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Friday, March 11, 2011

Cake Pops! My slightly failed experiment

So I recently discovered Bakerella and her uh-mazing cake pops.  I spent hours browsing her blog and admiring her creativity and execution.  I then saw her Sesame Street pops and I stopped right there.  I HAD to make these for my niece and nephew!  They would go bananas for it - they <3 Sesame Street!  And then the obsession began sinking in.  I could feel it washing over me.  Who cares about my pretty nails anymore?  Let's get them dirty with some cake!  So I rushed home from work, rushed over to Michael's and the market and stocked up on supplies for cake pops.  I went bananas, but I was so excited and envisioned myself carrying a huge display of magnificent Sesame Street pops as my niece and nephew squeal and dance around me in delight.  


OMG, these took way longer and were way harder to make than I envisioned.  First off, I didn't calculate in my timing the need to let the cake completely cool after baking.  


Then letting the dough rest after mixing the cake and frosting together.
Then prepping the facial features.
And then chilling the balls.  
And the candy melt?  What a hot mess.  I mean, literally.  I didn't even think of taking a picture because once I was in the thick of things, my hands were covered it sticky cake mix, drying candy melt, and random candy pieces.  My feet ached, my back was sore, and I was sweating like a madwoman.  Then I realized I had forgotten to get a styrofoam block and had to come up with weird contraptions that weren't really holding the pops up.


my Cookie Monster pops came out so deformed
My Elmo ones came out a little better.
Soon I gave up on the pops for the night.  It was past 1am, and I had an 8:30am meeting the next day at work.  What was I thinking?  I crawled into bed and silently cursed the pops.


Next day, I decided to try something different, and make some pug pops!  This involved some improvising, but I really wanted some pug pops.  I figured even if it isn't great, it'll crack me up to have a pug pop and that's what matters most.  So, here are my pug pops.
I made two kinds, with different eyes.

They may look deformed, but they taste delicious!
Sorry buddy.  I ate your face, and it was delicious.

Sunny was intrigued.  She's thinking, "Wait, that looks like a deformed pug, but it smells like something delicious!"
Come closer...
Closer...
Not that close!
Don't worry, I didn't let her eat any of it.  It's chocolate!

So the pops at least taste good.  VERY SWEET though so I couldn't eat more than one.  I'll save the rest for my family.  Now, I'm going to totally veg on my couch and then go to sleep.  EXHAUSTED.

Before I go, behold the many many many failed pops.
And some suspicious pug pops.

2 comments:

  1. These look awesome! You made it sound like such a disaster. At least you were smart enough to buy colored candy melts. My first time, I decided to dye white melts black for Mickey Mouse pops and the entire bowl of chocolate siezed. Yeah, good times indeed! I love the Elmo ones- I think I'll try those next :)

    PS: And using a bowl of rice as a drying base is rather ingenious.

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  2. Haha thanks - you are being generous with your compliments! I think I'll need a cake pop break for a bit, but then I'll try again and fix my mistakes. Also, I should try to save any baking experiments to the weekend and NOT in the middle of the work week!

    The rice bowl was working out pretty well until I used a not so deep bowl for the second base and a bunch of pops fell over, with rice kernels flying all over my kitchen!

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