How to Make Cake Pops: Tangled Birthday Party

Do you want to know how to make cake pops, also called cake balls?  Cake…mixed with icing…on a stick…dipped in chocolate…with sprinkles…yum!

I first learned about them in an article in the Knoxville News Sentinel. Having decided I would make them for my daughter’s birthday party, I thought it would be wise to do a trial run first.

THAT was a good decision.

I was successful in making the cake pops, but I did NOT end up making them for the party for a couple of reasons:

• They take a lot of time (and more patience than I have).
• 25 kids plus adults is a lot of cake pops! And the truth is, the kids don’t really care. They’d be just as happy with grocery store cake.
• I spent about $50 on supplies at Michael’s. Granted, I overbought because I didn’t know what I would actually need. You might be able to get what you need for around $35-40.
• Though dense, a finished cake pop is sort of small, and I was concerned my daughter’s friends would want more than one.

Cake Pop Supplies/Cake Pop Recipe

• Cake Mix (eggs, oil)
• 2 bags of white cake pop sticks (2.99/bag of 20 at Michael’s)
• 2 bags of chocolate melts ($4.29/bag at Michael’s)
• Sprinkles or other decorative items. I got pink and purple and yellow because I was planning to go for Tangled Cake Pops.
• If you are doing individually wrapped cake pops then you will also want to look for little cellophane bags to cover each and then tie with a ribbon.
• Food coloring for the chocolate melts if you want them to be a particular color. Tip – a girl at the store told me to use powder rather than liquid food coloring with the chocolate.
• Styrofoam or green florist planter bricks.
• Plastic wrap

How to Make A Cake Pop

1. Bake a cake and let it cool. I baked a yellow cake in a 9X13 pan.
2. Put the cake in the mixer and use the whisk to crumble the cake. I did a few handfuls of cake at a time and then transferred it to a bowl.
3. Make Icing – I made butter cream.
4. Start adding spoonfuls of icing to the crumbled cake. I just started with a little and kept adding and mixing it with my hands until I reached a consistency that I thought would not fall apart.
5. Roll the mixture into balls and place them on a bare cookie sheet. I experimented with different sizes. The ideal size (in my opinion) was about the size of a half dollar coin. I couldn’t get them perfectly round, but roundish was perfectly acceptable to me.
6. Refrigerate for about 10 minutes.
7. Melt chocolate 30 seconds at at time in the microwave or use a double boiler. You can add color to it, but I just left it white.
8. Next, dip the white sticks in chocolate and pierce the cake pops with them. I refrigerated them again for 10 minutes.
9. Cover your green floral bricks with plastic wrap and set them nearby.
10. Roll the cake pops in the melted chocolate, using a spoon to drizzle chocolate on any places that are missed. The larger cake pops were overwhelmed by their own weight once they were in the chocolate – which is why the smaller ones are what you want to make.
11. Add sprinkles to the pop while the chocolate is still wet and then set the cake pop in the green floral brick to dry.

Okay so there are some really cute cake pops out there. To see more, check out the blogger called Bakerella who popularized the cake pop. She’s amazing. Are you hungry yet?

Since these were supposed to be cake pops for a Tangled Birthday Party, you might also be interested in Tangled Birthday Party ideas.