One Sweet Lemon: valentine cake pops

I've been wanting to try making cake pops since I saw them on Bakerella's blog. Check her out at Bakerella.com. She's got some super creative and fun ideas on making these yummy cake lollipops.

Allow me to digress for a moment... I'm usually the stressed out career mom who forgets it's Valentine's Day and ends up rushing to the grocery store the day of to buy valentine giveaways. Because I've neglected to purchase them till the very last second, I usually end up getting the bottom of the barrel valentine cards. You know -- the lame cards with the less popular cartoon character and even less popular pieces of candy... The ones left after everybody else has bought the cool ones. Luckily, Mia was still at an age where she doesn't really care what the valentines look like as long as she too has something to pass out among her friends. One year, however, I did feel equal parts of working-mom-guilt and incredulous disbelief when Mia came home with these super elaborate valentines from her classmates. We're talking personalized lollipop cookies, valentine doilies turned into sculptural ornaments and super cool goody bags, people!

Anyway, this year is going to be different. Now that I'm a freelance part-timer, I decided I am going to do some cool valentine confections. Not only will I be able to indulge my inner-aspiring baker; but I figure, it'll make up for the past couple of years of not-so-cool valentines. Yep folks, I decided to have a little fun with it this year.

Enter Bakerella's cake pops... See the finished product above. Super cute, eh?

The ingredients... You can certainly use your own cake and frosting recipe. But I wanted to make it easy on myself for this trial run. So I chose to do Duncan Hines Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. You can have fun with this and do chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. Or lemon cake with vanilla lemon buttercream. Anything you want.

Update: I've made the cake pops about three times now. I experimented with different flavors and ingredients. I found that the Betty Crocker Cream Cheese Frosting was "cream cheesier" than the Pillsbury. And since I like a "cream cheesier" frosting, I now prefer using Betty Crocker. But you, of course, can use whichever brand you like. :)

Per Bakerella's recipe, bake cake as instructed. Let it cool completely and then crumb it into a bowl. Yes, break the cake apart until it's a mixture of fine crumbs. Then add the frosting until you get a moldable but not overly moist mixture.

Roll mixture into quarter-sized balls. Don't make them too big because they'll be too heavy for your lollipop sticks. Plus they grow bigger after they're coated in chocolate. Place on cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Refrigerate for several hours. Or for quicker results, put it in the freezer for 20 minutes or so until firm.

Melt the Candy Melts as instructed on the packaging. You can also use chocolate bark. I chose to use a vanilla flavored pink chocolate and a dark cocoa chocolate. Dip your lollipop stick into the chocolate mixture and pierce the cake ball. Pierce it until it's more than halfway through to ensure the ball stays firmly on the stick. Then dip the cake ball into the melted chocolate. Tap off excess chocolate carefully so as not to loosen the cake ball. Then sprinkle with sparkling sugar or confetti sprinkles as soon as you can. The chocolate dries fast, so work quickly.

Update: I found that after inserting the sticks into the cake balls, it helps to put them back in the freezer or fridge for a few minutes to let the candy coated sticks set. This helps the cake balls stick more firmly onto the stick; which in turn helps prevent them from going AWOL during the chocolate dipping process.

Place them on a styrofoam block to dry. Refrigerate to harden the shell. Aren't they cute?

Mia was so excited to try them! I can't tell you how much she ooh-ed and aah-ed over the pretty pops. "These are so pretty and yummy, Mama!" she says.

I wrapped the tops in little cellophane bags and tied them with decorative ribbon. Adorable, right? These are just the trial run. Next time I plan on using longer sticks so I can have enough room to slide little paper Valentine hearts on the bottom that read, "Happy Valentine's! From Mia."