Cupcake Pops

Grace is having a cupcake-themed birthday party in a few weeks!  We are so excited…it’s the first time we’ve hosted a party for her with friends here in Texas.  We’re inviting about ten girls from her Sunday School and ballet class.  Part of the activities will include cupcake decorating!  To work with the theme, I decided to practice making these cute cupcake pops that I found while searching the internet for ideas.  Click here to get the instructions from one of my favorite blogs, Bakerella.

I found the lollipop stand at Michael’s.  They turned out really well and were fairly easy to make!  The basic technique is:  bake a 9x12 cake, crumble it into fine pieces, mix in 1 1/2 cups of frosting, shape, and dip into candy melts. I chose to put lollipop sticks in these, but they’re just as cute sitting on a plate as petit fours. Grace and the other kids that I babysit had fun helping me make them!

For this particular batch, I made coconut cake with coconut frosting on the inside. 

Side note:  I am all about SEMI-HOMEMADE cakes.  You just can’t beat a boxed cake mix, especially when you enhance it with flavorings or add-ins.  They are better because the boxed mixes use cake flour instead of regular flour.  When mixing up my cake pops, I used pear juice instead of water and added coconut flavoring to the batter.  I stirred in more coconut flavoring in the tub of icing before adding it to the crumbled cake. 

The end result is a moist and flavorful cake with a creamy chocolate coating!

People have asked how I’ve managed to lose 64 pounds over the past few months while starting a cake decorating business.  The answer is that I’m simply not tempted by cake.  I’ve never been a huge cake fan…as a child, I even refused birthday cakes.  (If I ever opened a french fry business, I’d be in trouble!) 

However, after I did a taste test, I liked these so much that I sent them with Todd to put in his teacher workroom and get them out of my house!