CAKE POPS

Cake pops are certainly a fad  but that's not a bad thing! I enjoyed making my cake pops...even though they look like a child made them. I've been wanting to make these for a while and yesterday Lakeland had a sale. So no stopping me there then. Half an hour later my mum and I came away victorious with bags full of baking equipment, determined to make cake pops. Later that night I was having a girly night in with close friends and thought they would be the perfect cake pop guinea pigs!

Making the cake pop batter was fairly simple, I just followed the recipe that came with the cake pop mould. The mould makes 20 cake pops and the recipe makes 40 - so I now have left over batter sitting in my fridge.

Vanilla Cake Pop Recipe - makes 40 cake pops

Ingredients

120g Butter

1506 Caster sugar

1 Tsp Vanilla extract

2 Eggs

180g sieved self raising flour

4tbsp milk

Instructions

1.  Preheat oven to 180c, gas mark 4.
2. Grease and lightly flour each cavity in both moulds.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until it's pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and eggs and mix well. Add half the flour and milk and mix. Add the remaining flour and milk and mix.
4. Place the bottom section of the mould (without the holes) on a baking tray and spoon the cake mix into each cavity. Make sure each cavity is full. Place the top section of the mould onto the base and lightly press down round the edge of the mould to ensure the bottom and top section of the mould are slotted together.
5. Place the cake mould on the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 15-20 mins. Test to check if they are done by inserting a cocktail stick into the hole at the top of the mould - the sticks should come out clean.
6. Once baked, remove the cake pop mould from the oven and leave the cake pops to cool in the mould. Once cool remove the cake pops and press the sticks into them. Dip the cake pops into icing/chocolate and decorate.

Even if I do say so myself, the cake pops came out pretty much near perfect when baked! They had fully taken the cake pop shape and the sponge was lovely and moist.

When coating in chocolate I had some trouble keeping the sponge pop to stay on the stick - I have since then read how other people got on with theirs and they dipped the end of the stick into the chocolate/icing and then speared the cake pop. I will definitely try this next time.

Decorating. Im not the most creative or light handed person so the decoration is a bit squiffy. But hey, I liked them!

The finished cake pops went down well with my friends so I will definitely make these again!

My verdict: It was a first time bake - fairly simple to make, just fiddly.

Equipment used: 

1.  Silicon cake pop mould from Lakeland http://www.lakeland.co.uk/17604/Silicone-Cake-Pop-Mould
2. Cake pop stand from Lakeland http://www.lakeland.co.uk/17646/Cake-Pop-Decorating-Stand
3. Cake pop sticks from Lakeland
4. Cake pop presentation kit from lakeland http://www.lakeland.co.uk/17941/Cake-Pop-Presentation-Kit
5. Sugar decorations