Well, this one was supposed to go up yesterday evening, but we had a pretty good storm here so our computer was off most of the evening. So you get it today! Continuing on with our 4th of July theme, we have a Pinstrosity from Kris: The Cake Pop Flag.
The Original Pin
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| http://www.myjuicecup.com/4th-of-july-cake-pops/ |
Kris tells us, "I decided to be super festive for 4th of July, and make this really cool looking dessert. I had made oreo truffles before, so I figured these cake balls would be super easy....they were not."
The Pinstrosity
Not bad. I'd still eat them. Let's see where she ran into trouble.
- "I didn't know where to buy 'candy melts' in my small town, so I used dipping white chocolate likes from the oreo truffles. I came to find out really quick that you CANT add food coloring to dipping chocolate because it makes it seize up. That cost me another trip to the grocery store."
- For coloring chocolate you have to use a powder or oil based food coloring. A good tutorial for coloring white chocolate can be found here. These dyes aren't usually in regular grocery stores, they will either need to be ordered online or found through a specialty baking store.
- Obviously everywhere is a little different, but I've seen different colored candy melts at many Walmart. If there is a Walmart near you (and in our family near is relative...the closest Walmart growing up was always at least an hour away...now it's 1 1/2 hours for my parents in their new house), check out their cake decorating aisle...they may have what you're looking for.
- "The balls do not come out so round and nice and perfect."
- This can be kinda tricky, as I have found out from my personal experience. They say that if you get the right cake to frosting ratio that it makes it easier. One website suggests 2 c. of frosting per cake mix. Another website says 1/2 the frosting in the container to 1 cake mix. Anyway, getting the consistency right helps, and then you should refrigerate the cake balls for about 2 hours. When I first did this I froze the balls, but since then I have learned that refrigerating them kinda dries them out a little bit and that freezing them can leave a layer of water on the outside (and chocolate and water don't mix).
- "The website that this came from didn't explain how to make cake pops, so I had to find the website to do that so I was working from 2."
- I'm not sure which websites Kris was working from, but here are 2 that I think are quite handy
- "Now that I'm looking at the website again, it does say that she rolled them in chocolate to make them like truffles. I don't know how she found colored chocolate or made it colored because I tried multiple outlets."
- Cake pops are essentially cake truffles, but cake pops is just more catchy of a name I think.
- If you can't find the colored chocolate/candy melts near you, you can order them. Wilton is the brand many stores carry and you can order online at their website.
- I thought Kris' solution was quite good...colored sugar crystals. One thing that could have helped in the presentation is instead of sprinkling the crystals on top (which is what it looks like from the picture), right after dipping the balls in the chocolate, roll it in the crystals. This will give color over the whole pop and help the color stick to the balls better.
- "I also found that freezing them was a lot easier than just chilling in the refrigerator, because the chocolate was too hot to dip them in without them falling apart. The freezer didn't make them come out any worse. They tasted fine to me and every one else at my party."
- Freezing them definitely won't hurt them, and it is faster than refrigerating them, but sometimes it can affect the dipping chocolate if there is too much water on the outside of the frozen cake balls (this is more of an issue in places with high humidity).
- "This gave me no insight on how much cake mix or frosting to buy, or how many a single cake mix batch would yield. I found that one box of Duncan Hines and half of my frosting recipe made about 55 balls...too bad I needed about 88 to make the whole flag, so I had to make a whole other cake too."
- It's true. I haven't seen anywhere how many cake pops one cake mix will make. Now we know! Thanks Kris!
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