Paper Straw Cake Pops

My sister is getting married on Saturday and I am making some cake pops for the wedding. I wanted to do a trial run before making the wedding cake pops. The ones for the wedding will have gray and white paper straws with a light green shell on the cake pop. Even though it seems like everyone out there already knows how to make cake pops and cake balls, I’ve had a hard time getting the cake pops to look good so I thought I would share how I did it. I followed tutorials from here and here to help me.

{The batteries on my external flash need to be replaced so I apologize for the poor quality of these pictures.}
I baked a white cake in a 9×13 inch pan and allowed it to cool completely. Then, I crumbled the entire cake into a large mixing bowl.

I mixed in 3/4 of a container of store bought vanilla frosting. Then, using a metal tablespoon I scooped the mixture pressing it firmly against the side of the bowl and slid it out of the spoon with my thumb.

I rolled the balls between the palms of my hands making sure to press the mixture firmly together. Every so often I had to wash my hands before continuing to make more balls. I put the cake balls on a wax paper covered pan and placed them in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

Before starting to insert the paper straws, I cut them in half so they wouldn’t be so long. Then, I melted 1/4 cup of white chocolate chips in the microwave. I dipped the end of a paper straw in the melted chocolate and inserted it into the cake ball. Next, I place the cake balls in the freezer for 10 minutes to let the chocolate harden.

While the cake balls were in the freezer, I melted 2 cups of white chocolate chips with 2 tablespoons of shortening in a double boiler. Here is my fancy schmancy double boiler…a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water. No, there isn’t 2 cups of white chocolate chips in the bowl. I took this picture while dipping strawberries but wanted to show how I do it. When using this method, be sure that the water is simmering, not boiling and that it does not touch the bottom of the bowl. Once the white chocolate melted, I removed the bowl from the pot but I left the water simmering so that I could remelt the chocolate as needed.

I removed the cake pops from the freezer and coated them with the white chocolate. I used to think I had to dip the pops into the chocolate but instead I twirled the cake pops into the white chocolate making sure to cover it completely.

Still holding the cake pop horizontally, I allowed the excess white chocolate to drizzle off the cake pop. To speed it up a bit I used a gentle side-to-side shaking motion. I also tried gently tapping the arm that was holding cake pop with the hand from my other arm.

This is what happens if the cake pops are frozen before dipping them. The cake pop expands after being coated and cracks the shell. I had left a few of the cake pops in the freezer while coating the first bunch and I guess I didn’t let them thaw enough before coating them. Three of my cake pop shells cracked. While I still had melted white chocolate, I redipped 2 of the cake pops that I noticed had cracks. The third cracked cake pop escaped my notice.

I am pleased with how they turned out and hope the ones I make for the wedding turn out as well as these ones did. I will be using candy melts and don’t have a lot of experience with them. If I end up having issues, I will make them with white chocolate and drizzle the candy melts on top.

Have you had success making cake pops or cake balls?