Chocolate Cake Pops and Cake Truffles

Cake Pops or Cake Truffles or Cake balls or Cakesicles  – whatever you call these beauties, I'll tell you they are extremely delicious, totally melts in your mouth and is a super fun way to eat cake! 
Cake pops are nothing but cake balls (made by mixing cake with frosting) and served on lollipop sticks. They can be decorated and made quite as fancy as a regular cake and the ideas are endless.

I have made these before and had shared them with friends and they all loved it and had asked me to share the recipe and technique, but I never got a chance. I made them again for lil'Appu's 2^nd Birthday Party, mainly to match with the bubble theme. Everyone, specially the kids loved it and I must say except for a few, all my cake pops got over at the party. I took the remaining ones to my office the next day and all my colleagues raved about it and wanted me to share the recipe.

What you need to get started with making these cake pops/cake truffles are - a good cake recipe and desired frosting of choice.

I decided to go for a Chocolate cake for the cake pops as the birthday cake was a White Cake. I used Ree’s Chocolate Cake recipe and it was fabulous. The cake was moist, flavorful and just perfect!  And I made my favorite eggless Chocolate Buttercream frosting. (Click the links to get the recipes)

With this cake recipe I was able to make around 45-50 cake balls (approx.) I made around 25 cake pops, 15 cake truffles and left the remaining just as plain cake balls coated with a bit of colored sugar on top.  Whichever way it’s made, these things just melt in your mouth and are just heavenly.  (Ahem, pls don't mind the teeth impressions, I just wanted to show how fudgy they look inside :-P )

Here’s a few that I made a while ago using a boxed Chocolate cake mix (my first trial) . I used homemade Chocolate Ganache coating and went quite wild with the toppings :-) I rolled some in crushed roasted hazelnuts, few in dry coconut flakes, some in sprinkles and left few plain. My friends just loved these, me too! :-) Though the cake balls were the same flavor the toppings added a different zing and huge flavor to each cake pop!!

How to make Cake Pops
Cake balls propped on a lollipop stick, can there be a better and fun way to eat cake?

You’ll need

For cake pops

1 Chocolate Cake or Boxed Cake mix (9x13" or 9x2")
2-3 cups of frosting (can use canned frosting of choice too)
Lollipop sticks – as needed
For coating:
Candy melts – 1 or 2 packs (as needed) 
or
Chocolate Ganache -  2 cups 

Directions
1. Once your cake has cooled down to room temp (or refrigerated) , crumble it. Yes, break down your gorgeous cake into itsy bitsy pieces. Some people suggest using a food processor to crumble it, I just used my favorite tools - my hands!!

(You can see my lil’Appu is everywhere, nosing around to see what I’m upto !)
       

2.  To the crumbled cake bits, add desired frosting a little at a time and mix until it forms a smooth dough. It shouldn't be overly sticky but enough to hold well and not crumble apart when pinched together.

3. Roll them into equal sized balls (using an icecream scoop or spoon) and place them on a large baking tray or plate lined with wax paper.  Refrigerate until really cold covered with plastic wrap. Your cake balls are ready.

4. If using candy melts, melt the candy in a double boiler until its melted and smooth. Take a lollipop stick, dip it a little bit in the melted candy and slowly insert the stick, dipped end first, into the cake ball (this helps the cake ball to stick to the lollipop stick) 
Slowly dip the entire cake pop into the candy coating and tap off the excess coating from the cake pop and let it stand upright by resting it on a Styrofoam block or place it upside down until hardened. Decorate with desired toppings before the coating hardens. 

Note: The candy melts can harden fast , so keep them warm on a double boiler on low heat or microwave every 7-10 mins.

5. Repeat the same step # 4 if using Chocolate Ganache coating as well. Make sure the ganache isn't too thin but smooth and thick and tap off any excess.

What I did:  As I was a bit impatient, instead of dipping the cake pops into the candy melts, I just scooped out the melted candy and rolled it around the cake pops, giving it sort of a swirly pattern. You can do that as well ;-) 

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How to Make Cake Truffles
You make melt-in-your-mouth Cake truffles that taste just as great as their Cake Pop counterparts + you can save on the lollipop sticks ;-)

1.  Get the Cake balls ready.
2.  Melt the candy melts or prepare chocolate ganache. Dip and roll the cake balls in it using a slotted spoon or fork, drip off any excess coating and place them on candy wrappers or decorative mini cupcake liners and decorate as desired.

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Need another idea? 

Save all the extra work of propping up a lollipop stick or candy coating by just serving these Cake Balls just as it is with some simple decoration options!

1.  Sprinkle the top with colored sugar for a festive look...or roll them whole in the sugar.
2.  Roll them into dry coconut flakes or crushed nuts or colorful sprinkles - like how I've done above (sans the ganache coating and lollipop sticks ofcourse)

3.  Ummm.... and my last option - Serve them plain, dusted with powdered sugar on top :-) 

If you have any more ideas do share, would love to hear.

You can also do Fondant decorations for cake pops, but that's upto you!

 Try it out sometime and let me know. It may sound time consuming but its really easy and just takes almost the same time you would need to decorate a whole cake. Again, if you feel you have questions feel free to Contact Me or reach me on my Facebook page where I'm pretty active. See you all soon...

-Manju