Pop Goes The.... Cake?

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that I am back from Argentina!

I had the time of my life there and learned a lot from the conferences. We didn't win any prizes, but we did make a lot of friends and learned a load of useful life lessons (: I hope I get a chance to go back next year!

Unfortunately, as soon as I got back from my week of fun, I got sick =( I toughed it out on Monday and Tuesday and got caught up on all my school work. But on Wednesday I caved in and stayed home sleeping, and when I went to doctor on Thursday I found out that I have strep throat =O So I slept it out yesterday too.

And today I feel just like Hercules!!! ... In that scene when Hades takes away all his god powers and he can barely walk.... Yup, I love meds (NOT).

But anyways, enough complaining. It's time for me to return to you, my lovely blog readers (:

Today's post is all about cake pops!

Now what is that, you ask? Well, just to be short, it's a delicious mouthful of cake, in lollipop format*

Yes, it is. A beautiful, little convenient bite of cake. Icing included (;

But how do we make this delicious fun-sized cake? Easy! I'll teach you how in 6 easy steps! Crumble, Ice, Stick, Cover, Sprinkle, and Enjoy =)

Step One: Crumble

Now this part is what makes cake pops so convenient. They're made out of cake crumbs. So you can just use the pieces of cake leftover from when you carve or even out a cake. Or you can just bake a whole cake and crumble down the whole thing. I like sticking it in the Kitchen Aide for a while and just taking the crumbs out.. Like this:

Step Two: Ice

The next step is taking some icing and mixing it well into the crumbs. You want there to be enough icing so that all the crumbs stick together and work almost like playdoh. It's going to end up looking like a big blob of cake.

Then, using a spoon or an ice cream scoop, make little balls out of the cake blob and put them on a cookie sheet. But make sure to cover the cookie sheet with wax paper or aluminum foil first!

Step Three: Stick

Once you have all your little chocolate balls, refrigerate them for about 15 minutes so they keep their ball shape. During these 15 minutes, melt some chocolate. Because once you take the balls out, you're going to dip the sticks into the chocolate, about three fourths of the length of the cake balls. Then ever so gently insert the sticks into the balls, 

And now you have pops! Place them back into the fridge until the chocolate is hardened.

Step Four: Cover

Once the chocolate on the stick is hard and the stick doesn't come out of place, you can take them out again. Again, you're going to need melted chocolate to dip the pops in. Now here's a commonly made mistake, do NOT dip the pop straight into the chocolate, or else the chocolate will get all cakey and it'll be icky to work with. So get a spoon and just use that to spread the chocolate on the pop. Use the spoon to even it out nicely.

Isn't it purty?

Step Five: Sprinkle

Now, as soon as you're done dipping the pop in chocolate, you need to sprinkle it, or else the chocolate will get hard and it won't stick. I think sprinkling is pretty self-explanatory? Just get a spoon and pour sprinkle all over the pop (: 

And once you're done sprinkling, just set it somewhere (in upright position) to let the pop dry. I like floral foam personally. I cover it up with aluminum foil so the green stuff doesn't make a mess. Then I just leave it there drying for a while until the chocolate is hard.

Once it's dry, I can either wrap it up for transport, 

Or I can just move on to step six and enjoy (;

Step Six: Enjoy

So now you can just sit back, relax, and eat to your heart's content!

Courtesy of Don't Unfriend Us

*Which does NOT mean you should lick it. It's still a cake people.

The Truth Behind Good Cakes

Imagine... You have just made a DELICIOUS cake from scratch and it looks absolutely gorgeous. You ice the cake with some delectable buttercream and notice a few crumbs here and there, so you continue applying buttercream. Finally, you decide that the buttercream just isn't cutting it out today, so you pull out the fondant. You cover the cake completely with experience and finesse. As you go about your business, decorating your gorgeous cake, it begins to fall apart, crumbling to pieces.

Courtesy of Food To Heart

This is a scenario that most, if not all, bakers (including me) have encountered at some point or another. Crumbling cakes is a growing epidemic in kitchens everywhere. But wait, there is a solution.

FREEZE!

If you want a good, sturdy cake that doesn't crumble as soon as you touch it, here's the trick.

First, bake the cake (DUH). This technique works with all cakes, homemade and box cakes. After you take the cake out of the oven, let it cool down completely. Leave it in the pan for a good 15 to 20 minutes. Then take it out of the pan by flipping it over on a cake rack. If you have a cake rack, great. If not, just find someplace to leave the cake cooling (not in the pan it baked in).

Then you're going to introduce that cake to your best friend, cling wrap. 

If there's one thing any baker needs a lot of, it's cling wrap. You need it for cakes, fondant, gumpaste, buttercream, chocolate, etc, etc. Rule of thumb: When in doubt about what to do with it, cling wrap it. You take that COMPLETELY cooled down cake and you cling wrap it to death (If it isn't completely cooled down the heat from the cake will condensate inside the cling wrap and you're gonna end up with soggy cake. Soggy cake is not yummy*).Usually two wrap arounds is good enough (one wrap around each way, so the whole cake is covered), but if you feel like it's not wrapped completely enough, a lot of bakers wrap it four times (two wraps in each direction). Once again, this prevents unwanted sogginess.

But this sogginess doesn't come from heat. Quite the opposite actually. It comes from the cold. Why? Well, because you're going to put that cake inside the freezer.

Now hold up a minute! I do realize that the idea of freezing a cake is a turn-off to many of you (it was at first to me), but the truth is that the cakes taste exactly the same (if not better) and they're so much easier to handle and work with. They don't crumble while you're carving, nor do they create those ugly cake "beer bellies" after putting on fondant, or any of those terrible things that happen to our cakes because they're too crumbly

. 

Freezing is just another rite of passage in a cake's life. It's such an important phase in its life that if it doesn't go through it... Well, it just tends to fall apart later in life. So please, save a cake and freeze it. Frozen cakes really are better, I promise, Girl Scouts Honor**

But you know what? If you're still off on those pre-frozen cakes, let me tell you about an awesome Italian remedy!

Italians make great food. Can we agree on that? Pasta, pizza, tiramisu, you name it, if it's Italian, it's GOOD. Well, Italians make cakes too! And their big secret? A very simple sugar and water syrup. This keeps your cake deliciously moist*** and fresh. You boil two cups of water to one cup of sugar and you just sprinkle it on your cake when you're ready to decorate**** (after the cake has fully thawed). The leftover syrup can be refrigerated and it has a shelf life of about a month in the fridge.

This way, the cake is moist and very un-crumbling. Delicious and efficient. Come on now folks, it's time to multi-task (;

*Unless the sogginess is done on purpose with a yummy chocolate sauce or caramel sauce or some other yummy sogginess creator. Water (humidity) sogginess is not yummy. 

**Yes, I am a Girl Scout. I have been for the past 11 years (:

***Moist is NOT soggy. Soggy is yucky, moist is yummy.

****Please do not use the entire recipe. When I say sprinkle, I mean SPRINKLE. Not water it like you would do to a plant. Especially since so many plants die from over-watering...