Chocolate Cupcake Pops

As an avid baker (and crafter), I'm always looking for new projects to explore.  I pride myself on trying to be a few months ahead of the curve, picking up on the next big baking trend before it catches on (basically if I get there before Wilton does, then I'm happy).  So last fall I came across an awesome looking book called Cake Pops by Angie Dudley, and I immediately snatched it up.  The premise was simple, little balls of cake on sticks, dipped in candy coating and decorated in tons of different ways.  I loved how cute and colorful they were.  More importantly, I loved how original they were (I had never seen anything like this before; cut to six months later when Wilton released its line of Pops tools and decorating ideas...).

Over the course of the next few months, I made several attempts at cake pops and cake balls with varying success.  The biggest issue I had came with dipping the cake in candy coating.  Candy coating is a cocoa butter based dipping ingredient with a chocolate-like consistency (emphasis on the "like").  I hate this stuff.  It's sickly sweet (and not in a good, chocolatey way, but in a bad artificial kind of way) with a thick, overly viscous texture. It's also extremely difficult to work with.  Even thinning it down with shortening, vegetable oil or paramount crystals cannot make this product enjoyable to me.  However, I seem to be in the minority when it comes to appreciation for candy coating as a tasty sweet treat.  So I suck it up and continue to work with it for several of my projects.

I hadn't attempted cake pops in some time, but I got a sudden craving for cake this week, so I decided I was ready to try again.  I went for cupcake pops this time.

Cake Stats:

Cake Pop:  chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, shaped into cupcakes and placed on sticks

Decoration:  candy coating in light cocoa, pink, blue and purple with sprinkles (jimmies and non-pareils) and M&Ms (in dark pink and aqua)

I followed the basic method for making cupcake pops in Angie Dudley's book.  The basic instructions can be found here on Bakerella.com.

Whenever I make chocolate cake, I only use one recipe.  It's actually the one that's printed on the back of Hershey's unsweetened cocoa.  It's also on the Hershey website here (minus the frosting).  This cake is extremely moist with a rich, chocolatey flavor.  It's the best chocolate cake recipe I've ever tried.

To achieve the cupcake shape for these pops, the bottom half of the cake ball is pressed in a miniature cookie cutter.  Dudley recommends a 1 1/4" diameter flower shaped cutter (you can also use a fluted petit four cutter, but it is more difficult).  My cutter came in a set of Wilton mini Easter cookie cutters, which may be tough to find year round.  Luckily, the flower cutter is also available in the Wilton romantic mini cookie cutter set, which you can find at basically any Michael's store.

Based on the images in Dudley's book, it appears that she shapes the "cupcake" while holding the cookie cutter in one had and pressing the cake ball in with the other.  Using this method, I found it rather difficult to get a nice mounded top for the "cupcake".  Instead, after pressing the lower portion of cake into the cutter, I placed it on the table top (on a sheet of parchment) and basically flattened the remaining exposed cake with my palm to create a nice mound.

Bottom Line: These cupcake pops are quite cute and fun to eat (I mean isn't anything on a stick more fun to eat?  Wait, don't answer that).  In terms of flavor, they aren't my favorite (see my diatribe on candy coating above), but their looks make up for it (partially).

Daily Monku:  I made a stop at the M&Ms store in Times Square recently to buy some fun colored M&Ms for the cupcake pops, and I couldn't believe the horrible, tacky crap they sell there.  Are you really going to buy an M&Ms bathrobe?  And wear it with your M&Ms pajamas and M&Ms underwear?  Are you going to drink from an M&Ms coffee mug (okay, I'll give you that one, maybe)?  But dinner plates? Really?  This store reeks of Affluenza.