How To Make Cake Pops Without Chocolate Or Candy Melts

How was your weekend? We spent most of it celebrating my friend’s birthday. I made a whole mess of treats including chocolate zucchini cake (as cupcakes), these salted caramel dark chocolate cookies, and these peanut butter M&M cookies too—it’s been way too long since I made a batch of those in particular! The birthday girl loves chocolate and peanut butter and caramel so these 3 were a no brainer.

There’s no batter time (get it? batter?) than a happy occasion to indulge in your favorite treats whether that’s a birthday, shower, wedding, you name it. My mom and sisters threw my baby shower last month and one of the treats they surprised me with was a HUGE display of cake pops. I love cake pops, but hardly ever take the time to make them. Though I did whip up a batch for both of my sisters’ bridal showers in the past few years.

The difference between these cake pops and others you may have tried is that these are 100% homemade. There’s no box cake mix or canned frosting, which results in a totally unique cake pop experience. You can actually TASTE the homemade. The love, the passion, and the care that goes into creating each adorable pop.

How To Make Chocolate Cake Pops

So anyway! I first began making homemade cake pops when I wroteSally’s Candy Addiction. In fact, this recipe is published in the book! I want to share it on the blog as well because I’ve gotten lots of questions about making from-scratch cake pops.

Today we’ll go over all my tips, tricks, and secrets to crafting the peeeeerfect pop as well as the homemade vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream used inside. There’s lots of ground to cover so let’s pop right to it. (Can’t stop with my nerdiness right now.)

Since we’re leaving the box cake mix and canned frosting on the store shelves, we’ll need to take a little extra time to prep both from scratch. I always make the cake the night before, then finish the cake pops the next day. Here’s the general process:

The Best Chocolate Cake Pops

Super basic recipes for both the vanilla cake and frosting, but I do encourage you to use the correct size pan for the cake. This cake is too large for a typical 9-inch cake pan. You’ll need to use a 9-inch springform pan since it rises quite high. Or you can use an 11×7-inch pan instead. A 10-inch springform pan would work as well.

Cake ingredients are straightforward. The basic crew like flour, butter, sugar, vanilla, milk. Same goes with the vanilla frosting: butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, milk (or cream). The difference between this and what you get out of a box is the taste. You can totally tell these cake pops are special and it’s because you started with from-scratch components. WORTH IT!

(Crumbling the cake into the frosting sounds super weird when you think about it and that’s exactly what cake pops are—super weird when you think about it. It’s cake and frosting mixed together to form a truffle-like ball. Pop a stick in it and dunk into coating. Yep, it’s weirdly delicious and awesome and you need to embrace it.)

How To Make Cake Pops (crazy Easy)

It’s easier to roll the cake + frosting mixture into perfectly round balls if it’s cold. And what I do is roll the balls up right after the two are mixed together. They’re pretty misshapen because the cake + frosting mixture is super moist—and at room temperature. So then I chill the balls in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. After that, I give them another little roll to smooth out the sides. When they’re cold, they’re easier to smooth out and form perfectly round shapes.

Just like when we make Oreo balls, the cake balls need to be super chilled before dipping, so this trick gets both steps done!

Now let’s dunk. You can dip the cake balls into pure white chocolate, which is what I prefer for best taste, but that stuff is pretty expensive. And you need a good amount for all 40 cake pops! You can use candy melts/candy coating instead. I give both options in the recipe below along with notes for each choice.

Homemade Chocolate Cake Pops

Another trick: to ensure the cake ball stays secure on the lollipop stick, dip it slightly into the coating first. Then stick in the center of the cake ball. See photo above!

And another trick: the best way to allow the coating to dry and set—without ruining the perfectly round cake pop—is to place them right side up in a large styrofoam block or even a box. I used a box, as pictured below, for this batch. I just poked super tiny holes into it. Easy and cheap.

Cake pops are a genius celebration-worthy treat to make ahead of time because they freeze beautifully. I simply freeze them in a large zipped-top freezer bag after they’ve fully dried. They’re great for up to 6 weeks, then just let them thaw overnight in the fridge.

Cakeball Pops And The Secret To Dipping Anything In Chocolate

I have a few more tips for ya! I went over these in Sally’s Candy Addiction because they’re pretty important to review before you get started.

Sally McKenney is a professional food photographer, cookbook author, and baker. Her kitchen-tested recipes and thorough step-by-step tutorials give readers the knowledge and confidence to bake from scratch. Sally has been featured onHow to make homemade cake pops? Which recipes to choose ? How to decorate them ? How to make them successful? Follow this guide to make cake pops, an easy sweet treats recipe made without a mold, perfect for any occasion like a baby shower, birthday party, wedding and more.

The cake pops also called cake balls, are small balls of cake coated with chocolate or candy coating and decorated with sprinkles.

Common Cake Pop Issues & Tutorial

They were invented by the very famous blogger Angie Dudley from the Bakerella blog and she highlighted during the Martha Stewart TV show.

Since then, these tiny, colorful cake pops are super trendy and totally irresistible, and they are great to spend time making them with the kids who have so much fun.

These little sweet bites are a lot of fun, with an endless choice of decorations and can be twisted into any shape and for any occasion.

How To Make Cake Pops

In Christmas tree, in bell for Easter, for a birth, a wedding, or using special molds for pop cakes, cupcakes or ice cream cones.

You don't have to be an advanced baker to make perfect cake pops recipe at home! All you need is a cake mix or vanilla cake or even leftover cake, some icing like cream cheese or buttercream frosting, candy melts, lollipop stick and sugar decorations.

Sponge: If you have sponge cake left over from your layer cake, a box cake mix or just make my vanilla buttermilk cake recipe. It's quite moist and soft perfect for making cake pops.

How To Make Delicious Cake Pops Without Buttercream Frosting

To make cake pops all kinds of sponge cakes can do the trick like a chocolate cake, red velvet cake, and other cakes with all the flavors and even colored.

You can also replace the sponge cake with crumbled cookies like oreo cookies in this Oreo cake pop recipe, biscoff cookies, etc to make cake pop recipe.

Frosting: To bind the cake crumbs you can use all kinds of frosting recipe. The one most often used is cream cheese frosting (philadelphia), but it can be replaced by mascarpone cheese, buttercream vanilla frosting, chocolate frosting or even spreads such as Nutella or biscoff spread.

Homemade Chocolate Cake Pops (from Scratch) ~sweet & Savory

Candy melts: These little chocolate pistols that come in all colors and are not really chocolate, are perfect to make cake pops!

Tip: The dough is a little wet, it can stick to your hands, after a short time in the fridge, you will be able to roll them again more easily to give them a nice round shape.

Tip: For a thinner candy melt or chocolate, you can add a small amount of crisco, coconut oil, candy wafers, cocoa butter or vegetable oil.

Strawberry Birthday Cake Pops (no Bake!)

The candy melt will crack if there is a temperature shock. Let the cake pops come to room temperature a bit before dipping them in the candy melts.

You need to dip the sticks in the melted candy melts beforehand, which will act as a glue and prevent the sticks from coming off the cake.

The cake pops can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container box with a tight-fitting lid or in the refrigerator.

How To Make 4 Ingredient Cake Pops

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Storage: 2-3 days at room temperature and up to 1 week in the refrigerator. You can also keep them in the freezer for up to 3 months.I am not an expert on cake balls. Some people are really really good at making them.  I’m not even talking about the cutesy, snazzy people who can make their cake balls/pops look like freakin Hello Kitty or a unicorn head.  No, those people are sculptors. I’ve come to grips with the reality that I simply do not have the skill,