All four of my children have developed an undeniable love affair with the cake pops from Starbucks. Many afternoons after school pick up line and before it’s time for tennis/karate/ballet/soccer practice, I find myself in the Starbucks drive-thu salivating for a chai latte. On day I decided to surprise the kids and add some cake pops my order and ever since, they have been hooked.
So I decided to start saving money and making my own cake pops and have been perfecting my home recipe over the past few months. I have finally gotten it *perfect* so this week I made a huge batch of 50 for the boys’ birthday party and alas decided it was time to share all my tricks, tips, and the final recipe!
What you’ll Need
Ingredient List
For the cake:
- 1 cup of soften butter
- 1 cup of granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 2 cups of self-raising flour
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the cake pop assembly:
- cake pop sticks
- 1 bag of white chocolate morels
- rainbow sprinkles
- coconut oil
The first part is easy. You can get creative here and make any of your favorite cake recipes. I use my favorite simple vanilla butter cream cake recipe, but you could do chocolate or red velvet or whatever your birthday sweetie likes! You could also substitute a boxed cake mix from the grocery store if you want, anything goes! I also bake it in just a regular pyrex/casserole dish because it will immediately get broken apart into pieces so the shape of the cake doesn’t matter.
PART ONE
The Recipe
- Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit
- Grease 11×13 cake pan.
- Mix together the sugar and butter.
- Beat the eggs together in a separate bowl and then mixing well to the sugar/butter.
- Add in the flour and vanilla extract.
- Pour mixture into the dish.
- Bake for 25 minutes until light golden.
- Remove from oven and immediately place the baked cake into your mixer.
- Mix the cake while it is still hot from the oven on a low speed for several minutes until it resembles dough.
- Use a melon scooper to scoop out portions for the balls.
- Roll each portion into little balls about 1 inch in diameter. Place on parchment paper.
- Place the cake balls into the fridge to chill for 25 minutes.
PArt TWO
The Recipe
- Melt your chocolate over the stove or in the microwave for 45 seconds.
- Mix in a tablespoon of coconut oil to thin it out a bit.
- Dip the tip of your stick into the chocolate and then stick it half way through into a cake ball.
- While holding the cake pop upside down, place into the cup of melted chocolate and twirl around to coat the entire ball.
- Turn the cake pop right side up and add sprinkles immediately as the chocolate will dry and harden quickly.
- Place the cake balls upright to dry. I like to use these floral foam bricks.
Tips and Tricks:
- I have tried both Garadelli and Nestle chocolate melts and I preferred the consistency of the Nestle.
- The steam from the cake directly out of the oven will help the cake balls stick together so make sure you reserve time to make the balls immediately after you remove from the oven.
- Adding a tablespoon of coconut oil to the chocolate melt will make it smoother and help remove any lumps for a nice finish on your cake pops.
- Once the chocolate melts start to harden, replace in the microwave for another 10-15 seconds and restir. Do not try to dip the cake pop in the chocolate if once it starts cooling. You will just ruin a good pop. Trust me. I had to work in batches of about 8-10 cake pops at a time.
- Children are great helpers for adding the sprinkles but not so great with dipping into the chocolate. We lost one or two this last time because Bear wanted to “do it myself.” But they do great handling sprinkle duty.
- Act quickly to add your sprinkles and they will easily stick right to the chocolate and harden within seconds.
- The more sprinkles you add, the more you cover any imperfections. Which is why all of mine are fully covered in sprinkles, hehe.
