Cake Pops Make Me Crazy

So, quite a few months ago, my friend Cindy clued me in to someone called "Bakerella."  I immediately fell in love and awe.  So, skip to the past two days when I have been trying to perfect the making of cake pops.  I like to try and perfect things within somewhere around two times of doing them.  Realistic? No. Does that stop me from wanting that?  No.  Well, cake pops are no different. 

I am probably one of the last people to get on the cake pops bandwagon, but nevertheless, I have jumped on and luckily many people are driving the wagon so there is plenty of advice to be found.  But, instead of reading all of that first (why would I take the time to do that if I didn't know if I would need it?!), I just dove in to making them.  Guess what I found?  I should've read the advice first.

Anyway, after one batch going in the trash because they all fell off the lollipop sticks and the chocolate was awful, I spent at least an hour after reading Bakerella's advice, watching videos and reading comment after comment from others about what worked for them and what didn't.  And, I learned a lot. 

So, today I tried again.  I went on a mission for better chocolate, used less icing in the cake, made the balls smaller, cooled them for a longer time, added Crisco shortening to the melted chocolate and, voila!  The cake stayed on the sticks, the chocolate was pretty close to perfect and they don't look all that bad. And, as usual, they are really delicious.  But, right now, this is all about the looks! 



Some of the cake balls after being refrigerated.



My make-shift double boiler to melt the chocolate.

A cake pop

I have a long way to go and will never, ever expect to come close to doing what Bakerella is able to do, but I guess if I could, I would have a wonderfully selling book, hugely followed web site, etc., so that is why she is Bakerella and I am crazy in the kitchen.