Inspired by two of my favourite blogs, RetroMummy and Bakerella, I embarked on a Cake Pop mission today. I don’t know why cake pops haven’t occurred to me before – bite size pieces of cake on a lollipop stick decorated to suit any occasion – but I did give mine a bit of a twist. The Bakerella Cake Pops are truly works of art – it would break my heart to eat one! So I started with a simple version I couldn’t really stuff up, and maybe I’ll graduate to characters for Lil C’s 3rd birthday!
First, I made the RetroMummy Rumball mixture, with a teeny splash of Grand Marnier instead of Cointreau or rum. I also used a store-bought fruit cake instead of madeira cake for extra festive flavour. I let that sit for a while in the fridge to harden up, then used a melon-baller to scoop out litle balls of yumminess. This got old quite quickly and I ended up reverting to the spoon and hand-rolling method, but if the mixture was hard enough, the melon baller would work.
When you have a plate full of little balls of cake mix, put your lollipop sticks (or bamboo skewers or popsicle sticks would also work depending on the size of your cake balls) into the little balls, then put them in the freezer. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. You must have put the sticks in before you put them in the freezer, otherwise they will fall out during the coating process. I learned this the hard way.
Leave them for about an hour (you can keep rolling more cake balls while your waiting if you have the freezer space). When you’re sure the mixture is firm enough and the sticks are wedged in tight, melt some dark chocolate (or milk or white if you would prefer) in a bowl. I added a little dribble of vegetable oil to make it shiny and thin enough to work with. Gather your decorating materials now too – I used coloured sugar crystals, chocolate flakes, hundreds and thousands and the perennial christmas favourite, coconut. Put each of your decorating things into separate bowls and line them all up on your kitchen bench.
NOW you can get your bare cake pops out of the freezer. Dip them into the chocolate mixture (holding on gently to the lollipop stick), using a spoon to coat the area closest to the stick. Hold it up and let the excess chocolate drip off, or smooth it out with your spoon if it’s too thick. Quickly transfer your chocolate truffle to one of the decorating bowls, and coat the cake pop in delightful coloured christmassy goodness.
Ooh, I forgot, you also need to have found some styrofoam to stand your cake pops in while they set. This was harder than I thought, as we did a big cleanout of our styrofoam earlier in the year. Luckily the packaging from my new sewing machine was still sitting in the studio (and lord help me if I ever need to post that somewhere for repairs).
When your cake pops are coated in chocolate and decorations, stand them up in the styrofoam. I found it useful to ‘pre-pierce’ a hole with a sharp bamboo skewer as the blunt end of the lollipop stick wasn’t very nimble and my truffles fell off a few sticks while trying to get them to stand up. (Another reason they need to be frozen.) The chocloated coated pops will set in just a few minutes in normal weather.
Repeat this process until you’ve run out of lollipop sticks or cake balls (or make some standard truffles or rumballs without the sticks to use up your mixture like I did).
Bon appetit! The rumball mixture is so soft and gooey when you bite through the chocolate coating. I was most impressed with myself on this ‘hacker’ recipe. Even Lil C approved.
These lovely little treats are going with Miss C for her daycare class and carers, and a batch is also coming to work with me for our festive lunch.
