Happy Easter everyone!!  Originally, I wasn’t planning on blogging about making these cute little cake pops, but decided it was a must after my experience.

I decided to make these for Posey’s(my 4 yr old) pre school class.  Several friends gave me instructions on how to make cake pops, and it sounded easy enough.  How hard could it be, right?  Well, I’m here to tell you that they were lying…straight up, lying.

In my normal Kelly Moore manner, this project that *should have* taken a few hours and cost $20 ended up taking 10 hours and costing $100!  I went a little crazy in the baking section and bought every sprinkle, color, cake mix and more.  I’m a person of extremes-all or nothing!

To begin, I baked the cake, let it cool, crumbled it up, then added the icing to make the inside of the cake pops.  I did this the night before so I could refrigerate it overnight.  This part was really easy, I think I went a little heavy on the icing.  Next time, I’ll use a little less to hopefully make the cake pops hold together better.

The next day, I used a spoon to portion out the mixture, then rolled them into smooth little balls.  If you’re doing this, don’t make them too big.  If you make them too big, they will fall off the sucker stick when you dip them in chocolate.  From here, I dipped the sucker stick in the melted chocolate or almond bark, inserted 1/2 way into the cake ball, then put them in the freezer for them to firm up before dipping.   I think I left them in the freezer too long, because once I did dip them in chocolate and they dried, they began cracking.  I recommend letting them firm up, but not too long.

Now to the dipping part.  I had white almond bark, which worked really well.  Please note you can NOT add food coloring to almond bark.  It will ruin it.   I also had yellow melting chocolate from Hobby Lobby.  It did not melt well, and never got runny enough to coat the balls.  Luckily my good friend Heather Bailey from Social Bites here in Ruston was kind enough to give me the “good stuff”.  She had yellow melting chocolates that worked well.  She is a professional baker, so I’m not sure where she got them.

From there, we added the ears, which we(my mom was helping me) made out of gum paste.  You can get gum paste in the craft section of Walmart.  It dries really hard, so was perfect for the ears.  The chick feet were little decorations that I got from the section in the grocery store where you buy birthday candles.

On top of all my woes in trying to MAKE these little suckers, then I had the task of TRANSPORTING them!   I managed to make about 20 decent chicks and bunnies, but unfortunately, there were many casualties during the car ride to school, so only about 12 of them made it with all beaks and ears in tact.  In the end, they looked like a bunch of tired, beat up soldiers after battle.

I tell you all this to say: Pay your baker whatever they ask!!  Yes, this was a fun project, and I’m glad I did it, but honestly, next time, I’ll probably pay Heather from Social Bites to make them.  It’s really easy to think that bakers charge too much for these little treasures.  After all, it just 2-3 bites of cake, right?  Well, if it were me, I’d be charging WAY more to make these than they do.  Just my humble opinion

Have a great Easter!  I’ll put the recipe below if your interested in trying them for yourself.  I’ll also put Heather’s web address if you’d like to order them from her!

Item’s you’ll need:
1- Boxed Cake mix
Sucker sticks
Almond Bark and/or Melting Chocolate
gum paste(bunny ears)
decorative shapes(for chick feet)
Styrofoam(to stick cake pops in when drying after dipped in chocolate)
Edible drawing markers(to draw on bunny face)
patience

Icing
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon milk (or more, as necessary)

To make the mixture for the inside of the cake ball, just bake the cake as usual and let it cool.  Once cool, crumble it up into a bowl, prepare icing, then add it to the crumbled cake – mix well.  Make sure it’s a firm mixture, you may not want to use all of the icing.  Once combined, cover and let chill overnight.  From there, spoon the mixture out then roll into little balls, add sucker sticks, then coat with chocolate or almond bark.  Good Luck!!!

Thanks:
Heather, Social Bites of Ruston
Bakerella 
thekitchn.com
My Mom