my cake pops is cool, my cake pops is poppin'.

once upon a last thursday, while packing for a weekend of cottaging, i found myself in text message correspondence with biz “barbra” sanford: cottage host. we were discussing supplies for the weekend getaway and i, being the saint that i am, offered to contribute. here’s how it went:

nice spelling, btw, barb. 

now, with my offer, i was suggesting something more along the lines of a couple bags of chips, hot dog buns or some beers. clearly, biz saw a goldensnitch opportunity and lunged for it.

since she is one of my dearest caucasian friends - i, of course, complied with her demands. the fact that i was also “double dared” to provide these baked goods (so b.a.) may have also played a significant role in this. i was not about to risk being called a chicken. that would ruin me!

so, in order to to preserve my grade-school reputation and to win friend-of-the-year, i arrived at the cottage bearing these:

cake pops.

perhaps you have seen these spherical masterpieces in starbucks and remarked on their cuteness. perhaps you encountered them many moons ago on bakerella.com, like me. or perhaps you have never heard of them before - if this is the case, you’re welcome. 

whatever your experience with cake pops, i think i’m safe in betting that you have never realized the immense effort that is involved in their creation. at least, i know i hadn’t.

cut to a naive me starting this baking project at 7pm and expecting to be able to catch jersey shore at 10pm. i assure you this did not come to pass. instead, i found myself in the kitchen until 1am, physically maimed and tackling the most time-consuming blog food to date. but we’ll get to that later.

let’s start with the recipe. 

the first thing i did was bake 3 boxed cake mixes - chocolate, vanilla and red velvet. and then set them aside to cool. 

once they were cooled, i put them each in a separate bowl and crumbled them. of course, by that i mean crush them into dust. *bicep flex* 

pick out any burnt or hard pieces along the way. you’ll want the end product to be pretty fine and look something like this:

damn! cake, you fine ;) 

next up, you add icing to the crumbled cake. yes. to the crumbled cake. and mix. the best method for this is handio mixius. 

handio mixius: (n) a terribly complex method of food preparation that requires the vigorous use of the phalanges in order to successfully combine the components of a mixture. known to be the mortal enemy of women with freshly manicured nails and wimps alike. often utilized in the manufacturing of homemade meatballs, hamburgers, doughs and pastas.

the amount of icing you’ll need depends on the thickness of the icing itself. i used store-bought icing for the chocolate and vanilla cakes, but homemade cream cheese icing for the red velvet and the ratios were completely different. your goal is to be able to roll the cake into balls that’ll keep their shape if you set them down or squeeze them a bit with your fingers. that might be vague, but trust me, you’ll know when they’re right. 

side note: don’t panic if they get too wet, you can always add some flour to dry them up a bit. there’s so much flavour in the icing that it won’t make a difference. unless your version of “too wet” is a cake soup. in which case, get out of the kitchen - you’re too far gone. 

alright! next, roll the cake mixture into balls about the size of a walnut. like so:

okay, here’s where the trouble started. after rolling 3 cakes worth of balls, my trusty assistant (x-tina) and i were rather tired and just wanted to get these over with. so we stuck some lollipop sticks in them and threw them in the freezer. mistake. 

an hour later when we took them out, expecting them to be ready and tried to dip them, they slid down the stick like beads on an abacus or slipped off the end with a chocolatey thud. the result was hideous.

attempt two: freeze them first and put the sticks in them after? absolutely not. they were too hard to get the sticks in them. another hour down the drain. 

at this point, we had a slight decline in morale and sanity which led us to thinking these would be acceptable substitutes:

you know how the saying goes: if at first you don’t succeed, curse biz sanford and write your name in chocolate. or try again. which we did, and after hours of trial and error, we finally figured out the secret of the sticks: you dip them in chocolate first, stick them in the cake and freeze them. 

while these are beautiful just plain like this, the perfectionist in me could not stop there. for added taste and physical appeal, i decided to dip them in an array of melted chips. 

chocolate, white chocolate, butterscotch and peanut butter. 

the trick to dipping anything in melted chocolate (or other chip varieties) is to add oil to the mixture before melting. this way, it’ll stay runny longer and it adds a nice shine to whatever you’re dipping. 

after the whole stick debacle, i thought i was in the homestretch when i had reached the dipping process. and it was all going great. until the accident.

as i’ve mentioned, this had been a very long process and by the time i got to the melting chocolate step of this recipe, my parents had long since gone to bed. now, if you’ve ever been to my house, you will have noticed the high ceilings. and while these are very nice to look at, in the night, they carry echoes that could rival the grand canyon. 

trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to disturb my parents, i gently placed the containers of chips in the microwave. i then made to, ever so quietly, close the microwave door using only the tips of my fingers. cue a blinding pain in my finger from being squeezed in the door and me looking down, expecting a blood blister. and instead seeing this:

after numerous “are you kidding me?!”s, a few “son of a bitch”s and one exceptionally high pain-induced karate kick (don’t ask, i have no idea what the purpose of it was), i cut off my finger and soldiered on. or, did i put on a dora the explorer bandaid and cry for a bit? i forget. 

please note: no blood made its way into the cake pops as my finger was heavily bandaged and saran wrapped. the only bodily fluids, including but not limited to blood, sweat and/or tears, involved in this recipe were purely metaphorical. 

hoping that the accident wouldn’t leave me needing an amputation and spell the end of my cooking career, i dried my tears and proceeded to dip several dozen cake pops in the various melted coatings and set them in the freezer to harden overnight. i’m not gonna call myself a hero, but if the spandex suit fits…

anyways, this is what they looked like when they came out. 

the next day and a five hour drive later, the cake pops were warmly welcomed to the cottage. 

review: i hate hate hate the word moist. next to ointment, it is the word i loathe most in the english language. but in regard to the cake pops, there is no better adjective. adding icing to them at that stage of the recipe makes it impossible for them to dry out like a normal cake would. they were frozen, sat in the sun in a black car, frozen and unfrozen again, put in the fridge and left on a counter to defrost and they tasted as fresh as when they were first made. you could freeze them and have them on hand forever.

when i was making them, i was really concerned about which coating should go with which cake. in the end, it didn’t matter - they were all fantastic and delish, no matter the combination.

the biggest hit was the red velvet cake, but my personal fav was the chocolate cake/peanut butter coating. 

all in all, i think it’s safe to say that the world of cottage-appropriate food has been expanded. who knows, s’mores and hot dogs might just have to move over for cake pops. okay, i take that back - that’s blasphemy. but they were definitely a hit. 

now that i’ve worked out the kinks in this recipe and wouldn’t have to dedicate half a day to them - i’d definitely make cake pops again without having to be double dared. if i ever recover from the accident, that is. 

thanks for reading :)