Tutorial: Color My Summer Blue With Cake Pops!

May 20, 2011 By 9 Comments
Welcome old friends and new visitors!

I’m delighted to have you at The Southern Institute today to celebrate Color My Summer, a wonderful series from Kojo Designs and Delia Creates.  What a great idea for a blog series!  There are so many fun ideas and beautiful photos, I can’t get enough!  
Summer is such a great season, isn’t it?  I love the bright blue skies, lush green grass, and the SUN!  I love picnics and parks and pools and being outside (when it’s not over 90 degrees).  What I’m sharing today is a great summer treat…



I’ve been seeing cake pops everywhere lately… even at Starbucks!  When I saw them I thought, surely I can make these… I just need to try it!  It was so much fun.  I love how creative you can be with them.  Have you seen Pop Bakery?  Oh. My. Goodness.  So amazing!  Today, I’ll be using the recipe from the book of the same name, Pop Bakery by Clare O’Connell, to show you how you can make your own…



Here’s what you’ll need for the cake:


  • 1/2 cup slightly salted butter (I used unsalted because that’s what I had in the fridge)
  • just shy of 3/4 cup of superfine sugar.  Not granulated, and not confectioner’s, but very fine. You’ll see the difference at the store.
  • 2 eggs
  • a heaping cup of self-rising flour
  • 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
  • 8 inch cake pan, greased
For the the cake balls you need:
  • 1 cooled cake
  • just shy of 1/4 cup cream cheese (you can substitute store bought cake icing)
  • 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar, sifted
To decorate you’ll need:
  • candy melts (by Wilton)
  • lollipop sticks
  • a foam block or styrofoam
  • sprinkles
  • Whatever you like! Get creative!
Okay… we’re going to start by making the cake itself.  This will be the base for the cake balls, which we’ll form a bit later.

Preheat your oven to 350.  Put the butter and sugar in the bowl of a mixer and beat together on medium speed, until the mixture is fluffy.

Slowly add your eggs to the sugar and butter, then sift the flour and cocoa into the mixture and continue to mix on medium speed until everything is combined.

Make sure that everything tastes right… 


Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the cake cool in the pan for about 20-30 minutes, then turn it out of the pan onto a wire rack and allow it to cool for 2-3 hours.  You can make the cake the day before if that’s more convenient.

Now comes the fun part… making the cake balls!
Put your cake in a food processor or blender and process it until it has a crumbly texture.




Set the cake crumbs aside.  Combine the cream cheese and confectioner’s sugar with the mixer until they are well mixed.  If you are using store bought icing then there’s no mixing necessary, just a good stir.


Combine the cake crumbs and the cream cheese with your hands until you have a good, moist mixture.

Start rolling the mixture into small cake balls.  I made mine a bit bigger than I should have.  I would recommend about 1 tablespoon to 1 1/2 tablespoons of mixture.  As you make them, set them on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  When you’re done, set them in the freezer to cool for 10-15 minutes.


While they are cooling, you can be melting the candy melts in a double boiler.  If you’re are like me and you don’t have a double boiler, you can fill a sauce pan with a few inches of water and set a glass bowl on the top of the sauce pan.  Heat the candy melts in the bowl until you have a smooth candy coating. (Follow the instructions for melting that are on the bag.)


Now what you want to do is take a lollipop stick and dip the tip in the melted candy.  Stick the candy coated tip into the cake ball like this (I apologize for the fuzzy photo. The light is really bad in our kitchen)…

Repeat until all of the cake balls have sticks.  Now you have the cake pops and are ready to decorate them!

The next step is the really fun step that I could not get a photo of because I was by myself and couldn’t take the pictures while dipping the cake pops into the candy!  

