How to make Cake Pops

How to make homemade cake pops? Which recipes to choose ? How to decorate them ? How to make them successful? Follow this guide to make cake pops, an easy sweet treats recipe made without a mold, perfect for any occasion like a baby shower, birthday party, wedding and more.

this recipe

What are Cake pops?

The cake pops also called cake balls, are small balls of cake coated with chocolate or candy coating and decorated with sprinkles.

They were invented by the very famous blogger Angie Dudley from the Bakerella blog and she highlighted during the Martha Stewart TV show.

Since then, these tiny, colorful cake pops are super trendy and totally irresistible, and they are great to spend time making them with the kids who have so much fun.

These little sweet bites are a lot of fun, with an endless choice of decorations and can be twisted into any shape and for any occasion.

In Christmas tree, in bell for Easter, for a birth, a wedding, or using special molds for pop cakes, cupcakes or ice cream cones.

You don't have to be an advanced baker to make perfect cake pops recipe at home! All you need is a cake mix or vanilla cake or even leftover cake, some icing like cream cheese or buttercream frosting, candy melts, lollipop stick and sugar decorations.

Composition and substitutions

Sponge: If you have sponge cake left over from your layer cake, a box cake mix or just make my vanilla buttermilk cake recipe. It's quite moist and soft perfect for making cake pops.

To make cake pops all kinds of sponge cakes can do the trick like a chocolate cake, red velvet cake, and other cakes with all the flavors and even colored.

You can also replace the sponge cake with crumbled cookies like oreo cookies, biscoff cookies, etc to make cake pop recipe.

Frosting: To bind the cake crumbs you can use all kinds of frosting recipe. The one most often used is cream cheese frosting (philadelphia), but it can be replaced by mascarpone cheese, buttercream vanilla frosting, chocolate frosting or even spreads such as Nutella or biscoff spread.

Candy melts: These little chocolate pistols that come in all colors and are not really chocolate, are perfect to make cake pops!

You can replace the candy melts with any dark chocolate, white chocolate, or milk chocolate.

Sugar decorations: Sprinkles, edible glitter, chocolate vermicelli, sugar pearls, coconut, etc…

You will find the recipe with the quantities and instructions in the recipe card further down this page

How to make homemade pop cake recipe

1 - Crumble the cake

1. Make the vanilla cake recipe and let the cake cool completely.
2. Place the cooled vanilla cake in a large bowl and cut into large pieces.
3. Then crumble cooled cake with your fingertips until you get a very fine cake crumb.

Tip: Be careful not to leave large pieces of cake, as you will have trouble forming well rounded cake balls.

2 - Add the Frosting

1. Add the frosting in small amounts to the cake crumbs.
2. And mix the cake and frosting with your hands until you have a smooth, even, slightly sticky batter.

Tip: If the cake mixture seems too dry and you can't form a ball with it, add a little more frosting.

Tip: To make easy cake pops, you can replace the homemade frosting with ready-made frosting, Nutella or cookie butter.

3 - Shaping the cake balls

1. Scoop a small amount of dough between your hands (you can use an ice cream scoop to make the same amount of dough into balls of the same size)
2. Roll the dough between your hands to form round cake ball.
3. Place them in a large flat dish or plate.
4. Then place the cake balls in the fridge for at least 20 minutes or in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Tip: The dough is a little wet, it can stick to your hands, after a short time in the fridge, you will be able to roll them again more easily to give them a nice round shape.

4 - Fix the cake pop sticks

1. Heat some candy melt in a double boiler or microwave according to the directions provided on the package instructions.
2. Dip the top of a cake pop stick into the melted candy melt and immediately push it into the center of the rolled balls.
3. Smooth the candy melt around the stick with your finger before it hardens.

5 - Decoration

1. Heat more candy melt and place it in a deep bowl or glass large enough to dip the cake pop inside.
2. Dip the cake balls into the melted candy melt to cover it completely, then shake off the excess chocolate drip.
3. Immediately add sprinkles and other sugar decorations before the candy melt cools.
4. Then place your cake pop on a special cake pop stand and let cool completely.

Tip: For a thinner candy melt or chocolate, you can add a small amount of crisco, coconut oil, candy wafers, cocoa butter or vegetable oil.

Tips for this recipe

1. Crumble finely the cake which must be also completely cooled. The finer the crumbs, the more you will be able to make a smooth and round cake pop.
2. Be careful with the amount of frosting, the batter should be soft enough to handle easily, if it lacks frosting you will have trouble rolling them.
3. Let the preparation chill in the fridge to make it easier to shape the cake pops.
4. The cake pops must be cold before inserting the candy sticks so that the chocolate freezes inside and the lollipop sticks stay well attached to the cake pop.
5. Use a stand to put the cake pops on or a dummy (styrofoam block) or a cardboard box with holes pre-drilled.

Frequently asked questions

More birthday recipes

• Vanilla birthday cake
• Kinder cake
• Strawberry layer cake
• Number cake

More chocolate and truffle recipes

• White chocolate truffles recipe
• Healthy oatmeal chocolate chips cookie dough truffles
• Dates Energy balls
• Oreo white chocolate fudge
• Oreo balls
• Peanut butter cups
• Hot chocolate bombs

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