1/2 cup) vegetable oil
• 250ml (1 cup) boiling water

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 350F/180C

1. Sift the flour,cocoa,baking soda and powder,salt and sugar into a large bowl.
2. Add the eggs,milk,oil,vanilla and whisk thouroughly until no lumps remain.
3. Slowly add the boiling water and whisk until blended, don't worry if its really thin, it's supposed to be like that.
4. Bake in a cupcake tin for 20-25 minutes.

Magnolia Bakery's Vanilla Cupcakes:

• 225g (1&1/2 cups) self-rising flour
• 200 (1&1/4 cups) all purpose flour
• 200g (1 cup) butter
• 450g (2 cups) sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 250ml (1 cup) milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method: 

Pre-heat your oven to 350f/180C

1.  Cream together the butter and the sugar, then add the eggs, one at a time.

2. Then add the flours in thrre additions, alternating with the milk, then add the vanilla extract

3. Bake for 15 minutes until light brown.

Chocolate Buttercream

• 100g (1/2 cup) butter
• 200g ( about 2 cups) powdered sugar
• 50g (1/3 cup) dark chocolate,melted and cooled
• 2 tablespoons milk

Cream together the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy, then add the melted chocolate.

Mix together until the buttercream and chocolate are completely blended, and no streaks remain. (although if you're making cake pops it doesn't matter too much)

 Vanilla Buttercream

• 100g (1/2 cup)butter
• 200g (about 2 cups) powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cream together the butter and sugar, then add the milk and vanilla extract.

How to make Cake Pops:

1. Crumble the cupcakes into a bowl, but make sure to take off the liners. ( I use silicone, so that there's no wasting of paper,because they're not going anywhere)

2. Add the buttercream then mix together thouroughly, until it turns into one mixture.( no spots of just buttercream)

3. Then take spoonfuls of of the mixture and form into balls. 

4. Cool in your fridge for 30 minutes then poke popsicle sticks in the center of each cake ball. 5.Cool in you fridge for 30 minutes, while they are in the fridge melt the chocolate of your choice, then dip each cake pop in chocolate and sprinkle on colorful sprinkles. 

Since tomorrow is my birthday I thought it would be cute to use a cake pop (or ball because I took out the popsicle stick) instead of a slice of cake and stuck a candle in it. Nowadays anything with a birthday candle stuck in it, looks like a birthday cake, and the cake pop tasted just like a a slice of cake anyway.