The other day in class, I was the one who got to drag the freezing cold speed cart full of cryogenically-preserved cake rounds down the hall from the walk-in freezer. There’s an unwritten rule that whoever freezes their lil fingies off dragging that ice cold cart down the hall gets first pick of the cryogenically-preserved cake rounds. So I picked two nice big fluffy pound cake rounds and once they defrosted a little, I got to work leveling and trimming them to be decorated later.
Now when I say fluffy, I mean the “hump” I had to cut off to level these rounds had about as much cake in it as the whole rest of the finished layer. And it actually looked pretty good. It wasn’t gummy on the outside like the ones I got hold of the week before. It wasn’t crumbly. It wasn’t rubbery. It was a pretty nice-looking slab of pound cake. Which, of course, had been in the freezer for oh, about a year and a half going by the label…
I looked at the cake scraps and decided to take one for the team. For science.
The cake was surprisingly good. It wasn’t even freezer burned. I mean, it wasn’t great, it was cake that was likely from a mix (according to Chef) and baked for the express purpose of generating cheap, disposable cakes for the decorating classes and not for eating. And, again, which had been in the freezer for about a year and a half. But, like… it was edible. It was a decent pile of perfectly good cake.
It seemed a shame to throw it away when I know exactly how to upcycle perfectly good cake byproducts. So I stuffed my scraps in a gallon Ziploc and brought them home.
And then I turned them into cake pops.
If you’ve poked through this blog all the way to the beginning, you probably noticed a little system test where I tried out the WP Tasty plugin and maybe got a little silly with the flavor text. This is not a test. This is a real page about cake pops. I even made you a cool template to help you plan out your own bespoke upcycled cake scraps! But first, let’s talk–for real this time–about how to make cake pops.
Every time I bring cake pops to a Function, I get asked for the recipe. Here’s the thing: there is no recipe.
I’m dead serious. There is no actual recipe for cake pops. Oh sure, I mean, you can find recipes for cake pops out there but the fact of the matter is, you don’t need a damn recipe for cake pops. All you need to make cake pops is:
- Cake (leftover, scraps from trimming/leveling, too dry, box mix, storebought, whatever)
- Moistening agent (usually some sort of buttercream, ganache, milk, jam, fruit puree, and/or booze)
- Candy coating (the little wafer thingies you nuke and melt, or the “bark” coating shit from the grocery store)
- Lollipop sticks (can be found at your local cake supply or Michaels or a really good grocery store)
- Decorations (sprinkles, reserved cake crumbs, cereal, cookies or crumbs thereof, sanding sugar, drizzle of a contrasting color of candy coating, etc. etc. etc.)
- If you really want to go ham and make them look professional as hell, get little baggies and twist ties to individually package them.
That’s about it! If you prefer to not have flat-topped cake pops you’ll also need some sort of stand to poke the stick into and hold them upright while the coating sets up. I use a fake styrofoam cake from the cake supply place with holes poked in it. Some folks just decorate the stick side, set them on a sheet pan to cool, and then package them in mini-muffin liners. Personally I prefer them without flat tops but you do you.
You might also want a small cookie scoop, which will help you roll up consistently-sized cake dough balls.
How To Make The Cake Pops
- Crumble your cake into a big bowl. If it’s a leftover cake that’s been iced, don’t worry about scraping the icing off. It will become part of the pops.
- If your cake was naked, or if there’s not enough icing on it to give you a dough when you squish the cake crumbles, you’ll need to add a moistening agent. I generally use some kind of buttercream, because they make a really nice texture once the cake balls are chilled. You can use canned. You can make your own. I prefer to roll my own and use a simple American buttercream (2 parts sifted powdered sugar to 1 part softened unsalted butter). Your moistening agent will also be your flavoring agent if your cake isn’t already strongly flavored so don’t be shy about adding vanilla, other flavor extracts, citrus zest, cocoa powder, espresso powder, matcha powder, or whatever else you want your cake pops to taste like. Your moistening agent, if tasted by itself, should kind of punch you in the face with flavor.
- Squish your moistening agent into your cake crumbles. Be careful with straight up liquids like milk or booze or fruit juice. You can go heavier with buttercreams and ganaches, these will set up in the fridge. What you want is a dough-like consistency that will hold its shape when rolled into a ball.
- You can chill then scoop and roll, or you can scoop then chill and roll, or you can scoop and roll then chill. Whatever works. But scoop your dough into equal-size scoops, roll the scoops into smooth balls between your hands, and chill them at some point before you stab sticks into them.
- Melt a little bit of your candy coating. Dip just the very end of a stick into the melted coating. Stick it in a cake ball. The coating will sort of “glue” the stick into the cake ball. Repeat until you run out of sticks and/or balls. Chill.
- Melt enough of your coating to fully dip your pops into and dip your pops. Let the excess coating drip off (gently tap the stick to encourage it), then either stand your pop in a holder or set it on a sheet pan.
- If you’re using sprinkles, crumbs, or other decor that needs to stick to the coating, get it on there before the coating sets up. There is a very narrow window between “might drip one more time” and “sprinkles no stick :(” so work quickly. You can dip or sprinkle, whichever works for your decor.
- If you’re adding a contrasting partial dip or drizzle, let the base coat set up first.
- Once the coating is solid, package your cake pops up and prepare to receive compliments.
Seriously though. Everyone will compliment your cake pops. They will think you worked SO HARD to make them and nobody has to know they’re just an upcycled batch of ugly cupcakes.
Beyond the Basic Pop
Now here’s the thing about making cake pops: those little shitters are addictive to make. And they’re infinitely customizable. Once you get the hang of the basic chocolate or vanilla cake pop, you might start getting… ideas.
Matcha latte swirl, with like, marbled green and white cake dough? You can do that. Chocolate orange? You can do that. Red velvet? You can do that. Any flavor combination you can think of, you can do that.
And then you can do cool shit with the outside! In fact, you should decorate the outside in some way to give a visual indication of what’s on the inside. A cake pop with red velvet cake + cream cheese frosting dough should probably be coated in white chocolate/vanilla coating and have some reserved red velvet crumbs on top. A strawberry cake pop could have a pink coating and/or be sprinkled with crumbled freeze-dried strawbs. A German chocolate cake pop could be dipped in milk chocolate, with toasted coconut and pecan bits glued on with a drizzle of caramel.
To help you come up with your own cool cake pop combos and keep your ideas organized, I’ve whipped up a little template for you, plus a filled-in example. You can print, color, doodle on, and annotate this template however you like. You can even build yourself a nice little idea book and have your ideas right at your fingertips whenever you happen to find yourself with a surplus of cake.
Enjoy!
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