Cake pops can be tricky. I wanted to make something for the ladies that help in our church nursery. This year has been a challenging year for our two year old. Every Sunday it’s been a fight whether or not she stays in the nursery or not. Inevitably our number is flashed onto the screen during the service. Like most parents with a young child you want your little one to get socialized. This is one of the only places where she has to share and interact with other kids in a safe setting WITHOUT ME. The poor nursery workers have seen me a lot this year and so to say thank you I wanted to make them a small cute gift. I thought, I bet I could try this cake pop thing. That looks easy enough right?! The cake pops themselves were, well, a piece of cake. But I just didn’t want to give a regular cake pop to them, I wanted to do something different. I thought, candy canes!
What if I broke the candy cane and instead of using a stick or straw, use something edible. That way the entire pop is edible! Well if you follow WannaBite on Facebook or Instagram you know that my first attempt was a failure.
As you can see my mistake was to take the plastic off the candy. I was afraid initially to leave it on, simply because it wasn’t edible. As soon as I touched the peppermint, my fingers became sticky and the candy cane was ruined as you can see from the picture above. It was a mess!
So instead of taking off the plastic, I just left it on, and WOW what a different. Not only did the candy canes anchor better in the cake pops, but the plastic was super easy to remove while eating. A perfect solution.
So how do you make these. Well cake pops are not a 5 minute project, it’s going to be about a two hour process, BUT don’t fear! Most of the time you aren’t baking, or mixing you are waiting for the pops to cool / freeze.
The first thing you have to do is to make your cake batter. In this project I simply used a box cake mix, but if you wanted to make the batter from scratch, go right ahead. Next I purchased the Bake Pop Pan from Bed Bath and Beyond. I love this thing. It was $8 (I had a coupon) and it’s worth it’s weight in gold. Walmart has different machines in their cake decorating section. Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and even Target probably have molds or ovens. They range from $8-$20. You can make the cake balls from scratch, but I found this to be difficult and the balls were uneven. As a perfectionist, that didn’t sit well with me.
I’m also BUSY. Let’s face it, as a parent I have some time to get into the kitchen, but I can’t be Martha Steward on every recipe. I need short cuts!!
Once your batter is mixed fill up the pan and put them in the oven for 5-6 minutes. The great thing about the Bake Pop™ Pan is that there are holes in the top, so using a little toothpick, I can see if the cake pops are done.
Once out of the oven, the REAL process begins. You need to place them in the freezer for about 30 minutes. This is important because they need to cool, AND if they are warm at all, they will melt the peppermint.
After 30 minutes take them out of the freezer. The next step is fun. You can to break your candy canes so that it no longer curves. You want a straight piece of peppermint. Now you can do this WHILE the candy canes are still in their packages. It takes a little finesse but it’s totally doable and out of 12 candy canes I only lost one. Remember don’t throw away the top parts, they will be crushed later and used for decorations!
Now after all of your candy canes are broken, you will want to melt a little bit of chocolate. I mean a LITTLE BIT. Before putting the chocolate on the candy canes I actually used one candy cane and started the holes in the cake pops. In other words I didn’t push the candy cane all the way inside the cake pop, BUT i did start the hole so that it would be easy to push in when the candy cane had chocolate on it. Now, once you have your chocolate melted, dip the end of the candy cane into the chocolate. Then push it quickly into the cake pop. The idea is simple, the chocolate will bind to the cake pop keeping the candy cane in place! This worked beautifully. You can see a good example of what I’m talking about in the third picture, where I failed. The white chocolate cake pop, but I used dark chocolate to stick the peppermint inside it. Once you are done with all of the cake pops, freeze them for another 30 minutes!
So now you have cake pops with peppermint sticks or candy canes (whatever I’m calling them at the moment) and they are bounded together well. The next step is the chocolate. In the past I have melted chocolate, but I really didn’t get the result I wanted. I wanted a nice shinny and smooth finish on my chocolate, but instead got a dull hard finish. I found the solution. When melting your chocolate, use a little bit of shortening. A tablespoon will do just fine. This will make the chocolate very smooth, thin it out so you use less, and give it a nice finish. It worked WONDERS! When you melt your chocolate, the trick is to find a cup that is thin, yet high. I used a tall coffee cup and it worked very well. The shortening will also keep the chocolate in a liquid state for much longer and you won’t have to reheat it.
Once you dip the cake pop into the chocolate, you will need to let the cake pop drain the rest of the excess chocolate off. I tap the cake pop on the side of the glass about 10 times letting the chocolate drain back into the cup and then I get a large mixing bowl and twist the cake pop. Chocolate flies everywhere, but it leaves me with a smooth finish. I quickly add the decorations, you have about 30-90 seconds before the chocolate is dry. I then set them on a drying rack at an angle.
I let them dry for about 30 minutes and then use little bags I found at Walmart. They are called treat bags, and were $2.50 in the cake decorating section. It worked perfectly and were such amazing gifts to give! I hope you enjoy this recipe, and remember to pin this on Pinterest!!
- 1 Bag of Wilton Candy Pieces
- 1 Box of Cake Mix (and ingredients involved)
- 24 Candy Candy canes
- Treat Bags
- 1 tbsp of shortening
- Holiday Sprinkles
- Detailed instructions are withing the post, these are the short version
- Mix your cake batter together (you can use a mix or make it from scratch)
- Use a cake ball pan and create you cake balls.
- Place in over for about 5-7 minutes
- After fully cooked, put into freezer for 30 minutes
- Break your candy canes so that they are straight pieces
- Melt a little bit of chocolate, enough to cover the ends of the candy canes
- Place the candy canes into the chocolate, then push them into the cake pops
- Place back into freezer for about 30 minutes
- Warm a large amount of candy in a skinny glass. I used a coffee cup. Add shortening as the candy is melting in the microwave. I used 30 seconds bursts until it was smooth, so I didn't burn the chocolate.
- Dip the cake pops into the candy, then tap the pops so the excess drains back into the coffee cup.
- Then swirl the pop in a bowl so the rest of the excess flies off the pop.
- Quickly decorate the pops you have 30-90 seconds
- Let dry for about 30 minutes and you are ready to place into treat bags and ribbon ties!
You’re a genius! Very creative! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much!!
love your ideas for the Pop Cakes, I pinned it so I can come back to follow the directions when I make them. Thanks for sharing.