Cake Pops For Saint Patrick’s Day

Cake Pops and, Cake Bites.. Have you heard of them?? They’ve become wildly popular and, I’ve been toying with idea of making them for a while. After doing loads of Royal Icing Sugar Cookies, I was about done with baking. Those things are EXTREMELY time consuming. This created a dilemma …………..what to do for Saint Patrick’s Day??? Then it hit me. CAKE POPS!! I swore to myself if these take more than 1 day.. I’m done… at least till April.

So… for these cute little things you will need the following items.  Btw you can find everything you need at a crafts store with a baking section.. (i.e.: Michael Arts & Crafts) and, your grocery store!!
You will need:

• Cake Mix: Standard cake mix like Duncan Hines or, Betty Crocker is perfect. Whatever flavor you want is fine.
• Icing:  Again brand and flavor are up to you
• Eggs: However many the recipe calls for
• Water: “
• Oil: “
• Candy Melts in the colors and flavors that you want. Note just about all of the colors are flavored “vanilla” There are Chocolate melts that are chocolate flavored and, one that I believe is Chocolate but MINT flavored. Also, make sure to buy enough bags of the colors you want and, need. Each box of normal 2-layer cake mix, makes approximately 48 pops. Keep that in mind. I had bough 8 bags, 2 of each color and I did 2 boxes of cake. I have just about 2 whole bags left over.
• Lollipop Sticks, Michaels carries 2 lengths
• Decorating Sugar (optional)
• Edible Glitter (optional)
• Treat bags with twist ties
• Treat boxes
• Cake pans
• Knife
• Toothpicks
• baking sheet
• parchment paper
• bake easy non stick spray by Wilton.. (AMAZING STUFF)
• Decorating squeeze bottles
• foam blocks (you can get these in the flower section of the craft store)

So let’s get started. In order for these to be a 1 day thing, you need to bake your cakes early enough that they are cooled by the time you want to work with them. I wasn’t pressed for time., so I procrastinated and, instead of baking them at 11am.. I baked them around 3pm.. Thankfully my help for the day wasn’t coming till about 6. Plenty of time for them to cool.

As you can see, I used Duncan Hines, Devil’s Food and, French Vanilla, along with Creamy French Vanilla and, Chocolate. These both required 1 1/3 cup of water, 3 large eggs and, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil. Mix and, bake as instructed. You can use either 2 round pans or, a rectangle pan, it doesn’t matter.


Let the monkey’s help you mix (he even has on his “Irish” shirt)



Once your cake’s have cooled it’s time to prep and, decorate!



Fancy, fantastic new item… DO NOT USE FOR CAKE POPS (unless they don’t have to be packaged in the treat bags. The gel does dry out a bit, but not enough to be packaged in such a way. Thankfully I only did 7 before I realized it was a bad idea) Best used for cakes and cupcakes.



You cant really see it, but just look at the package. the silver are stars and, the gold are hearts.



Candy Melts!! Ever wondered what those baby shower/bridal shower etc. etc.… lollipops are made of?? yea.. these things!



Sugars…



Like my Flag??


Ok so, take your cake and cut it into quarters while it’s still in the pan. cut off any hard edges. Put into a large bowl. A bowl that has enough depth to crumble the cake and, add the icing.
Crumble the cake. Make sure there are no large pieces.

Add 1/3 of the icing!! You do not want these to be overly moist!! This is if you use both layers. For the chocolate cake I took 1 layer and added Chocolate Icing, so it was less than 1/3. The other I added Vanilla.

Mix, mix and, mix.

Take a little bit of the mixture and roll into a ball. This is about the size of a golf ball, maybe smaller. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet.
(btw as you can see I have, dvds in the background. I can not work without music or TV running.. I need that “white noise” to focus.. it’s the same when I sleep. if you feel that you need this, it’s ok… whatever helps you work consistently is best.)


The darker ones are Chocolate/Chocolate, The lighter ones are Chocolate/Vanilla



Place in the freezer for 15 MINUTES!!, Then transfer to the fridge. You can put them on a large plate after, they’ve been in the freezer to firm up.



This was the Vanilla Cake. I took the knife and cut the edge off all the way around. I did not bother to cut the bottom or, top off. I felt this would be a waste of cake.



Vanilla/Vanilla



This is your foam block. There are 3 kinds, this one that comes in green and, white. Also the one that kind of falls apart when you press into it. Try not to use that one, you’ll get green stuff all over your hands and, the pops!!



Now, while the chocolate pops have been moved to the fridge and the vanilla pops are in the freezer, prep your board. Take a lollipop stick and make holes about 1 inch deep and 2 to 3 inches apart.



