It’s Valentine’s day, and in my opinion, nothing says sweet love better than SWEETS!
So for our church Valentine’s banquet this past Friday, I went all Bakerella and made marshmallow swirl brownie pops and red velvet cake pops. I think they turned out absolutely adorable, but honestly, I have no idea how Bakerella does all the intricate, detailed confections she is constantly cranking out. I think I ended up making roughly 30 pops, and it took me approximately 6 hours. Much like my hair and make-up, I do not have the patience for that kind of cuteness! And my pops were way messier looking than Bakerella’s, too. Yargh. Although in my defense, Bakerella does not have one of these cute little bundles of destruction tugging at her legs while she does her thing:
Lauren <3's Tupperware!
I am glad I made the pops, I just don’t see them coming up in my future again soon. Especially since they were heart-shaped. The heart-shape makes it really difficult to smoothly and quickly coat them with the candy melts. Round pops are much easier! So if you’re feeling totally adorable and froggy, here’s the scoop on all things Pops:
Red Velvet Cake Pops by Bakerella
Ingredients:
-1 box red velvet cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake, or 2 rounds. It does not matter.)
Mmm....cake!
-1 can cream cheese frosting (16 oz.) I only used 1/2 the can. I don’t know why. If I do these again, I’ll probably go with the whole thing!
-1 package chocolate bark (regular or white chocolate or other colored candy melts, depending on your project!)
-wax paper
Directions:
-After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl. (I crumbled it into big chunks by hand, then used a mixer to really pulverize it. What? I already said I don’t possess an abundance of patience!)
Crumbled cake!
-Mix thoroughly with 1 can cream cheese frosting. (It may be easier to use fingers to mix together, but be warned it will get messy.) Fingers, Bakerella? Puh-lease. I used the mixer here, too!
-Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet lined with wax paper. (Should make 45-50. You can get even more if you use a mini ice cream scooper, but I like to hand roll them.) OK, for this step I used a heart-shaped candy mold to squish little chunks of the cake mix into, well, heart shapes!
Candy mold! Not to be confused with moldy candy....
-Carefully insert lollipop sticks into your cake balls/hearts/what-have-you.
Super cute already, no?
-Chill for several hours. (You can speed this up by putting in the freezer. You know I stuck mine in the freezer!)
-Melt chocolate (or candy melts) in microwave per directions on package.
-Roll balls in chocolate and lay on wax paper until firm. (Use a spoon to dip and roll in chocolate and then tap off extra.) I used a knife to spread the candy coating on my pops, and then I stuck them in a styrofoam block and put them in the freezer so they wouldn’t take so long to set up.
ah candy melts...so much potential...so much more frustration!
-Then I made little tags for my pops, like so:
Yes, they are messy. I was running out of time!
–Then I bagged ’em and tagged ’em, and stuck em in cute little vases like so:
Oh yeah, I also added sprinkles to my pops. The red ones aren't melting, they have white glitter sprinkles!
-For the brownie pops, I used a box of fudge brownie mix. I made these once before and made them according to the “fudgy” brownie directions and they turned out awesome. This time for some reason I thought I’d try making them according to the “cake-like” brownie directions and my pops came out kind of dry. So, go fudgy with your fudgy brownie mix! Then crumble your brownies while they’re still warm, grab a jar of marshmallow creme and nuke it for about 20 seconds. Add most of that to your brownies and roll into pops as directed above!
Then last night I made a whole meal o’love for David and my Dad, ala The Pioneer Woman. This involved spending another half a day in the kitchen…but it wasn’t quite as labor intensive as those crazy Pops. I made Drip Beef Sandwiches, which both my Dad and Dave were somewhat skeptical about until they actually tried them. Then it was nothing but “more, please!” I also made onion straws, and roasted garlic mashed potatoes. And salad, of course. Everything was fabulous. But the icing on the cupcake, if you will, was the LIFE by Chocolate Cupcakes. Just look at these beauties:
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
VERY cute lil pops!!! i dont think i’d have the patience for 6 hours worth of work either… i’m all for fast and simple but CUTE!
your heartcake pops are adorable! those cakepops were the first bakerella treats i ever tried to make. the first and the last. i don’t have the patience to spend an entire day in the kitchen. i’ll leave the pretty treats and cool photos up to her.
🙂