How To Make Cake Pop Shapes

Cake pops should definitely be pure enjoyment. But in reality, making the little guys can go from fun to frustrating FAST. So learn from our mistakes and spare yourself some pain.

Here’s something nobody else will tell you: making cake pop dough is not a consistent one-size-fits-all situation. Your proportions will be different each and every time, and that’s just something to get used to.

In this tutorial, we’ll teach you how to get a perfect cake pop dough texture using your personal judgment and very little actual measurement. The right texture will give the results you’re looking for when you’re shaping anything from a basic round ball to a whimsical mermaid tail.

Vanilla Cake Pops From Scratch

Bake the cake, or grab some leftover you have lying around. For cake pops, we recommend cakes without any added textures (like nuts or chunks of fruit).

Crumble the cake until the crumbs are fine and mostly even. You can do this in a stand mixer, or just crumble it up by hand. Scoop out about 1/5 of the crumbs and set them aside for later.

Add a binder to your crumbled cake — this is what will hold the crumbs together to form a dough. Common binders for this are buttercreams, store-bought creamy-style icing or even just cream cheese by itself. My personal favorite is the thick texture of homemade cream cheese icing.

Christmas Tree Cake Pops To Wow The Holiday Crowd

We find that slightly chilling the binder helps bind the cake crumbs faster, so if your binder’s room temperature, pop it in the fridge for 10 minutes. The flavor of the binder won’t really matter because you’ll be using such small amounts that won’t affect the taste much at all.

Put your crumbled cake in the bowl of a stand mixer (if it’s not in there already), and add the binder a tablespoon at a time. The total amount of binder you’ll use depends on the kind of cake and amount of cake you’re using. Cakes baked from scratch are denser and will use more binder than box mix cakes.

Mix on low speed for at least 3 minutes, then check the texture. If it looks like what you see above, you’re almost there. Add another tablespoon or two of binder and let it whirl for five minutes.

Popsicle Cake Pop Mold

Continue this stop-and-check process until your dough has reached a play-dough or clay texture. The dough should feel sturdy — not tacky or crumbling when you handle it with your fingers. It shouldn’t fall apart when you place it in between your fingers and squeeze.

If you feel it’s too wet or tacky, don’t worry! Remember that bit of crumbs you set aside earlier? This is where that comes in handy. Mix in a little bit at a time until your dough is just right.

When your dough looks like this, you’re done. Ball it up and cover in wrap plastic wrap so it doesn’t dry out. It’s a good idea to keep it covered as you work, unwrapping only enough to scoop out the portions to make your pops one by one.

Valentine Cake Pops + How To Make Cake Pops

This process may take more time than you’re used to, but it’ll help keep that dough consistency right where you want it.This post may contain affiliate links. If you click one of these links and make a purchase, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. In addition, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Cake pops are an extremely popular dessert and the reasons are clear- they are versatile, delicious and actually quite easy to make.

You may have seen cake pop molds in stores that help you make perfect cake pops. However, do you really need to buy a cake pop mold? Absolutely not!

Starbucks Cake Pops Copycat (easy Birthday Vanilla Cake Pop Recipe)

There are plenty of ways to make cake pops without a mold and the process is easier than you may have thought. So hold off on buying that cake pop mold and take a look at this article first!

Before getting into the details on how to make cake pops without a mold, let’s look at what a cake pop is. If you have yet to have one of these little tasty treats, you definitely need to try them now, especially if you are a big fan of cake, frosting and chocolate as that is exactly what cake pops are comprised of.

Cake pops are usually a mix of cake and frosting that has been placed on a stick and dipped in chocolate. Any flavor cake can be used as well as any flavor frosting. This is one reason why people absolutely love cake pops since they can be almost any flavor imaginable.

Shamrock Cake Pops Recipe

Love chocolate? Make chocolate cake pops! Are you a big fan of strawberry cake? Well mix it with some vanilla frosting and make strawberry vanilla cake pops. Cheesecake? Yup, you can make cheesecake pops too!

The type of chocolate on the outside of the cake pops is also flexible. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate or white chocolate will all work. Many people opt to use colored chocolate melts to dip the cake pops into, giving a pretty, colorful appearance to the dessert.

You can then add any colored sprinkles or deco to the outside of the cake pops to make them fit into your dessert décor. Sounds pretty great right? Now, back to those cake pop molds….

How To Make Cakesicles (cake Pop Popsicles)

The biggest benefit to using a cake pop mold is that your cake pops are almost guaranteed to be perfectly round and uniform in size.

Most cake pop molds require you to scoop the cake batter into the mold, bake and remove the mold to reveal beautiful round balls of cake. Some cake pop mold will even bake the cake (cake pop “makers”) so you do not even need to turn on your oven.

Cake pops are traditionally a mix of frosting and cake in the center of chocolate. When you bake the cake in a cake pop mold, you no longer need the frosting to help the cake pop hold it’s shape.

How To Make Cake Pops (easy And Fool Proof)

This can be nice as you need one less ingredient but the overall texture and flavor is different than an old fashioned cake pop. Keep this in mind when you are using a mold as the end result may be different than what you are use to when you bite into a cake pop.

Once you have your round balls of baked cake, all you need to do is add a stick and dip the cake pops in chocolate. Seems easy and straight forward. But as mentioned before, this extra piece of kitchen equipment is not necessary.

You can make cake pops using a small ice cream scoop quite easily. Start by making the center of your cake pops by mixing baked cake with a tiny amount of frosting (choose whatever flavors you’d like!).

Cake Pop Mold Set

Mash up the baked cake and frosting until it is well blended and holds it’s shape. Then, use a small ice cream scoop to portion the cake pops. Line up the cake pop scoops on a clean sheet tray or dish.

Once you have scooped all the cake pop mix, use your hands to roll it into round balls. Make the balls as smooth as possible. If your hands get too warm, the frosting may start to melt, making it difficult to roll the balls.

After all the cake pop centers are nice and round, place a lollipop stick in each one and dip in the melted chocolate of your choice. No cake pop mold needed!

How To Make Gluten Free Cake Pops

One benefit of making the cake pops by hand rather than using a cake pop mold is that you can shape them however you’d like. While cake pops are typically round, you can easily form them into any shape you want.

Using the same method as above (mashing baked cake with frosting to create the cake pop centers), use your hands to make square cake centers, roll ovals or even stack circles to make snowmen- you options are limitless!

If you are interested in shaped cake pops, another method you can use is to cut out shapes using cookie cutters. Make the cake and frosting mix as mentioned before then place all of the mix on a parchment lined sheet tray.

Cake Balls Recipe

Place a piece of plastic wrap on top of the mix and flatten it with a rolling pin. Make the dough about ½ of an inch thick.

Place the pan in the fridge for about 30 minutes or until the frosting is nice and hard. Peel the plastic wrap off the surface of the cake pop mix and then cut out the shapes you’d like using cookie cutters.

Add the sticks to the cake pop shapes then dip in melted chocolate. When using this method, be sure to use appropriately sized cookie cutters.

Perfect Cake Pops With Diy Cake Pop Holder

Think about the size of a normal, round cake pop (about one inch) and look for cookie cutters that are the same size. While these pops will be two dimensional, the awesome shapes will be worth the effort!

As you can see, it can be quite beneficial to make cake pops without a mold. The molds are restrictive and only let you create round cake pops. Sure, they may look perfectly round