Hoppy Easter and Cake Pops!

Phew I’m exhausted!  Lots of spring cleaning and baking this weekend, along with making a full roast chicken dinner with all the fixings today.  Friday I made the bachelorette cake, and a certain specific area of the cake was refusing to cooperate as the kitchen and my hands were just too warm.  Finally  I got everything to stay put and It was picked up Saturday with no problems.  I was told today it was the centre of the party!  I would love to post pictures but unfortunately for obvious reasons I can’t ;)  Which reminds me, I have leftover Twinkies if anyone is interested!  Since this party was only for about 12 people I had leftover cake, and hating to waste food I knew the perfect way to use it.

I have been admiring the gorgeous cake pops over at Bakerella for some time, and have been just looking  for an excuse to attempt the sweet gems.  Easter and leftover cake gave me the perfect reason!  Bakerella has generously included her instructions for cake pops and Cupcake Bites on her site, which was really useful, because it was trickier than it looked!

I started with the cupcake pops, using the method of chocolate peanut butter cup moulds.  I made up the cake balls (crumble prepared cake, mix with frosting, and ta-da!) and popped them in the freezer.  While they chilled I melted milk chocolate chips and poured in the mould for the base.  I then took out the cake balls and pushed them into the chocolate mould and stuck them back in the freezer. 

When the chocolate was set, I popped them out of their moulds (which you have to do very carefully I found out, or the cake balls will break off from the base very easy!)  I stuck lollipop sticks right through the chocolate bottoms, and then put them in the fridge to firm up once again.

While they chilled I mixed white and red compound chocolate to make pink for the top.  When they were chilled and firmed up  I dipped them in the pink chocolate.  This was the tricky part, as its hard to keep the chocolate from dripping down everywhere and coating the cake ball evenly.  I found spooning the chocolate over the one side to be helpful for completely coating it.  Then you patiently leave them to set, before digging in.

 

I also tried simple cake pops by shaping them into eggs (although I must admit they only bare a very vague similarity to eggs!)

I had a lot of fun with the Wilton sprinkles I found at Michaels…

Although decorating them made me appreciate how truly talented Bakerella is!

My sister brought my niece and nephew over today for an Easter egg hunt around our living room and a sugar-high filled afternoon with the Wii.  My sister and niece loved the pops, though my 6 year old nephew didn’t partake because he hates cake (apparently that IS possible!).   They are rather sweet depending on your cake/icing combination but very yummy…as my niece can attest to, as she had two while my sister was busy (Sorry sis!)

Hope you all had a Happy Easter!