Ice Cream Cake Pops

The theme for this August's Calendar Cakes Challenge is British Summertime. Hosted by Dolly Bakes this month we are celebrating the best of British...be that seasonal summer produce, the seaside, holidays or English country gardens to name but a few...let your imagination go wild! If you'd like to see last month's Olympic inspired bakes, check out the round up here.

The weather may have been a bit hit and miss in the last couple of months but we did at least enjoy some glorious sunshine last week. I even made it to the beach...and no visit to the beach would be complete without ice cream. I love these cute ice cream cake pops and they're a great way to use up cake cut offs!

There are two varieties here, the first are the mini cones. I bought the cones online and filled them with chocolate ganache. The cake balls on top are cake crumbs mooshed with ganache, the balls were pressed on top and then placed in the freezer to firm them up ready for covering. To cover, each ice cream was dipped in Wilton Candy Melts which can be melted in the microwave but to make them a nice runny consistency for covering, it is advisable to add a little vegetable oil.

These little ice cream cone pops were designed by Peggy Porschen and you can find out how to make them in her new book. I actually found the recipe in the latest Love Baking: Cupcakes & Sweet Treats magazine. You can also read a bit more about how to create cake pops in my previous post where I made Tiffany Boxes, Piggies and Blossom Pops.

The second type of ice cream cake pop is the Magnum style or Fab. These are made from cake crumbs and vanilla buttercream. The lolly sticks are available online or in some cake decorating stores. The shaped pops are again put in the freezer and the sticks are stuck in with a little of the melted chocolate. The ice creams receive a dipping in the first colour and they are then left to set a little before being dipped in the white chocolate.

If you can't get hold of Wilton Candy Melts it is just as easy to use melted chocolate. Both types of cake pop were finished off with a good helping of Dr.Oetker sprinkles.

If you'd like to join in with Calendar Cakes this month, you can check out more details here. We love to see your creations and absolutely all ideas are welcome...and if you're not based in Britain...no problems we love to see summer holiday bakes from your part of the world!

Cake Pops

Move over cupcakes, whoopies and macaroons, cake pops are the new bake on the block!! Cake pops are always a big hit with kids. They're perfectly bite sized and oh so pretty! The good thing about them too is that you can use off cuts of cake, and even shop bought if you want.

In some ways the concept is really simple, just break up your cake into crumbs and then smoosh it back together again with some buttercream, some people also use cream cheese (chocolate philadelphia anyone?) and then cover it in chocolate. However, in reality cake pops can sometimes be a little trickier than they first appear.

I have tried cake pops once before but unfortunately it ended in tears as my pops fell off the stick and this is not an uncommon problem. My second attempt as you can see, stayed firmly atop their perch! The reason...I attended a cake pop course to learn the mystical art.

Way back in October I entered a cake competition, the theme was autumnal cakes and I was very excited to be pronounced the winner with this three tier homage to autumn, incidentally it was also one of my first blog posts. The prize was a course of my choice at Cakes 4 Fun and last weekend I finally attended their cake pop course.

So after my first failed attempt where had I been going wrong? The mistake...I didn't freeze the cakes, I only refrigerated them so they weren't firm enough to withstand a dipping!! So hopefully next time I try them at home they'll be a success.

To coat the cake balls you can obviously use melted chocolate but an alternative is Wilton's Candy Melts. The advantage of Candy Melts is the array of different colours...perfect for all your cake pop designs...orange for halloween pumpkins, yellow for Easter chicks and green for Christmas trees to name but a few. They come in button form and can then be melted down with a little oil to cover the pops. Once covered the cake pops can be decorated in any design that takes your fancy. The pig ears and snout were made from flowerpaste, as were the flowers and bows.

The cake pops I made here were really well received and I can't wait to have another go and try out some different designs! If you want to try making your own cake pops, you can check out a step by step guide here and there are plenty of recipes on the net. Or maybe try out a local cake pop class.