June 2016 – Melodía

I have a conundrum. I can’t decide how I feel about cake pops. They are cute, but they are painstaking work for very little gustatory satisfaction.

With leftover cake scraps, as well as leftover pink gum paste, I decided to try some cake pops that might look like flowers. Using a flower cutter, I punched out a few sizes of flowers, and once hardened, I painted them with food coloring mixed with vanilla extract. (For a more in-depth explanation of how to actually make the cake pop, click here for Chicago Cubs cake pops, here for roses, or here for Easter eggs.)

Once the flowers were painted and the pops were ready, I used a little bit of melted candy melts to stick them together.

Put a little styrofoam circle in the bottom of a planter, surround with some decorative grass, and stick in your cake pop. Ta-da!

They might look like flowers from the front, but the cake pops are definitely hiding back there! 🙂

Cute, right? I can just imagine them as decorations at a garden party, or favors at a bridal shower, with the colors, of course, customized to the event.

But again, it’s just… they’re, like, two bites. Honestly. All that work for two bites.

BUT THEY’RE SO CUTE!

Let me know what you think in the comments. Yay or nay to the pop?

As I sit here begrudgingly watching the Sharks and Penguins play rather than my beloved Blackhawks, I can take solace in the fact that hey, the Cubs are currently 39-15! That’s pretty good, right?!

Making cake pops is easy. Seriously. Especially this kind where the pop is on the bottom of the stick. Here is a very easy recipe for success:

STEP 1: Mix together some old cake scraps (or a fresh cake, whatever!) with some store-bought frosting. Mix until it holds together. (One box of cake will need approximately a half to two thirds a can of frosting, I think. You don’t want to add too much because then it’s just goopy.)

STEP 2: Form balls and place in freezer for a few minutes to firm up.

STEP 3: Melt some candy melts, dip a stick in the candy melts, and insert into the cake pop. Place back into the fridge to keep firm.

STEP 4: Decorate! For the baseballs, I dipped the cake pops in white candy melts and let them harden. (It only takes a few minutes in the fridge.) Then, using a sharp metal tool, I literally drew on the baseball stitching lines. The only annoying thing is keeping the candy melts warm- I took repeated trips to the microwave.