How To Make Cake Pops With A Cake Mix

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.

How

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 The Best Cake Pops At Home

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:

Ingredient Funfetti Cake Pops (using A Box Of Cake Mix)

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 (easy And Fool Proof)

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.

How To Make The Best Beautiful And Easy 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.

Cake Pop Recipe

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.

How

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 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.

How To Make Sugar Free Cake Pops

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

Since then, these tiny, colorful cake pops have been super trendy and totally irresistible, and they are great to spend time making 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.

Lemon Cake Pops Recipe (gold & Glitter!)

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 the 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 sticks, and sugar decorations.

How

In this recipe I share you my buttermilk vanilla sponge to make these vanilla cake pops, but here are other similar sponge that you can use:

Starbucks Cake Pop Recipe (easy Homemade Copycat)

You can also replace the sponge cake with crumbled cookies like Oreo cookies in this Oreo cake pops recipe or Biscoff cookies in these Biscoff cake pops recipe.

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.

How To Make Cake Pops!

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.

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.

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How To Make Cake Pops For An Irresistible Party Ready Treat

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

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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.

Easy Cake Pop Recipe

Keywords: cake pops, pop cakes, homemade cake pops, vanilla cake pops, cake pops recipe, easy cake pops, how to make cakes pops, I have to admit, I had never made cake pops before but I was determined to make them for our gender reveal party. I’ve made Oreo truffles multiple times, which are somewhat similar to cake pops. Somewhat. They’re essentially the cookie version of cake pops. Basically dessert cousins. I figured, how hard could it be?

Now, I know mine aren’t 100% true cake pops– they’re basically cake balls with sticks in them, but people can still carry them around like cake pops. I mean, who wants messy hands? Anyway, I’ll tell you at the end of the post how to make them into legit cake pops with the cake portion at the top and the stick coming out the bottom.

Prepare a boxed cake

Cake Pop Cake Recipe