Bakestravaganza: Cake Pop Bonanza

Tonight I finished the cake pops. They are unbelievably delicious. I used lemon supreme cake mix and just baked the cake following the directions on the back of the box. I let the cake cool for about an hour in the fridge, then I crumbled it into a big bowl and mixed in about half a can of cream cheese frosting. Once it was all mixed I covered it and left it in the fridge overnight. The next day I formed the mixture into about 40 balls and poked a hole in each of them using a lollipop stick.

I popped them in the freezer for another hour or two. After they were good and frozen I took them out, melted a few vanilla candy melts and dipped the end of a lollipop stick in the melt, and then stuck it in each of the cake pops in the holes I had already made. The candy melt on the end makes the cake pop stay on the stick better.

Once those had set, I melted the rest of the bag of candy melts and mixed in a tablespoon of shortening and some yellow food coloring and melted that down. Then I dipped each of the cake pops in the candy melt, which I would say was the most difficult part of the whole project. I put sprinkles on some of them immediately before the melt dried. After decorating, I stuck each pop into a styrofoam block I bought from Michaels, that was still wrapped in plastic so if anything dripped on it, I could just wipe it off and reuse the block again next time. I let the pops dry in the styrofoam block for awhile...