I Made Cake Pops…well, almost.

You know that birthday cake I baked for Pete?  Well, we all enjoyed looking at it, and singing a Happy Birthday song, and then we had some cake.

But you know, there’s only so much 2 adults and 2 kids can eat.  And the 2 adults don’t really crave cake all that much either.  I didn’t want the kids to load up on sugar the whole day long too.

So I kept the cake in the fridge for a few days, and after that, I decided that instead of throwing it out, I would give cake pops a go. 🙂

I had read so much about cake pops and I was itching to try my hand out at it.

Well, turns out making cake pops was much harder that I’d thought.

I had used the remainder of  my chocolate ganache instead of frosting and at the point of rolling out the balls of cake pops, it still looked good.  But once I put the melted chocolate and decorations on and placed them on the sticks to dry, disaster happened.

To my horror, the cake balls started sliding down the sticks!  And the chocolate didn’t really dry up and set as I’d expected them to.  In the end, all of my cake pops were transformed into cake balls.  I like to call them pretty chocolate truffles.  Thank goodness for mini cupcake liners! 😀

However, I was still unsatisfied on the outcome and tried to rescue them by placing the cake balls in the fridge to set for a bit.  Then I plunged the sticks onto them and served them immediately.  Happy faces greeted them and I was a happy momma too!

Here’s a post-mortem of why I think my cake pops failed at first and how to overcome them in future:

1. After the cake balls have been chilled in the freezer for about 20 minutes, I should NOT have taken all of them out at the same time.  The heat in Malaysia is horrendous, and could have caused early melting of the cake pops.
2. After decorating, cake pops should be chilled in the refrigerator to ensure the cake pops stay in place.
3. Cake pops should be served cold and should not and can not be left out in the open for too long.  This might seem a problem if I’m gonna serve this at a party in Malaysia.  See point no. 1 above.
4. Using melted chocolate chips was probably not the best idea.  I should have used candy melts instead, except I don’t know where to find them here.  Melted chocolate does not set very fast, and hence causes the melting.
5. Could using popsicle sticks have been better than satay sticks?  I had used the latter, simply because I only had those at hand.

Anything else I could have done better?  Well maybe there is a reason why cupcakes fare better here in Malaysia compared to cake pops.  In any case, after watching my antics in the kitchen that day, my daughter has taken to creating imaginary cake pops from Legos and other toys, complete with flavors and toppings. 🙂