Holiday Potluck Extravaganza Part 2 - Chocolate Candy Cane Cake Pops

So this is one of those times where I'm going to post something that isn't exactly health-conscious or weight friendly. But srsly, these things are epic.

Chocolate Candy Cane Cake Pops

There are lots of recipes online that you can find for variations of cake pops. I was crunched for time, so unfortunately had to go with the simplest ones (box of cake, can of frosting). There are tons more that have recipes for cake and fun flavours of frosting that you can use.

Step one: Bake a cake. Any cake. I made a box of Betty Crocker French Vanilla. For added candy cane goodness, I added a tablespoon of peppermint extract. Peppermint vanilla cake?! Yeah! Allow the cake to cool.

Step two: Crumble up your cake. If you have a food processor, you can make this step really easy by simply putting in slabs of your cake and pulverizing them. Alternatively, shmos like me without food processors (I know….) can use your hands to do just as fine of a job :)

Step three: Mix in your chocolate frosting. All the recipes I found online suggested using an outrageous amount of frosting (2 cups, or about one entire can of frosting). As I was mixing it in, I realized that this was an INSANE amount of frosting, and changed my recipe to use only ½ the can of frosting (about 1 cup). This will depend on how moist your cake is, but basically you want to end up with a dough that is moist enough that it can hold it’s shape, but not so moist that it gets sticky and sloppy.

Step four: Roll up your cake pops. Depending on how big your cake pops are, you can get at least 30-40 balls or more. I ended up with about 35, but they were pretty big (about an inch in diameter – lesson learned, next time I’m making them smaller. You’ll see why in a minute J). Make it easier – use a little cookie scoop. All I had was a huge ice cream scoop, so I ended up rolling them up by hand. Put the balls in the fridge or freezer to firm up. In the freezer they’ll need about 20-30 minutes, longer in the fridge.

Step five: Melt your chocolate/dipping candy. I used white chocolate wafers (purchased at the bulk store) and melted in the microwave. You could add a little extra “Christmas cheer” by adding a bit of crème de menthe in there. Just sayin’... I also crushed up some candy canes to use for decorating/sprinkling.

Step six: Insert sticks. Easiest way to do this is to insert a stick into the ball first, about halfway down. Dip your stick into your chocolate/candy, and insert into the hole that you made. Put it on a sheet lined with parchment paper. It might be helpful to put them back in the fridge to harden and secure the stick in place. Or you can be fancy and use candy canes instead of sticks. You know. I’m fancy like that.

Step seven: DECORATE!!! I learned the hard way that you need to insert the sticks/candy canes farther than you’d think into the ball, especially if they’re big, because they get top-heavy and fall into the chocolate and make a huge mess and get cake crumbs all in the chocolate and ruin it for all the other cake pops. True story.

Dip your cake pops into your chocolate/candy (mine didn't get dipped all the way due to the top-heaviness, but you can submerge them entirely if the stick/ball can hold it). Hold them upside down (stick side up) and twirl around/tap them gently on the side of the bowl to let the excess run off. If you just flip them stick side down right away, you’ll end up with chocolate/candy running all down the stick and making a big sticky gross mess. Once they’re relatively smooth, you can decorate with sprinkles or whatever you want (or crushed up candy canes!). If you’re using sticks, let your cake pops cool by putting the sticks into a slab of Styrofoam to harden – that way, they won’t get flat tops. Unfortunately candy cane sticks don’t work that way, so I ended up with flat-topped pops. Whatev.

Step eight: Eat them. Eat them all. Mmmmmmmm!