Stargazer: Red Velvet Cake Pops

My family came to visit me from New York this past weekend.  My mom and sisters are major sweet tooths.  My mom especially.  I always enjoy cooking and baking for them and this time around, my mom refused to let me cook because she did not want me”to be wasting time cooking”.  So instead of cooking, I decided to bake red velvet cupcakes and prepare them beforehand. But then I browsed around on the internet and so happened to come across one of the cutest baking blogs, Bakerella. I encourage you to check out her adorable site.  The Bakerella blogger has several cake pop posts that are so creative and inspiring.  I knew my sisters and my mom would fall head over heels for them since they already like my red velvet cakes and cupcakes. My aunt, Leeann, emailed the recipe from Magnolia’s bakery about four years ago. I’ve religiously made red velvet cupcakes and cakes since then so that recipe was perfect to use for the cake pops.  I used a brand new pack of multi-colored star sprinkles that I bought about a month ago and saved just in case my family came to visit. I was thinking of coating the red velvet cake pops with a pink coating (I’ll save the pink coating for a different design next time) but thought it was best to stick with a nice white color so the stars can really pop out.  The stars will definitely stand out too if you use brown candy melts instead of white.

So anywho! I stayed up till 4am making the red velvet cake balls. Then I woke up at 8am to finish the coating process. Then I surprised my family at their hotel with the cake pops. And they LOVED it!! Even my dad thought it was so cute! And he is, by far, the farthest thing from a sweet tooth.  I was THRILLED with the success of it!  If you have a sudden urge to make these cake pops for your family and friends…DO IT!

As a side note, the batter generally calls for 2.5 cups of sugar. Since the cake is to be coated with the sweet white coating, I lessened the sugar in the batter to 2 cups.

 

Red Velvet Batter

3½ cups non self-rising flour
¾ cup unsalted, softened butter – 1.5 sticks of butter
2  cups sugar (If you don’t have a major sweet tooth, use 1¾ or 1½ cups)
3 large eggs room temperature
1 oz red food coloring
5 tbsp unsweetened cocoa (I used chocolate syrup) *The less cocoa you use, the brighter the red will be
1½ tsp vanilla extract
1½ tsp salt
1½ cups buttermilk
1½ tsp cider vinegar (I didn’t use this)
1½ tsp baking soda
2 cake baking trays

Frosting 
12 ounces cold cream cheese
1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) butter – firm but not cold
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 pounds powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Transforming Into Pops
Food processor
2 packages of white candy melts (I bought Wilton’s Premium White Candy Melts from Michaels)
Chocolate Melting Pot (I bought Wilton’s Chocolate Pro Electric Melting Pot from Michaels)
60 Lollipop Sticks (I bought a package of Wilton’s 4in Lollipop Sticks, 150 Count from Michaels)
Wooden spoon to stir the chocolate so that it doesn’t clump together
Metal spoon
Multi-colored star sprinkles
Paper towel
Cookie baking tray
Wax paper

 

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Batter

Set aside the flour and salt in a bowl.

In a separate large bowl, mix the sugar and butter until smooth and creamy using an electric mixer.  Add the eggs and beat well until thoroughly mixed.  Add vanilla, chocolate syrup, red food coloring and buttermilk. Beat well.

Add the flour and salt in four equal parts. Each time you add the flour and salt mixture, make sure you do not over beat the batter, but mix it just enough so that there is no dry flour showing.

In a separate bowl, mix the baking soda and vinegar. Add the soda and vinegar mix to the batter and mix well till it’s smooth.

Evenly pour the batter into the two separate cake pans.

Put it in the oven and bake for about 40-45 minutes.  Double check that the cake is cooked by inserting a wooden toothpick in the center of the cake. If it comes out gooey, you need to bake it a little more.  If it comes out clean with a few crumbs here and there, you’re all set!

Let the cakes cool completely for about two hours.

Frosting

While the cake is in the oven, prepare the frosting. Use an electric mixer and mix the cream cheese, butter and salt together for about 2.5 minutes. Add the powdered sugar in sections so it doesn’t over clump.  Don’t over beat, your frosting should be thick.

Transform Into Pops!

After you’ve taken your cake out of the oven and it’s completely cooled off, set aside your food processor. Take the cake and break it into chunks and put them into the food processor (not all at once). It took me a few rounds to go through two cakes.  Make sure the processor grinds it down to crumbs and set the crumbs aside in large bowls.  After you’ve finished crumbling all the cakes, separate them evenly into two large bowls. Evenly mix the frosting into both bowls and mix it well till all the cake crumbles are incorporated with the frosting.

Set aside your cookie baking tray and place wax paper over it. Grab some of the cake batter and roll it into a compact ball between the palm of your hands. Place the ball on the wax paper. Repeat until you are done with all your cake mixture. It should make between 50-60 cake balls. Place the cookie tray with the cake balls in the refrigerator to chill for several hours. I left mine in the fridge over night.  Or you can place it in the freezer for about 2-3 hours to speed up the process.

After the cake balls are chilled, set them aside and you’re ready to transform them into adorable little cupcake lollipops!

You can watch my video below or click here to watch my coating section!

Set aside a paper towel on your counter. Pour a nice amount of star sprinkles on it.

Plug in your chocolate melter (or melt the coating by using the double boiler method) and switch the button to “melt”. Toss in about 6 white melts pieces to get it going. Take your wooden spoon and start stirring it around so the melts do not clump together. You want a smooth consistency. After they’re melted, add 8 more pieces. You can chop up the pieces before hand if you’d like, some people say it makes the pieces melt faster. I personally didn’t notice a difference. Stir until smooth. Repeat this step till it’s at the halfway point of your little pot.  Ideally, it’s much more convenient for you to have the coating high enough so that you can dip the entire cake pop into it. I was impatient and couldn’t wait to start coating so I just melted enough pieces to cover the top half of my cake pops. Once the melting is completed, switch the button to “warm”.

Grab a cake ball from your tray and roll it around once to fix any uneven angles. Do not roll it around too many times because the heat from your palms will make your cake pops start falling apart and it won’t hold up well at all in the hot dipping.  Carefully push a lollipop stick in the center of the ball and make sure the ball is compact and firm so it doesn’t fall off.  If you melt enough pieces of the coating to the halfway point of your chocolate melter, grab on to the lollipop stick with the cake pop on it and dunk it in the melted coating.  Then take it back out and let any excess coating drip off. Twirl it a few times till it stops dropping.

If you’re impatient like me and melted only enough pieces to dip the top of your cake ball, then take your cake pop (already attached to the lollipop stick) and dip it in the melter to coat it as much as you can. I then finished it off by taking a metal spoon and scooping a nice chunk of the coating and covered the bottom half of the cake pops. Make sure you quickly coat the rest of the cake pops while carefully spinning the stick so that it goes on evenly. You want to make sure there’s still time for you to put sprinkles before the coating cools off and hardens.

Now that you’re done coating your entire cake pop, take your cake pop and hold it over the paper towel with the stars.  Take a dash full of stars and start sprinkling the top half of your cake pop.  Set your cake pop aside to dry, I stuck mine in styrofoam.  Repeat this process for all your cake pops and you’re all set!

 

Watch my video to see how I made my cake pop coating!

Enjoy and have fun!