Place your candy melts in a bowl deep enough to dip the cake pops. You can add more as they melt. Microwave for 30 seconds at a time and, mix. The consistency should be smooth and, flow easily.



Take a few of your cakes out at a time.  Take a lollipop stick and dip it into the candy melts.



Insert the lollipop stick into the the cake half way.




Dip the pop into the Candy Melts. use a spoon to cover any spots.  Shake off as much excess as possible. Use a tooth pick to keep the edge right under the cake neat. Place in one of the premade holes in the foam board. Repeat (and yes.. that’s Chandler from Friends, in the background)



Let them sit and, dry. It doesn’t take that long. Let’s move onto the cake bites.



Melt a large batch of candy melts in the color of your choice



Using your squeeze bottles, put some candy melts in them and, microwave for 30 seconds. shake, or mix after each turn. The bottles will be hot. Another method is to microwave them in a cup then, pour it into the bottles.. I used this method because both my mom and, my helper (my friend Leo) practically yelled at me not to.. They were concerned that I would melt the bottles and, or blow up the candy melts in the bottles…. *rolls eyes* I had back ups!! Once the candy melts had hardened in the bottles I tried my method (because they weren’t around) and it worked!! So boo to them!

Any way since my entire color scheme was the colors of the Irish Flag, I used only white, orange and, green.


Dunk a cake into the melted candy base color. Using a spoon, make sure the cake is completely covered. Lift the cake out and let the excess run off, then place it on the parchment lined baking sheet. Do this slowly and let the excess from your spoon cover the side of the cake. Repeat.



Once you’re all done, Take the 1st color in your squeeze bottle and using a quick back and forth motion cover the cake bites in a zig zag pattern. Try to do them all in one direction. Like so



Now do the 2nd color in the other direction.



Here is where you could add glitter, sugar.. etc. For these I didn’t.



Before I show you the end results of everything. What do you do with your left over candy melts?? You can always leave it in the bottle if it’s a lot. If not, do you have some candy molds around? If so, pour the extra candy melts into the molds.



Tap the mold to get air out and, to make the candy even. Leave them to sit. You could place them in the freezer for a few minutes to let them harden up. Then pop them out and place them in a zip lock bag. Viola!!



Once you can’t get anymore out of the bottle, leave it to sit. When you squeeze it lightly and its hard. apply more pressure until all the extra pieces have fallen to the bottom. Open the top and pour these pieces in your zip lock bag of the same color. Place the bottle in hot water and, wash with soap and hot water.



And now………… Packaging!!!
Michaels has such great snack boxes and, these small clear treat bags (which were probably cello sleeves), they came with silver twist ties!  These can fit one cake pop OR two cake bites!!



Here are some of the cake pops packaged up.



And four pops that I made with a green background. top left is the flag… sort of. I rolled one side in green sugar, then the other in orange. then ran the middle in the white.  Top right, I just added the glitter stars and hearts. Bottom Left : drizzled orange and, white over the green then, added the glitter. Bottom right.. rolled the entire pop in a mix of green and silver pearlized sugar.



Here are some packaged in the snack boxes I picked up. The come flat. just fold them up and tape any parts that will open where they shouldn’t.




They have a great clear window so that you can see all the treats inside.



Now enjoy the rest of the pictures taken of these awesome treats!!
A few notes though………

• Work on up to 10 cakes at a time. Leaving them out softens them. When this happens they leave crumbs in the candy melts.. which isn’t attractive at all
• Try to get as much excess candy off as possible, when these things get hard, you have to use a knife to cut the excess off.. sometimes cutting off pieces that were covering the cake by accident
• The candy stays warm for a decent period of time. But still don’t melt the candy if your not anywhere near ready to use it. Just wait till your ready to go.
• Keep an eye on your bottles, cups or measuring cups when melting the candy. Keep mixing after every interval. Again, they don’t need to be extremely hot!! Read the instructions on the back of the packages.
• When adding glitter or sugar. Add it immediately after you drizzle the second layer of candy. If you'd like, drizzle one row at a time. Add the sugar/glitter then continue. This ensures that most of the glitter/sugar will stick!
• Since most of the colors are vanilla flavored just about any cake/icing flavor will work and taste amazing!! Experiment away!!

And lastly Thank you Leo for coming by and helping me.. I’ve never had a camera person before!! (btw some of the pictures look different because, genius that I am, didn’t charge my camera and, we had to use his phone)


Besides the very first picture and, the “flag” made of sugar. This is my favorite picture!!