~Back to School

It's the beginning of spring 2012 semester, and all my suities arrived yesterday. To celebrate their arrival, I decided to pull out the baking craft supplies.

To the right, Will is enjoying a cake pop. Ever seen those commercials? Yeah, well I saw a set while I was babysitting and got to borrow it :D

I used a white cake a box mix, because let's face it, it's going to be covered in chocolate even if box mixes do taste different (debatable) and the chocolate is going to make it amazing anyway, and used the recipe with yolks using fresh eggs straight from the coop at home. I sprayed the cake ball pans with non-stick cooking spray and filled the half circles up entirely before I put the lid of the pan on. The baked for 20 minutes, instead of the recommended 25-30 and they were perfect. After they cooled down I melted some chocolate on the stove using a double boiler and dipped the ends of the pop sticks into the chocolate. Once they were coated, I plunged them into the cake balls and put them in the fridge. I wasn't sure of this step and after some experimentation I realized that the pops WILL NOT stick in the cake unless held there by the chocolate. By the way, did I mention I used mint dark chocolate? Best idea ever. After being in the fridge for a while they were cool enough to coat. I melted the rest of the chocolate again in the microwave in about 5-10 sec bursts and swirled the cake on a stick through it. This worked... ok... kind of. Near the end I realized it was easier to smooth the chocolate on the cake using a spoon. If the chocolate got too hard while you were just swirling them around, it was likely for the hardened chocolate holding the sticks on to "let go" and then it was a pain getting the whole thing covered in chocolate and back on the stick -_-

I was going to drizzle some white chocolate over them to make them look really fancy, but when you start baking at 11:30 at night it's not going to happen till the next day. By the next day, we were sick of looking at them and the were gone pretty fast.

I'm sure this set will be used again. Having a couple more people to help decorate will definitely add to the creativity.

Couple things to think about next time:

*Decorate with small candies that the chocolate can hold onto the pops

*Don't let the chocolate on one pop touch another pop while they're in the freezer -_-

*Use different types of cake to make the insides more interesting, marbling?

I've been delivering late christmas scarves, so I'll have pictures of those up soon! Stay warm!!!