Grad Party Snacks

This past weekend was my cousin's graduation party which I had been looking forward to mainly because I was planing on bringing some pretty deserts to the party. We love to bake at home but usually more for flavor than looks and this was my chance to make something a little frivolous. 


My criteria for this dessert were good looking yet not too abstract, so that people would actually want to eat it. So after much consideration I decided to go with cake pops. Cake pops, who could go wrong? 

Cake Pops

Recipe: 

The recipe I used was from littlemissmomma.com for a more detailed tutorial(http://www.littlemissmomma.com/2010/07/cake-pop-recipe.html) 

Ingredients: 

• Any flavor cake mix (I used Betty Crocker milk chocolate)
• Corresponding frosting (I used  Betty Crocker Chocolate)
• oil and eggs - for cake
• white chocolate candy melts
• shortening 
• gel food coloring

Supplies:

• candy sticks
• Styrofoam
• chocolate melting pot 
• Ziploc bags 

Basically, make the cake according to the package instructions. Let it cool completely. 

Crumble the whole cake into a large bowl. You'll have to get your hands dirty for this next part. Take half the container of frosting and mush it into the cake until combined. 

Form the cake mixture into balls about the size of doughnut holes.

Melt the chocolate according to the package instructions. Add some shorting if its too thick. The chocolate melter comes in handy here because white chocolate is especially easy to burn in the microwave and the melter keeps it melted the whole time so it goes on smooth and easy. 

(This was my first time using a chocolate melter. I got a babycakes chocolate melter from Kohls on super sale for under $10 and it really did make chocolate dipping a lot easier)  

Dip each stick into the melted chocolate before inserting into the cakeball so that the chocolate will act as glue and prevent the cake from falling off later. Once on the sticks you can put them in the Styrofoam to stand them up. 


Next dip fully into the chocolate. 


Use extra chocolate to make designs on the top. To do this put the melted chocolate in a ziploc bag and snip a tiny bit off the corner and go crazy. The chocolate should stay melted long enough to finish. 


Tip #1: I didn't dip all of the cakeballs the day I made them, the ones that I left naked till the next day became crumbly and broke or fell off the sticks when they were dipped. I would recommend dipping them all the day they were formed into balls. 


Tip #2: I heard that liquid food coloring would turn the chocolate hard if used instead of the gel food coloring. I said no way but turns out it is in fact true. I was using up a started jar of blue gel food coloring but ran out halfway through and used liquid blue to finish up. The consistency of the chocolate was definitely different. It hardened very quickly and was difficult to get smooth. Had to add a lot of shortening  to make it work. Don't use liquid food coloring! 


The Stand
To make the stand wrap the styrofoam in matching wrapping paper for a nice display (this one was actually made from conveniently shaped packaging from a box)