Halloween Cake Pops!

One thing I’ve seen LOADS of on Pinterest recently is Halloween themed cake pops, so I decided I wanted to give them a go myself. Now I don’t know if you’ve seen my previous cake pop attempt (here) but I really wanted to try again using the tips I received after the last failed attempt.

  

I used the exact same recipe as last time which can be found here however this time I decided to make the cupcakes a green colour (they look more like brown though!). 

 When they were cooked, I let them cool, then stuck the cake pop sticks into them using a bit of melted chocolate to secure them. I then put them in the freezer overnight. This was a tip I received and I am so glad I did it this way! My problem last time was that the cakes crumbled when I coated them so by using frozen cake pops, I didn’t have this problem.

I decided to decorate the first half to look like mummies to keep with the Halloween theme. I simply dipped the pops into white chocolate, then when the first layer had cooled, I drizzled lines onto them to resemble bandages and then added a couple of ‘eyes’ with black icing. 

They look so cute! I am really pleased with how they came out.

I then decorated the second half of my cake pop batch to look like pumpkins. I couldn’t find any orange gel colouring at late notice so they’re more of a peach colour, but I don’t think they turned out too bad, and they were really easy.

Once again I added features using a black gel icing.

I can’t believe how easy these were to do, especially now that I know to freeze the cake pops before decorating them, I can’t wait to try some different designs! (Maybe Christmas ones?!)

Pop! goes the cake ball.

I have well and truly caught the baking bug! I’ve seen cake pops everywhere at the moment and couldn’t wait to try them out. I saw recently that Pound Land had cake pop moulds in stock, which is brilliant when other shops are selling them from £7-£10, but  when I went to pick some up, I thought they looked a bit small, so I picked up my cake pop set and recipe book from The Works (here) and got my sticks from Poundland.

These couldn't be simpler to make, and the recipe was exactly the same as if I was baking cupcakes, and I followed the below method. I wanted my cake balls to look like mini watermelons!

 Ingredients

2 x Eggs

120g Flour

120g Sugar

120g Butter
Few Drops of Vanilla Essence
Pink Food Colouring
Chocolate Chips

For the Outside

100g White Chocolate (Melted)
Green Food Colouring

Recipe:

Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.

Add the eggs one at a time and mix thoroughly.

Slowly add the flour and mix until smooth.

Add Vanilla Essence to taste (for Vanilla Cupcakes of course!)
Stir in choc chips & food colouring!

Add to mould and bake in the oven at 180 Degrees for 15-20 Minutes or until Golden

 

It really is that simple! Or so I thought..

I mixed up my ingredients and placed the cake batter into the first mould. I then put the second mould on top and stuck these in the oven. I was a bit dubious that they wouldn’t work, especially as I wasn’t able to check on them or see how they were rising.

After about 20 minutes, I took them out and let them cool. I removed the mould and to my wonder, I was left with cake balls! They didn't actually look TOO bad.

When the cake balls had cooled off I prepared my coating. For this, I melted white chocolate and added green food colouring as I wanted them to look like mini watermelon balls. I then stuck my cake balls onto the sticks, and dipped them into the chocolate. This is where it all when horribly wrong. The sponge just fell off the sticks. I was left with a big gloopy lumpy mess. It was all going so well too!

Perhaps I should have chilled my balls before I coated them? Perhaps the chocolate didn't melt enough? All I know is that my lovely cake balls were ruined. They look horrible. I wouldn't feed them to my dog (although I can confirm they didn't taste too bad). 
 
These are on the same scale as the time I tried to make a peppa pig cake for my sister's birthday. That also went horribly wrong, but that's a story for another day.

 I will learn from my mistakes, and try again another time! Any tips are welcome!