Today I’m super excited to welcome one of my favorite people to the #SundaySupper table. Cathy is a neighbor, friend, and fellow blogger, baker, city dweller, Jesus lover, and justice worker. We’re kindred spirits in the truest sense of the word.
As you may recall, my gifting does not involve cake pops or treats that require any kind of precision or patience. I prefer drizzles, pinches, and glugs (that being the sound olive oil makes when it comes out of the jar). Luckily, Cathy not only has the patience for such things, she also loves doing it! Exhibit A:
That’s right folks. That is an edible turtle cake with edible baby turtle cakes on top of it!!
Today, I asked her to come share with you her tips for making cute, uniform, perfect cake pops. You can check out more from Cathy at Cathyology, where she blogs about everything from justice to faith to motherhood to gardening. I hope you enjoy this girl as much as I do!
My beloved friend Courtney and I have been thinking of the many ways we are alike. We’re both committed to social justice, particularly as it pertains to our neighborhood, and we live within a few blocks of each other. At our respective non-profit full-time jobs, we’ve collaborated on events and campaigns and I genuinely love working with this chic. Her heart beats to see mercy and peace and joy throughout our community and her heart breaks for injustices against our neighbors. She has a gift for seeing the positive in difficult situations, and she’s quite the mover when construction crews threaten an event. But of course, this is mostly a food blog, so let’s get down to it… we are both in love with all baked goods and the process that produces them.
There is a difference we have discovered though. She loves to bake goodies that you can turn out of the pan and that are ready to eat with just a glaze or drizzle on top and it’s all done and looks creative and warm and homey. I am drawn to items that allow me to unite my creative side with my obsessive compulsive need to make things “just so”. I want to carve, color, swirl, pipe, and sprinkle.
A baby shower is the perfect place to display pretty, graceful, fun treats. These cake pops were for a baby boy, so ALL things were blue, down to the mom and aunt’s pedicures. I was charged with making delightful cake pops for a classy event.
Cake pops are fun and easy. I’m typically an all-things-from-scratch kind of mom. I want to know what is in my cake and be able to pronounce all the ingredients. But cake pops don’t work well with most from-scratch cakes. So, trek over to your favorite baking aisle and venture into the box-mix section. And don’t flee too quickly, you’ll also need canned frosting.
My tips here for you are:
- Use cake and frosting that will blend to an appealing color/flavor combination (My favorite combo is chocolate cake and fudge frosting. For the blue cake pops, I used white cake with blue food coloring added to the batter and vanilla frosting)
- Do not buy “whipped” frosting
- No need to buy the most expensive brands
- 1 cake mix makes about 2 dozen balls (I use a size 60 scoop)
- Find a way to keep the cake pops upright and separated after dipping. You can poke them into styrofoam, a cardboard box, or an egg carton, or stand them up in a juice glass.
- Once dry, cake pops can be stored in an airtight container laying down. They shouldn’t stick together.
- Don’t skip the freezing step, no matter how tempting it may be.
Baby Blue Cake Pops
Ingredients
- 1 box cake mix
- 1 container frosting
- Cake pop sticks
- Melted chocolate or chocolate coating for dipping
- Sprinkles, thinned frosting, powdered sugar, nuts, etc. for drizzling or rolling
Whoa, Cathy is SO talented. I stink at dishes that require any sort of precision as well, but thank goodness you have a wonderful, generous friend! Beautifully done!
I know Lizzy! Me too! I’m hoping some of her skills will rub off on me.
So cute! I have never made cake pops before and now I want to!! Love the recipe and your pictures!
Those are so cute and are definitely perfect for a shower!
So pretty and fun, and OMGoodness, I need to finally try making cake pops!!! Lovely post 😉
Great tips!! Thanks so much for sharing! I have yet to make these but they don’t seem as hard as I thought they would!
They’re really not…especially if you follow the tips! I’ve skipped the freezing step before because I was in a hurry and the dipping was a disaster. Still tasted good, but I should have trusted Cathy on that one. 🙂
Those are perfection, so pretty and they look so very good!! Now I want a cake pop!!
Awesome cake pops! The perfect ending to a shower or party 🙂
Okay these are adorable. And that turtle cake totally blew my mind.
I know, right? Crazy awesome.
Oh my goodness, how perfect are those cake pops!! I’ve never made cake pops, but they sort of intimidate me, lol. http://thefoodiepatootie.com/2013/04/21/spinach-dip-in-a-pumpernickel-bowl-for-sundaysupper/
Those cake pops are just gorgeous! !~ Bea @ The Not So Cheesy Kitchen
Wow! When I first saw the photo I immediately thought of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. So vivid, so perfect, and so fun! Great tip on making the cake pops too. I understand they are as challenging as cute.
They do look like they’d fit right in to that magical place!
Beautiful! I LOVE the color of these!
Oh my goodness her cake pops look so perfect. Mine aren’t bad but the decorating on these look so professional. And don’t even get my started with that incredible turtle cake. I have actually had a lot of success with home made cakes for my cake pops. The best ones were carrot cake pops. But I will confess using store icing does yield better results. One day I will figure that one out.
Oh my word…carrot cake pops with cream cheese frosting would be incredible!
Beautiful! Such perfect cake pops. I’m impressed.
WHOA MAMA! I’m so impressed – Cathy’s cake pops look ah-may-zing! And that turtle cake is out of this world – there’s no way, no matter how much practice I get, that I’ll ever be able to make something like that. The cake pops, weeeeeell, maybe (although they’d probably look all misshapen instead of spherical). Thanks for sharing this post, ladies!
I’m with you Nancy. I am in awe or her total cake decorating domination. My cake pops are always oddly shaped and often very close to falling off the stick. Still tasty though…there’s always that. 🙂
disse:Oi Lidiane, é verdade, geralmente, os comentários relevantes são esnnetâopos, quando estamos motivados a comentar. Quando comentamos apenas por comentar ou pensando em deixar um link, isso acaba sendo percebido pelos outros. Bjs