Today I played around with making some cake pops and cake balls. I love to make things and when I saw Bakerella's CAKE POPS book, I had to have it! I love all the adorable things she makes.As with anything, practice makes perfect, and I definitely need a lot more practice.
Today my goal was to make some heart shaped cake pops for Lulu's Special K treat day tomorrow. The book says..."Give yourself plenty of time...about 1 hour"...HA!
Try 8 hours. Atleast.
Here's what really happened...
I baked a cake at 10 am. It cooled while I picked up Lulu from school & made a grocery run.
When I got home about 1:30pm, I crumbled the cake and added the frosting, then made my 'balls'. I put them all in the refridgerator for a few hours. One thing I did not anticipate, was the lack of space in my freezer for the stated 15 minutes I need to place the balls to firm up.
So, after a few hours, I took some out, I had to make 18 hearts. I used my smallest heart cookie cutter to mold them, then I put them back in the fridge for another hour or more.
I had 6 candy melt colors. It took forever to get all of them melted, so I had to enlist the help of my Big Girl to melt them as I dipped each pop to keep things moving before the candy melt hardened again. It was a nightmare!
Candy dripped everywhere, and it's not so easy to clean up. And the 6 plastic bowls I used for the melts are still at this moment coated with hardened candy melt. I give up. That's gonna wait for tomorrow.
Each time I dipped a heart on a pop into the candy melt, it nearly fell off, or broke in half from the weight of the melt on it as I pulled it out, or it kept dripping and dripping, taking up so much time per pop.
So, I did my best, made 18 (sloppy in MY eyes) heart cake pops for Lulu's class, and used the remaining balls to dip as quickly as I could to just simply make cake balls instead of cake pops.
Lulu put the hearts on top as I sat them on the wax paper.
The Wilton Cake Pop stand I purchased for a few dollars, well, it was a nightmare too. The holes the sticks are supposed to stick in as they dry are so hard to push the stick thru, a few pops hit eachother causing ugly bumps, and/or one to tip over.
So, I would still recommend buying Bakerella's book. I love her, and I love making cute edible things for my Lulu!
Just be sure you have a full day to play!
