Cupcake Pops

This recipe comes from Bakerella’s blog. She has a bunch of cute ideas on how to decorate cake pops. Bart wanted to bring a treat in to work for a co-workers birthday. I had just recently shown him the cake pops on Bakerella’s blog, and he asked if I could make that. Luckily, I had a 12-inch round chocolate fudge cake in the freezer (from one of the recent wedding cakes I made). I decided to use that cake along with some ganache as the filling for the pops. It worked great! I had a lot of fun making these, and I am excited to try different decorations in the future.

1 13x9-inch cake, baked and cooled
Frosting (Bakerella uses one can of cream cheese frosting; I used homemade chocolate ganache)
1 package chocolate bark (or use chocolate candy melts)
1 package white chocolate bark (or colored candy melts)
Lollipop sticks
Block of styrofoam

Crumble up the cake into a large bowl (you can use a food processor if desired to get finer crumbs). Add frosting or ganache and mix together until well-mixed. Portion into scoops (I used my cookie scoop). Roll into balls and place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover and refrigerate for several hours (or freeze for about 15 minutes).

Begin to shape into cupcakes using a small flower-shaped or round cookie cutter. Roll the ball into an oval and slide into cookie cutter. Push it into cutter until about half fills the cutter and the rest sticks out of the top in the shape of a mound. Then push the shaped cupcake carefully out of the cookie cutter from the bottom. Set right side up on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining balls.

Once shaped, cover and return to freezer for 5 to 10 minutes (or covered overnight in the fridge).

Melt chocolate brown chocolate bark as directed on package. Dip bottoms of cupcake-shaped mixture into the melted chocolate—just to the point where the mounded shape starts. Remove from chocolate, turn upside down and wiggle so that the excess starts to slide down slightly. Then lay on wax paper upside down. Insert lollipop sticks while the chocolate is still wet, dipping end of lollipop stick into melted chocolate before inserting into chocolate bottoms. Continue with rest of cupcakes.

Dry completely (15-20 minutes), then dip tops of cupcakes in pink or white chocolate. Turn right side up, add sprinkles and a mini M&M if desired to top of cupcake. Let them dry in a Styrofoam block that you have already poked holes into.

When completely dry, cover the lollipops with small plastic treat bags and tie with a ribbon.

Makes about 50 (I got 60 this time).