(Late Night) Disco Ball Cake Pops
My mom would have been 1 year closer to 60 this year, and to celebrate, I decided to make homemade cake pops for the second time this month, using my classic vanilla cake recipe and some left over sprinkles from my MIL’s party.
I was going for a late 70’s disco ball vibe, but they turned out far from perfect both times around. Let’s just say there are some definite learning curves when working with candy melts… Not shown here are the amount of cake pops that fell apart in the process. I guess it’s a good thing I accidentally doubled my recipe. Practice make progress, am I right?
While I can’t say I had the time of my life making these, I still wanted to share the recipe on here, including a few tips I learned along the way (and after the fact).
Disco Ball Cake Pops
Ingredients:
. 2 layer vanilla cake of choice (or 1 large single layer)
. 1 - 2 cups vanilla buttercream
. 2 cups white chocolate candy melts
. 1 tbsp fractioned coconut oil (optional)
. silver and/or sparkly sprinkles of choice
. 24 lollisticks (approx)
Directions:
Bake vanilla cake of choice, then let cool to room temp. While waiting for the cake to cool, prepare your buttercream. If you need a vanilla cake and/or buttercream recipe, I have both of those previously posted on the blog. You may also use left over cake that has already been made — the amount of cake pops will just vary, depending on how much cake is left to use.
Once cake has cooled, slice off the top and edges of the layers. This is to provide an ultra soft texture for the cake pops. And if you’re anything like me, you can happily eat the parts that you slice off, so they don’t go to waste.
Crumble cake into a large metal bowl and begin mixing on low speed with electric mixer of choice. I used my hand mixer by KitchenAid (highly recommend)!
Slowly mix in buttercream 1/2 a cup at a time, starting on low speed, then working up to medium speed until mixture resembles ”cookie dough”. You can add up to 2 full cups of buttercream, but may feel you need a little less, depending on what kind of cake you use and factoring in ratios.
Once the desired consistency is reached, place the mixture into the fridge for half an hour. Once chilled, scoop by the spoonful and roll into balls. Place onto baking sheet, lined with parchment paper and refrigerate for another half hour (or overnight). This is to ensure the cake pops hold their shape and become easier to work with.
After refrigerating, roll out the cake balls for a second time to smooth them out, then place back on to baking sheet.
Whisk white chocolate over medium heat, using a double boiler, until melted. For a smoother, thinner consistency, you may whisk in 1 tbsp of fractioned coconut oil.
Dip the ends of the lollisticks (one at a time) into the white chocolate, then insert into the cake “balls”. This will help the sticks to adhere to the cake pops. Once the ends are all dipped and assembled, dip each cake pop into the rest of the white chocolate, until fully coated. For this, I recommend transferring your white chocolate into a narrow(ish) mug to ensure each cake pop gets coated properly. Work quickly and carefully, and allow any excess to drizzle back into the mug (or bowl). Note, you may need to refrigerate uncoated cake pops in between doing this, depending on the temperature of your kitchen. If the cake pops are too warm, they will fall apart. However, if they are too cold, the white chocolate will harden too fast while dipping. With that said, give the cake pops some time to reach a neutral temperature before dipping if you do need to refrigerate in between.
Spin each cake pop around and add silver and/or sparkly sprinkles of choice. Again, you’ll want to work quickly so the sprinkles stick, but carefully enough to make your cake pops look half decent. I went in with some sparkly “silver” crystal sugar sprinkles, then added some edible metallic nonpareils, for that extra little POP!
Store cake pops in the refrigerator for up to one week. You may also freeze them for up to one month.
Hope you all enjoyed this post! For a more visual look, check my highlights on the latest @haveyour.c.a.k.e
Goodnight!
Xoxo