  • Take a cake pop and dip it into the melted candy coating, making sure to coat the entire cake pop, all the way up to the stick.  
  • As you pull it out of the melted candy coating, you need to turn and gently shake the cake pop to let the extra candy coating drip off back into the bowl, while trying to keep the coating even.  Not super easy since it is cooling and hardening at this point.  You need to work kind of quickly with each cake pop.
  • Once you have shaken off the excess coating, stick the cake pop upright into a piece of foam block or styrofoam (like you find in the floral arrangement section of a craft shop).
  • Add your sprinkles before the candy coating hardens completely.  I sprinkled, but I suppose you could dip too.

Now all there is to do is to let the candy coating harden and admire your work!  

When I first saw the finished cake balls I honestly thought that they looked cool, but I just couldn’t stomach the thought of eating one!  They looked so very sweet to me… too sweet.  I have to admit though, that once I tried one I was a believer.  They actually weren’t too sweet, and since they are only big enough for a few bites, I didn’t feel like I was pigging out.  They really are so much fun!  Cake pops will keep at room temperature for 2 days and longer than that in the fridge, so they can be made ahead of time.  I like that in a recipe!

They were a big hit with the kids!

“Hmmm… what are these?”

“Oh yeah, these are yummy!”

Do those look like happy kids or what?
So why are cake pops perfect for summer?

  • Cake pops are easily transported for outdoor birthday parties and picnics!  Have you ever tried to have an ice-cream birthday cake in July?  Not pretty.  Cake pops are the perfect solution.  They harden as they cool, so transporting them is easy.  
  • They are just the right size for little hands.  
  • No plates, knife, or forks needed!  
  • They’re just plain old fun!

If you make cake pops for your next summer picnic, block party, or pool party, They’re sure to be a hit!  Maybe you’ll even be more adventurous and I and try your hand at cake pops like these (all found on Pop Bakery’s website)…





Have fun making your cake pops and ENJOY!

For more creative and colorful ideas, check out the other guests from Color My Summer. You’ll find enough inspiration to last you all summer long!
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Jenny Yarbrough

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Jenny is a wife and mother first and foremost. You can find her here at The Southern Institute, as the founder and owner of the blog, as well as at unboundbirth.com. She enjoys blogging and sewing, cooking for her three picky eaters, and playing tennis with her husband, Tom.

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Filed Under: cake pops, Color My Summer, dessert, recipes

Comments

  1. Lindsay says:
    May 20, 2011 at 1:53 PM

    GREAT inspiration for my son’s upcoming 1st birthday…I really like this idea! Thank you for including lots of pics for this recipe, I appreciate that :)

    Delighted Momma

    Reply
  2. Grace Houle says:
    May 20, 2011 at 1:55 PM

    Thanks for sharing! Always wanted to learn how to make these

    Reply
  3. Delia says:
    May 20, 2011 at 2:19 PM

    You made this look so doable. I have been wanting to try this for a while but haven’t felt confident enough about it. Now I have more courage to try! Thank you for doing this tutorial/recipe.

    And thank you for being a part of the series!

    Reply
  4. thais. says:
    May 20, 2011 at 2:59 PM

    these are so much fun – and you do make it look so easy! perfect idea for a nice treat!
    happy weekend ;)

    Reply
  5. a happy wanderer says:
    May 20, 2011 at 3:45 PM

    they’re adorable! i love that they’re not too big… just the right size (and sweetness!) for the little ones :)

    Reply
  6. Sarah says:
    May 20, 2011 at 6:43 PM

    Hoe fun and so cute. :) thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  7. Hope says:
    May 21, 2011 at 4:07 AM

    I think I need a hands on demo. Lol. The actual dipping part gets me every time. You made it look super easy!!

    Reply
  8. kristi says:
    May 23, 2011 at 10:11 AM

    love this. thank you sweet lady.

    Reply
  9. Mia Joie says:
    September 18, 2011 at 3:50 AM

    They are so cute and yummy looking! I’ve been seeing cake pops on so my websites but this is the first time I’ve seen them so creative. Thumbs up!

    Reply

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