Gender Reveal & Cake Pops

As I mentioned in my previous post, WE KNOW WHAT WE’RE HAVING!!!! We know if it’s a boy or girl!!! And at this time, so does pretty much everyone else, so without further ado…

Keeping that happy news to ourselves was painful. Luckily, we didn’t have to keep it too long, because we planned to have our families over the next day, which was Wednesday, to announce our happy news.

Michael and I had discussed how we’d wanted to do the announcement before, and decided to stick with it: Cake Pops. Helloooooo Pinterest. Basically, we’d have a whole bunch of cake pops, each with the center being the gender-normative color of either blue or pink, and the outside would be nondescript, like white or yellow or whatever.  When it’s time, everyone grabs a pop, and on the count of three, takes a bite to reveal the color in the center. Cool, right? I was pretty excited about this fun and creative way to announce, so I got started right away on the cake.

Now, cake pops are cute and fun, but they’re pretty dang tricky to make for the first time. The first half of the creating wasn’t bad, but the dipping/frosting of them was rough stuff, you guys. Between the falling apart and the falling off the stick, I got pretty frustrated. Good thing I made 26 balls, because only 19 made the cut, which happened to be the perfect amount of cake pops for our group.

The ones that worked came out beautifully, and super delicious, and were, as promised, a super fun way to do the reveal.

Now, for those of you who want to make cake pops, here’s how to do it:

Cake Pops 2014-10-02 10:15:03 Three steps are all you need to make perfect cake pops: Bake the cake, Roll the balls, Dip the pops Write a review Save Recipe Print Food Stuff

1. Box Cake + Ingredients on the box (I used vanilla)
2. 1/2 Can of Icing (I used vanilla)
3. Candy Melts (I used white/vanilla)
4. sprinkles

Extra equipment

1. Cookie scoop
2. Lollipop sticks
3. Foam board
4. Foil or parchment lined cookie sheet

For the Cake

1. Bake cake as directed on the box - I added food coloring here at the batter stage to get a blue cake
2. Let it cool
3. Crumble cake into a bowl - make sure it's a fine powder
4. Add (dyed) frosting to the cake, and stir until it's pasty, but not wet. If it's too dry, add more frosting.
5. Using a cookie scooper, scoop out the cake mixture, and then using your hands, roll out rounded balls. Place the balls on a lined cookie sheet.
6. Refrigerate for a long time - 4 hours minimum, or freeze if you have a big enough freezer. It's best to have them firm up overnight, so be sure to build this time into your schedule. I didn't do this. I let them cool in the fridge for only an hour or so, and that's why I had a bunch of my balls fall apart on me.

For the coating

1. Once your balls are nice and cool/firm, get a pot of shallow water simmering for a double boiler, or microwave your candy according to the directions on the bag. I prefer the double boiler method. It's easier and you have more control over the candy once it melts.
2. When the candy is melted, get the balls out of the fridge/freezer.
3. Dip your sticks about 3/4" into the candy, and then stick that end of the stick into the ball, about half way through.
4. When you're done with all of your balls, stick them back in the fridge to let the candy set.

For the dipping

1. When everything's firmed up again, carefully dip your pops into the melted candy coating, allow extra candy to drip off, immediately sprinkle with sprinkles or whatever decorative stuff you want.
2. Stick the sticks into the foam, and let the candy cool
3. Enjoy!

By Katie Ogletree Slow Down and Savor http://www.slowdownandsavorblog.com/