Cake Pops: An Experiment

Up until last week, I’d only ever had one cake pop. I can remember it well. It was bought into our office by a supplier, attractively wrapped in cellophane, a milk chocolate pop, and just asking to be eaten.

I sunk my teeth through the crisp chocolate only to be absolutely horrified. A cake I didn’t like! After the initial excitement of the crunchy chocolate layer, I was met with a dense, thick, almost marzipan-like centre. Most definitely no like-y. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against marzipan (Christmas cake just wouldn’t be right without it), but a normal day-to-day cake, or even cake pop, should be light, tasty and fresh.

Disappointed, I warned my colleagues off trying any of the other pops, telling them to stick to our abundance of Easter chocolate instead.

My comeuppance on cake pops came last week, when I was making Rob’s birthday cake. Trimming the cake to shape had left me with quite a lot of off-cuts, and not wanting them to go to waste, I tentatively decided to try my hand at making these little cakes on sticks – if they are so bang on trend that even topshop is selling them – how could I not?! Personally, I’ve always been fine with cupcakes the way they are… cake on the bottom, icing on the top. Simple but VERY effective!

The cake pop process is relatively simple – rub your cake into fine crumbs, and mix with buttercream:

Once mixed, refrigerate, roll into balls, cover in chocolate, and tada! The one upside is that they’re incredibly simple – no icing nozzles, delicately covering in fondant etc.

I kept the decoration simple on these – a quick dip in some simple sugar sprinkles. Don’t they look funny close up!

And that was that. Looks-wise, I was quite impressed with my first try at cake pops:

Taste-wise, they weren’t bad either. Still not a cupcake though. At this point, if I’m honest, I’d rather still have the cupcake, and a piece of chocolate on the side.

BUT… the real revelation came a couple of days after. I’d left the pops in the fridge so they didn’t melt, and happened upon them while look for something to make for dinner. A sneaky bite into a very well chilled cake pop… yum! Sweet, crunchy chocolate, and a cool, creamy centre, with a great taste of delicate cake, all mingled into one yummy mouthful. I was a convert!

And the ultimate test? (Rob doesn’t count, he eats anything!) Even Chilli the cat wanted a bite =)