Christmas Cake Pops

Hi all, it's Jennifer!

I made Christmas-themed cake pops for tomorrow and wanted to share the recipe/process with you guys. Cake pops are easy, fun, and heavenly!

What You Need:

• Red Velvet cake mix (& necessary ingredients to bake it) *1 box yields ~36 cake pops
• 1 container of cream cheese frosting
• 1 bag of candy melts (but I'd buy 2 bags, just to be safe)
• Sprinkles
• Lollipop sticks
• Styrofoam blocks
• Tablespoon measuring spoon
• Pan/tray lined with wax paper

Directions: 

• Step 1: Bake cake as directed on box. Once it's done baking, use a knife to cut around the cake's edges, and cut into 4 pieces. Let cake cool down for 30 minutes.

• Step 2: Once the cake is done cooling down, crumble it up in a mixing bowl. I found that the easiest way to do this is to rub the pieces of cake together, letting the crumbs fall into the mixing bowl below.

• Step 3: Add about half of the container of frosting into mixing bowl. Use your HANDS to mix the crumbs and frosting together until the consistency looks similar how it does in the picture below. Add more frosting if you need to, but don't overdo it! Try rolling some of the mixture into a ball -- if it crumbles/falls apart, add another spoon of frosting for more adhesion.

• Step 4: Roll tablespoon amounts of the mixture into round balls, and place them on the wax paper-lined tray. Place entire tray in freezer for 10 minutes. While you're waiting, heat the candy melts as directed on package. (I used my microwave's defrost setting, stirring the cup of candy melts every 30 seconds.)

• Step 5: Take tray of cake balls out of freezer. Dip the tip of a lollipop stick into the candy melt mixture, and then into a cake ball. Submerge the entire cake ball, and pull it straight out (do NOT twirl the cake ball around in the mixture, or it will fall off of the stick). Tap excess coating off by tipping the cake pop at about a 30 degree angle and gently tapping your wrist. Stick pops into styrofoam block to allow coating to dry.

FINISHED PRODUCT!

Do's & Don't's:

• DO heat the candy melts in a deep container (I used a measuring cup), rather than a shallow bowl, to ensure that the cake balls be fully coated and not hit the bottom of the container when dipped in.
• DON'T heat the candy melts too long. You want it to heat it just long enough to have a smooth consistency. If the mixture is too hot, the candy melt coating will crack as soon as you dip in the cake balls (due to the temperature difference between the hot candy melt mixture and cold cake balls).

Here is a video tutorial that might be easier to follow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpIifr0VOxY

Merry Christmas, everybody!