Let Them Eat Cake (Pops)

I told you a couple years ago that Jade is a budding chef and since then I have done everything possible to encourage his cooking adventures. I had hoped if he was involved in the cooking he might actually taste or even eat the food we make, but alas that is not usually how it goes. Except for when we make goodies... then he is all about eating... he eats the ingredients as we put them in, slurps the batter off the mixers, spoons, and bowls, licks the frosting knife, and of course smacks up every “accidentally” spilled sprinkle he can find.

So for Christmas I bought him the Wilton Kids Mega Sprinkles Toteand my mom got him the Nordic Ware Cake Pops Baking Panso that we could make chocolate and sprinkle-covered cake pops.



He was very excited about the idea of making cake pops and has been bugging harassing reminding me almost daily that we have to make them. This week three of my five kids had a snow day on Wednesday... what better way to pass the time but making cake pops?

After the fourth go-round with the pan in the oven (for 16 minutes each time) and lots of batter still left in the bowl, I decided that we are definitely buying three more cake pop pans. Then once the house smelled truly delightful and all the candy melts and sprinkles were lined up and ready, I read the part where Gina (of Skinnytaste) says to chill the cake balls for 45 minutes in the fridge. Uh, ok...

It felt like hours after we had first begun our big adventure when we were finally ready to start dipping. The Gecko chose black candy melts, Jade chose red, and I chose white. I microwaved the candy to get things going and then put the glass cups into a pan of simmering water to keep the chocolate soft. The first thing we realized is that the little cake balls did not want to stay on the sticks and that the chocolate was too thick and heavy for them. We glopped the chocolate on and then watched sadly as the sticks poked through or the cake balls slid down their sticks.









No matter the setbacks, the boys totally enjoyed decorating their cake pops and you can surely tell they are just about ready to debut in Martha Stewart...



And no matter how ugly naturalistic my boys’ pops turned out, rumor has it that they were delicious anyway.



I don’t know if I ever told you this but I loooove to cook, and I am kinda good at it. And totally screwing up cake pops is just not acceptable to me so... today we tried again. This time I thinned the melted chocolate (with a big dollop of Crisco...ewww gross, I know but, a). it works and b). there are grosser things in life to worry about) and I insisted that we wait the minute after dipping and before decorating that Gina suggested (and in our excitement we disregarded last time). Those two little changes made a huge difference in physical as well as aesthetic results as you can see...





And a little birdie told us this batch was scrumptious too...