For the past few weeks Shelly’s Friday Favourites has focused on foodie trends, and we’ve covered gourmet popcorn (with bacon), berry creations, and even artisan homemade ketchup. This week we’re branching out a bit and heading into wedding territory to explore another food trend—cake pops.
I know what you’re thinking, cake pops have been around for awhile, so how are they part of 2015 foodie trends? Yes, you can find cake pops almost everywhere these days, but certain foods seem to trend when something that’s been done flips and goes in another direction completely.
Case in point? Cake pops have become one of the hottest wedding accessories out there. They’re easy to make, bite-sized, and are the perfect cake replacement if you don’t want to have a huge wedding cake to share with everyone.
The best part of cake pops as a wedding favour or wedding dessert is how cute they are. I’ve seen cake pops look like a lot of different things, from owls to zombies and the odd beaver, and they were cute, but they weren’t as amazing as wedding cake pops.
Put wedding cake pops at your place settings, create a huge tower of wedding cake pops and use them as your cake, or just have these bite-sized cuties randomly placed around the room at your reception—there’s no limit to what you can do with cake pops.
If you’re planning a wedding or you know a bride who needs some ideas, suggest these cake pops to her. Here’s the recipe and directions for a bride and groom cake pops.
Creating the cake pop
I’ve looked high and low for a good cake pop recipe, and they all seem to come back to using a cake mix. I’m not the biggest fan of cake mixes, mostly because I find it just as easy to make things from scratch as it would be to whip up a cake mix, but for cake pops mixes seem to work better.
This photo and recipe is from divascancook.com, and it’s the best I’ve tried. It’s a great basis for a big batch of wedding-themed cake pops.
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Ingredients: Chocolate Cake, prepared (I used ½ of a 9×13 devils food box cake) Chocolate Frosting (amount depends on moistness of cake. I used two big spoonfuls.) 2 boxes Premium white chocolate ( I used Baker’s brand) Cake pop sticks Sprinkles |
Directions
Add cake to a large bowl.
Crumble until it resembles fine crumbs
Add in frosting a little bit at a time until cake is moist and can hold a ball shape, yet still slightly crumbly.
Use your hands to incorporate the frosting into the cake crumbs.
Use a mini ice cream scoop and scoop out two balls of cake mixture.
Roll the mixture into a tight ball and place on a plate.
Repeat until all the cake mixture has been rolled into balls.
Melt 2-4 ounces of white chocolate in the microwave.
Dip the tip of the cake pop sticks into the white chocolate and insert into the cake balls about half-way.
Freeze for about 20 minutes.
Now that you have your cake pops, you’re ready to turn them into wedding cake pops. Here are step-by-step directions and a photo from chocoley.com to create tiny bride and groom cake pops.
1. After the balls are chilled, melt WHITE chocolate using instructions a double boiler (or a double boiler insert). Do not let the water touch the bottom of the double boiler. Only let the water simmer. Do not allow it to boil or you may burn the chocolate.
If you must use a microwave, melt on medium heat for short periods being very careful not to overheat the chocolate.
Using the sucker stick as a “handle”, dip one frozen cake pop at a time into the melted chocolate and turn to coat. Tap your hand on the side of the bowl to let any excess chocolate drip off back into the bowl.
Place on Heavy Weight Dipping Sheets, glossy side up, and refrigerate on a level shelf until set-up (hardened).
2. For the Grooms
Melt DARK chocolate the same way you melted the white chocolate.
Once the white chocolate has set, hold the cake pop by the stick and dip into dark chocolate at a 45° angle on one side, and then the next side to make the jacket. Remember – only do half of the cake pops since this is for the groom.
Place on Heavy Weight Dipping Sheets and refrigerate until set-up.
Melt dark Chocolate (directions on squeeze bottle).
After the dark balls are set-up, use dark chocolate to draw a bow tie and buttons.
Return to refrigerator to set-up.
3. For the Brides
Melt white Chocolate.
On the bride (white) cake balls, decorate with white chocolate in desired pattern and immediately sprinkle with White Nonpareils.
Return to refrigerator to set-up.
Option: Tie small white bows as shown in photograph.
Seal in an airtight container until ready to serve. Store at room temperature in low humidity.
There are so many different varieties of wedding cake pops, you won’t be able to stop at making just one kind.
Here’s a look at some of the baking accessories you’ll need to make a big batch of wedding cake pops.
 A cake pop maker makes creating the cake pop easy |
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While you’re shopping for cake pop supplies, take a peek at the wedding rings Bestbuy.ca carries |
Main image from myhoneybunch.bigcartel.com
