 | Lori Horton is the owner of Celebrations by Lori in Pittsburg, Ks. With over 15 years experience in the bakery business, Lori opened Celebrations in 2000. She is always out front with the most unique ideas in cake and cookie decorating for all occasions. Celebrations is also on top of the industries' latest trends and products with the area's largest selection of baking and cake decorating supplies. Open Monday - Saturday, Celebrations can be reached at 620-231-5700 or at www.celebrationsbylori.com |
Candy, Chocolate & Sweets
2012-02-28 11:04:40
Cake pops
Q: Cake pops seem to be all the rage right now. Do you have any suggestions to make them a little easier and are the new “cake pop pans” really worth the price?
A: Great question! Any Pintrest fan can tell you that cake pops keep “popping” up everywhere you look! They have actually been around for a long time, but must have recently gotten a better press agent, because everyone is talking about them! They aren’t very complicated, but they can be quite time consuming and are definitely a bit messy.
Here’s the breakdown: 1. Bake a cake (whatever flavor, whatever recipe, whatever boxed mix, whatever size, whatever makes you happy). 2. After the cake has cooled, crumble it up into small pieces. This is really best done with your hands, not a food processor since we want small crumbled pieces, not dust! 3. Make a batch of buttercream icing, cream cheese icing or open a can of your favorite store bought icing. 4. Mix icing into the crumbled cake until the mixture is bound together but not wet. This step takes a little trial and error and depends a bit on your taste. Some people like the pops a little more wet or soggy than others. Keep in mind, the more icing you add, the messier the next step will be! 5. Take the cake & icing mixture and roll into small even balls about the size of a large marble. Place the balls on a piece of waxed paper covered cookie sheet and chill until the balls are set and firm. If you are making pops (on a stick) as opposed to balls, now’s the time to add the sucker stick. 6. Dip the chilled balls into melted candy coating of your choice (milk, white or dark chocolate) and let the excess chocolate drip off before setting them back on the waxed paper to set up. While the chocolate is wet you can sprinkle your cake pops with jimmies, nuts, coconut or whatever extra yummy things you can think of! OR if you are very crafty, you can dip them in colored white chocolate and decorate them like all sorts of adorable creatures. For some incredible inspiration, check out www.bakerella.com. She is the ultimate in tedious and tiny works of art!
To address the new cake pop pans, all I can say is that they are not true cake pops. They are basically baking round balls of cake that you can dip directly in chocolate. I’m sure they would be much less messy, but there’s no soft gooey bite of icing mixed in the cake to create that truffle type center. To each their own, but I’ll stick with the ooey, gooey messy original cake pops!
Last, but maybe most important, be creative with your combinations! If you are a chocolate lover, use chocolate cake mixed with chocolate buttercream, dipped in milk chocolate coating and rolled in mini chocolate chips. If strawberry is your weakness, try a strawberry cake with vanilla buttercream, dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with dry strawberry jello powder. If you love it, that’s all the matters! This is also a great way to get kids involved in the kitchen. After the cake is baked and cooled, there is no worry for little ones getting burned, etc. The candy coating melts at a low temp, so it is safe too! Let them go wild and come up with all sorts of fabulous combinations and creations. They’ll love making them, but not half as much as eating them!
