Pigs, Roosters and Sundaes

So, my second batch of cake pops was a bit hit and miss.

I decided to make the cake from scratch and used the Donna Hay Basic Melt and Mix Vanilla Cake.  This recipe has become a favourite for our birthday cakes, cause it’s so yummy.  I then made a cream cheese icing to put through the mix.

I think I may add a bit less frosting next time.  I’m also not too sure about storing the cake pops, especially those that need to go in the fridge.  To begin with, my cake “dough” was too cold from being in the fridge overnight and when I coated them in the melts, they cracked :o(  The first step was then to leave some “dough” out to come up to room temp a bit before coating them, and this seemed to work.

Then I ended up with a few air bubbles on the coated balls.  Air bubbles are not good as they eventually pop exposing the cake ball beneath, which then does it’s best to escape from the coating.  I assume again that this was because the cake balls had been refrigerated as I did not have this problem with the first batch.

I made the parts for the pig and roosters a couple of days ago and set them aside to give them time to set.  The biggest difference between the Witon-style pops and the Bakerella-style pops is that Wilton tend to use a lot of fondant icing to make all the various bits and pieces, while Bakerella uses ready-made candies.  The drama for us living in Australia is that we don’t have the range of candies that they do in the US (sigh).  Obviously though, using the candies would be a quicker and easier solution as you don’t have to go through the drama of making the bits yourself.  I’ll be doing a bit of net surfing in the next couple of days to see what I can find online.

The rooster and pigs seemed pretty straight forward as you dip the pops and leave them to set and then add the various elements using melted melts (!) for the glue.  Unfortunately my fondant parts were a little on the thick side and, for the roosters, I didn’t have an actual size or shape reference (as Patrick had eaten the last of the previous batch of cake pops).  I think the pigs look reasonable but the roosters are a little scarey!  Oh and I made red beaks and then had to make orange ones.......and then ended up using the red ones!!

I then decided to have a go at making some cupcake bites.  I shaped the balls into something that resembled a cupcake and then returned them to the fridge to firm again.  I dipped the base of the cupcake into pink melts (I still found a spoon the easiest way of dipping).  I put them back into the fridge and then tried to dip the tops in white melts.  Yes, I said “tried”.  Oh my gosh, what a drama.  Let’s just say that I’ll be investing in some cotton chocolate making gloves if I want to try these again in the future.  The base melted while I was trying to hold onto it to dip the tops; and then the darn things wouldn’t stand up once I had dipped them.  I even practiced standing them up before I dipped them only to watch them outsmart me in the end.  And they look a bit more like a sundae than a cupcake :o)