Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Cupcake Pops

I had honestly meant to post this sooner rather than later, but along with many other items in my house, my camera usb cord to upload the pics decided to walk off and hide. I decided in answer to that after scavenging the place up and down, it was time to clean the house..especially since the place looked like a warzone after Christmas.

First, I will as promise, share my cupcake pops experience. I thought it was an excellent ideas as favors to Madeline's upcoming first birthday and was excited to see if they turned out remotely as cute as what they appeared when I first saw them online. They cost WAY less than trying to buy them already made as well.

Of course, in every situtation where I find myself mimicking a craft, nothing ever goes as perfect as you think it will in your head...as it did not with me.

So I shall start first with the ingredients really needed:

1 box of red velvet cake mix (or whatever type you wish)
2 cans of 16 oz Cream Cheese cake frosting
2-3 bags of your choice candy melts, I chose red, white, and chocolate
Sprinkles and Red M&M's (not required)
Popsicle Sticks
Styrofoam square
Wilton Tulip shaped Cookie Cutter
Treat Bags

For viewing purposes, I have included my lovely display of items gathered:
                                                 
Now, notice the tulip cookie cutter I am holding. I bought this seperately at Hobby Lobby thinking it was the same as the one requested to make the cupcake pops. Don't make the same mistake I did. You will need the Wilton tulip that comes with a pack that looks like this:


The difference is the cookie cutters in the pack are a lot smaller and will form the dough better for the cupcake pop. Mine turned out too big to create a cupcake, so I had to form it with my hands.

Before I get ahead of myself, you will first want to bake the cake as instructed from the back of the cake box. Let it cool, and take the cake and put in the blender and pulse until ground up in crumbs.

Once the cake was ground up, I put the cake in a bowl and stirred in some cream frosting a little at a time until the cake was easy to form in my hands. If the mixture is falling apart, you will need to add more.
Once I was able to get a good consistency, I took an ice cream scoop and scooped the dough into balls. I put them on a wax lined pan and in the freezer they went for 15 minutes. You can put them in the fridge too, but it may take about 30 min instead. Multi-tasking works best for time conserving, so while you wait on your little freezer-balls, you can heat up your candy melts. I started with the chocolate first. Heat in 30 second increments until smooth. If it seems stiff, you can add a small amount of vegetable oil.

Once the doughballs were firm enough, I took them back out and (at this time found out the tulip cutter did not work) prepare to shape them into cupcakes. If you do have a tulip cutter that works, shape the balls into an elongated oval shape and press the tulip halfway into the ball. This will form a little bottom ridge and you can shape the top into a rounder cupcake shape. Pull out and put back on the pan. Continue to do the same with the rest.
For you poor saps like me, do your best to flatten one end against your hand and then slightly roll with your hands like you would clay, this will create the bottom part of the cupcake. Round out the top as best as you can.

Remember the chocolate melts? These come in to play now. I made sure the chocolate was smooth enought that it dripped.

Because the melts cool  quickly, you will now dip the bottom of the cupcakes in the chocolate melt, swirl, and place back on wax lined pan. I put the popsicle sticks through these immediately to avoid cracking the chocolate later.



Pop these sucker's back in the freezer for a couple more min to set and heat up your top color for the candy melts. My choice was red and white chocolate to make coral pink.


Dip the top of the cupcake into the pink, swirl, top with sprinkles and a red m&m for a cherry and set in the styrofoam board to dry.

 




When dry, add a treat bag and tie with ribbon.

And you have a cute cupcake pop assembly! I got a lot of compliments on the taste of these, and tried them myself..sort of resemble zebra cakes!

No comments:

Welcome





Welc
ome to my babble blog! Here you will find: the random musings of a full-time stay-at-home mom and wife/part-time leasing specialist for three apartment communities, all-the-time crafter, whole-hearted worshipper, in-progress follower of Jesus Christ, and spontaneous hyper individual.

Because there are just so many facets of me..





Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Cupcake Pops

I had honestly meant to post this sooner rather than later, but along with many other items in my house, my camera usb cord to upload the pics decided to walk off and hide. I decided in answer to that after scavenging the place up and down, it was time to clean the house..especially since the place looked like a warzone after Christmas.

First, I will as promise, share my cupcake pops experience. I thought it was an excellent ideas as favors to Madeline's upcoming first birthday and was excited to see if they turned out remotely as cute as what they appeared when I first saw them online. They cost WAY less than trying to buy them already made as well.

Of course, in every situtation where I find myself mimicking a craft, nothing ever goes as perfect as you think it will in your head...as it did not with me.

So I shall start first with the ingredients really needed:

1 box of red velvet cake mix (or whatever type you wish)
2 cans of 16 oz Cream Cheese cake frosting
2-3 bags of your choice candy melts, I chose red, white, and chocolate
Sprinkles and Red M&M's (not required)
Popsicle Sticks
Styrofoam square
Wilton Tulip shaped Cookie Cutter
Treat Bags

For viewing purposes, I have included my lovely display of items gathered:
                                                 
Now, notice the tulip cookie cutter I am holding. I bought this seperately at Hobby Lobby thinking it was the same as the one requested to make the cupcake pops. Don't make the same mistake I did. You will need the Wilton tulip that comes with a pack that looks like this:


The difference is the cookie cutters in the pack are a lot smaller and will form the dough better for the cupcake pop. Mine turned out too big to create a cupcake, so I had to form it with my hands.

Before I get ahead of myself, you will first want to bake the cake as instructed from the back of the cake box. Let it cool, and take the cake and put in the blender and pulse until ground up in crumbs.

Once the cake was ground up, I put the cake in a bowl and stirred in some cream frosting a little at a time until the cake was easy to form in my hands. If the mixture is falling apart, you will need to add more.
Once I was able to get a good consistency, I took an ice cream scoop and scooped the dough into balls. I put them on a wax lined pan and in the freezer they went for 15 minutes. You can put them in the fridge too, but it may take about 30 min instead. Multi-tasking works best for time conserving, so while you wait on your little freezer-balls, you can heat up your candy melts. I started with the chocolate first. Heat in 30 second increments until smooth. If it seems stiff, you can add a small amount of vegetable oil.

Once the doughballs were firm enough, I took them back out and (at this time found out the tulip cutter did not work) prepare to shape them into cupcakes. If you do have a tulip cutter that works, shape the balls into an elongated oval shape and press the tulip halfway into the ball. This will form a little bottom ridge and you can shape the top into a rounder cupcake shape. Pull out and put back on the pan. Continue to do the same with the rest.
For you poor saps like me, do your best to flatten one end against your hand and then slightly roll with your hands like you would clay, this will create the bottom part of the cupcake. Round out the top as best as you can.

Remember the chocolate melts? These come in to play now. I made sure the chocolate was smooth enought that it dripped.

Because the melts cool  quickly, you will now dip the bottom of the cupcakes in the chocolate melt, swirl, and place back on wax lined pan. I put the popsicle sticks through these immediately to avoid cracking the chocolate later.



Pop these sucker's back in the freezer for a couple more min to set and heat up your top color for the candy melts. My choice was red and white chocolate to make coral pink.


Dip the top of the cupcake into the pink, swirl, top with sprinkles and a red m&m for a cherry and set in the styrofoam board to dry.

 




When dry, add a treat bag and tie with ribbon.

And you have a cute cupcake pop assembly! I got a lot of compliments on the taste of these, and tried them myself..sort of resemble zebra cakes!

No comments: