Cake Pops

Meg has been BEGGING for a cake pop machine for ages but it's always fallen on deaf eyes, that is, until now.  What changed my mind?  A little thing called Pinterest.

I discovered and joined Pinterest not long after they started two years ago but frankly, I couldn't quite see the fascination.  After all, I read tons of blogs and use the "save to favorites" option on my blog reader so I could come back to them later.  I really couldn't see needing anything more but two things recently moved me "to the dark side."

1)  the new Pinterest for Ipad app was released ... and
2)  my recuperation from surgery

All of a sudden I had more time on my hands than I could stand and it wasn't long before I got sucked into the black hole known as Pinterest.  In the past two months I've pinned so many cute craft projects, recipes, home decor ideas, organizational and household tips, sarcastic cartoons, etc, etc, etc....all of which leads me back to cake pops.

After seeing so many cute holiday ideas for cake pops I realized that this would be the perfect project for the kids on our Annual Baking Day.  After lots of research I decided to follow the advice of many reviewers and try them out before our big day.  Meggie and I, along with one of her friends, made our first batch on Sunday.

I have to admit that the BabyCakes cake pop maker works like a charm, is very easy to use and I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to try them.  (I got mine on sale at Kohls and used a 20% coupon as well.)  We did run into some snags with the decorating however.  Most all blogs and recipes tell you to use melted candy wafers for the icing but we found it to be rather thick, even when thinned down with a bit of shortening.  We used the microwave method (again from most of the recipes) but I think next time I'll use my mini crockpot which may provide better results.  I also came across a recipe that uses canned cake frosting melted with baking chips (choc or vanilla).  I plan to try this as well.

In the end though we had a fun time and the cake pops were a huge hit with the girls.  I froze away some plain cake pops which I'll experiment with before the big day, set for Dec. 16th.  Hopefully I can work out the snags.

*edited to add*  ---  On Pinterest? See my boards at pinterest.com/julesp  Where are you?