It comes as no surprise that as Halloween is coming up, I've been spending countless hours on Pinterest, Foodgawker, you name it, looking up Halloween themed recipes. I've never made cake pops before, so I looked around a little and found this cute idea! I usually shop around for a few different recipes before settling on one. I knew I wanted to use a spice cake mix, but I wanted to actually have pumpkin in it. After reading a few reviews about how the pumpkin made the cake balls harder to keep stuck together, I decided on just sticking with the classic cake pop recipe - a standard box mix and tub of frosting. At least they would look like pumpkins! I want to eventually try the mix with pumpkin as well... next year maybe. Or maybe Thanksgiving :)
My food coloring pen was not really coming out very smoothly... but eventually it ended up working out better but I forgot to take more pictures before they were all eaten up!
For anyone who has never made cake pops before, it's incredibly simple. Bake a cake in a 13 x 9 inch pan using any recipe or box you'd like. When the cake is warm, break it up in a big bowl (I used a fork and clean hands). You'll notice that the parts of the cake touching the bottom and sides of the pan might not crumble as well - I removed these parts (and snuck some bites) and jut used the good crumbles. Then, take your tub of frosting and start with about 2/3 of the tub. I ended up using about 3/4 of it. I was told by a experienced cake pop maker that using the tub can sometimes lead to the cake balls being too moist and hard to dip. After the cake crumbs and frosting are mixed, stick the mixture in the fridge for about 20 minutes to cool down. Then roll the mix into 1" balls, stick your popsicle stick in, and freeze for an hour. Now they're ready to dip! I used candy melts (which you can find in any store with a candy making/cake decorating isle, I found them at Michael's) but you can also use chocolate chips. Be careful not to overheat your candy melts or chocolate! (Especially white chooclate.) Tempering chocolate is something that is difficult to learn, you must use a double boiler or be extra careful when using a microwave. If water touches melted chocolate, or the chocolate is overheated, it will turn into a clumpy mess that is not salvagable for dipping... so if this is your first time (like it was mine) buy an extra bag of melts or chocolate just in case you overheat it (like I did :) ). You can always add a bit of vegetable shortening to thin out the dipping chocolate. Then dip away and set on wax or parchment paper and let set! (Set best in the fridge or freezer).
Recipe
- 1 box spike cake mix (any brand will do)
- 1 tub cream cheese frosting
- 1 bag orange candy melts
- 1 cup powdered sugar +1/4 tsp cream of tartar + water to desired consistency
- Green Food Coloring
- Wilton Edible Food Coloring Pen (black)
- Pretzel sticks
- Parchment paper
Instructions
- Prepare cake mix and follow above directions to make cake balls, using spice cake mix, cream cheese frosting and pretzel sticks as the popsicle sticks! Make sure to freeze before dipping.
- Dip in orange candy melts, covering the whole cake pop to the pretzel stick.
- Mix powdered sugar with cream of tartar and water until you have a very thick frosting - this should not drip off the spoon at all if you lift it up. The cream of tartar helps the frosting harden. If you don't have a piping bag, use a zip lock back and put the hard frosting into the corner. Snip off the corner about 2-3 mm wide. This will be used to make the little vines of the pumpkin!
- Let set in refrigerator.
- Bring out of the refrigerator and let stand 20 minutes before making the faces with the wilton food coloring pen.
