Cake Pops

Yummy note: 
So another month has passed us by and this is my 3rd entry for the Secret Recipe Club. I was assigned to a blog by the name of Nomnivorous this month. The Nomnivorous blog is brought to life by a young lady in her twenties by the name of Emily. Emily has many stories and recipes to try out, plus you'll see how much she appreciates a variety of different foods. Looking through different blog posts, Emily talked about how she grew up on "damn good jams," and honestly, I did too, as my aunt always made some amazing rhubarb jam every year. I also almost went for the corn polenta recipe route due to how amazing the sweet corn is right now in season, but my other sweet tooth kept calling for another sorts of sweet... So back to the sweets, Emily mentioned she loved sweets and vanilla, so I went for the vanilla cake pops. I've done cake balls in the past but I thought this revamped post by Nomnivorous was perfect chance to update my recipe making some cake pops without a boxed mix! The finished product was such a hit at the party I took this too, all the kids and adults loved them!  

Cake Pops

Recipe from Nomnivorous - Nix the Mix Funfetti Cake Recipe


Ingredients: 

2 1/4 cups cake flour, plus more for dusting the pans

1 cup milk, room temperature
6 large egg whites (about 3/4 cup), room temperature
3 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
12 tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened but still cool
1/4 cup sprinkles (Nomnivorous suggests you use long sprinkles, not round for best results)

Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray your 9x13 or 2 of the 8x8 cake pans) with nonstick cooking spray, and then dust the pans with flour. Pour the milk, egg whites, and vanilla extract into a small bowl and mix a bit. In another bowl, stir together the cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Next, add the butter into the flour bowl mixture and continue stirring until there are no big clumps, should just have like a crumbly texture. Add all but about a 1/2 cup of the liquid mixture to the flour crumbs and stir until well -moistened. Add in remaining milk mixture, along with the sprinkles, and beat for 30 more seconds. Pour evenly into prepared cake pans, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick to test comes out clean.

Let the cakes rest in the pans for a few minutes and then flip onto wire racks to cool. At this point you could start breaking up the cake for faster cooling. While cake is cooling prepare your 2 cups of "glue" for the cake pop treats!

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients:
14 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature, slightly softened
1 2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp (yes, that is not a typo, a tablespoon, not teaspoon) vanilla extract
pinch salt
4 tsp milk

Directions:
Cream the butter until fluffy in appearance, and start adding in the powdered sugar, a little bit at a time so you don't get a big powdery mess!  Then, add the rest of your ingredients and stir for another couple of minutes until the frosting becomes nice and smooth. Place frosting in the refrigerator at least 15 minute to help set up before using in cake pops.

How to Assemble the Cake Pops
Take the semi-cooled cake and break it up into chunks and begin to crumble. Cake should be fully crumbled before you begin adding in your frosting. Next, add atleast half of your frosting to the cake crumbs, incorporating them well. I used my hands for most of this part, but a spoon will work ok also. You really need to feel how wet the cake mixture is, as you do not want it fall apart while making the cake balls. Continue to add more frosting until a good consistency has been reached, so you can form a ball. Once you form the cake balls, (note this recipe yields about 50 or so cake balls), place them into the freezer to set. Next, melt some chocolate chips or candy melts slowly so they do not scorch, and dip the end of the lollipop sticks into the melted chocolate and insert sticks about halfway into the cake ball.  Then let the cake pops rest again in the freezer so that they are solid. After this last freeze, dip the cake ball into the chocolate and finish with a swirl to get the extra coating off. Quickly, add your "pretty sparkles" as my daughter called it to finish the cake pops.

Extra Yummy note: A nifty little trick is to create like a cardboard base or styrofoam structure to stick your pretty cake pops in to dry. That way they dry beautifully with no flat sides!   I really loved the texture of how these cake pops turned out. The moistness and flavor closely resembled the cake pops from "that place mommy gets her coffee from," aka Starbucks :)