Cake Pops and Cakesicles

Cake Pops and Cakesicles are a delicious treat made from crumbled sponge cake and buttercream combined, before dipping or moulding in chocolate.

Cake Pops and Cakesicles do have a reputation for being time consuming and tricky, but they can be a joy to make once you get the technique right! I hope this information will help you to get into your Cake Pop groove!

While there is no exact recipe for Cake Pops and Cakesicles, I will explain the fundamentals below.

Ingredients

• Sponge cake of choice
• Buttercream
• Coating Chocolate. We recommend S&C Melt and Pour
• Oil based colourings: Colour Pop Cocoa Colours
• Flavour Shot for coating chocolate (optional)

Making the filling

To make the filling, you simply crumble the sponge cake into a fine crumb and add small amounts ob buttercream until it forms a dough. My preferred method is to do this in a food processor. Pop the Sponge into the food processor and blitz until fine, then add a little buttercream (a tsp at a time) while blitzing until the dough forms a ball.

You can use a hand mixer or do this by hand, but make sure to crumb as fine as you can.

Adding too much buttercream to the mixture can cause your cake pops to fall off the sticks when dipping. This is less of an issue when making Cakesicles though.

Cake Pop dough can be frozen for up to three months.

Cake Pop Method

1. Scoop even amounts of cake pop dough and roll into balls. Place these balls onto a baking sheet before chilling for 10mins. Chilling is solely for the purpose of setting the butter inside the dough. Cake balls should be room temperature before dipping to prevent the coating from cracking.
2. Melt your coating in short bursts in the microwave, in a container deep enough to fully submerge a cake ball.
3. If you are using a Flavour Shot, Sieve in 12-15g per 500g of Chocolate, then stir in.
4. To Colour, stir in a few drops of Cocoa Colour.
5. Dip the end of a lolly stick in the chocolate, before inserting rough 2/3 through a cake ball. Allow this to set completely before dipping.
6. To Dip, submerge the cake ball completely in the chocolate. Do not twist the stick as that will break the chocolate seal holding the cake ball in place. Tap the excess chocolate from the cake ball by lightly tapping your holding hand with your free hand.
7. Stand in a cake pop stand until the coating has set.

Cakesicle Method

1. Pour a little melted chocolate into your mould, then spread to ensure an even coating. Add your lolly stick before it sets.
2. Add a second coating of chocolate to ensure a strong shell.
3. Once the second coat has set, fill the chocolate coated cavity with cake pop dough. Make sure to leave enough room to back the cakesicle with chocolate.
4. Allow to set completely before removing from the mould.

Troubleshooting

If your cake balls are falling off the sticks, its could be caused by a few different issues.

• Too much buttercream in the dough. Resolve this by adding a bit more sponge crumb to the dough and blitzing again.
• Twisting the stick in the chocolate. Dip straight down and pull out straight up!
• Coating is too thick. If your coating is thickening, it may need a few seconds in the microwave again. If your coating chocolate is too thick from the start, you may need to add a little vegetable oil to loosen it.
• Tapping too hard or at the wrong angle. If your cake ball starts falling off the stick while tapping, the chances are you are tapping a bit too hard. A 45 degree angle is perfect for tapping. the closer you get to 90 degrees, the more likely you are to lose your cake ball!