How To Make Pop Cakes From The Magic Faraway Tree

Cake pops are probably one of my favorite treats since I first started making them in 2012. They are the perfect little bite-sized indulgence!

If you’ve never made cake pops before (or it’s been a while), I’m going to share a step-by-step guide to make them with a cake mix and frosting.

These are a classic cake pops—no special equipment or molds are needed, but I’ll share a few tips and supplies that can be helpful.

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You can use any flavor cake mix: chocolate, vanilla, red velvet, yellow, etc. Be sure to check your cake mix to ensure you have whatever other cake ingredients the mix recommends for baking.

You will also need one container of store-bought frosting. I like to use anything with a simple texture like vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry.

In my experience, using the full container makes the cake pops a bit too soft and harder to work with once we dip them in chocolate. But, this is how you get cake pops to stick together—with frosting.

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3. Use your (clean) hands to mix together the frosting and cake. The cake pop batter is going to be pretty soft, but moldable.

4. Form your cake pop batter into small balls (about 3-4 tablespoons each). You don’t want them to be too big, just so they easily fit in the palm of your hand.

Once you have formed all your pops (a standard size cake will make around 35-40 cake pops), put them in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours or the freezer for half an hour.

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5. Get your candy melts and any other supplies ready like cake pop sticks, sprinkles or other edible decorations (like these butterflies) you want to use.

The mixture will be a little thicker and slightly harder to work with (but still OK). And, the shell around the cake pops will be thicker once the chocolate sets.

I usually melt candy melts in the microwave in 30-second increments. You could also use a double boiler or a chocolate melter like the one in the photo below.

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9. Allow any excess chocolate to drip off the pop. Then, store the cake pop upright while it sets (unless you don’t mind a flat bottomed cake pop).

You can do this a number of ways, but I like to stick the pops into a container that is filled with granulated white sugar.

You can decorate your cake pops all sorts of ways! I like to drizzle on a bit more chocolate after I’ve dipped all the pops, just to add some texture.

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Or I will add sprinkles or other edible decorations, like these edible butterflies. Once the chocolate is set, these are ready to eat.

I tend to keep cake pops pretty simple as far as the decorating goes. But, if you want to make more elaborate shapes or different cake pop looks, then I recommend checking out the Bakerella site. Angie is the queen of cake pops!Search for food in children’s literature, and pop cakes will have a mention somewhere. For many generations, there’s a nostalgic connection to the world that Enid Blyton created.

My question as I recently read through her book was, what exactly are pop cakes? The following line that Enid Blyton gives us, leaves us some hints:

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Pop Cakes were lovely. Rick put one in his mouth and bit into it. It went pop at once – and he found his mouth full of sweet honey from the middle of the cake.

So here are the three key things I took out of this. (feel free to comment below on your thoughts– am happy to trial more recipes to fit what you imagine them to be!)

The other thing to remember is that The Magic Faraway Tree was first published in 1943. So pop cakes, I feel, need to be a wholesome 1940’s kind of recipe that would’ve been easy to whip up. None of our molecular gastronomy that would make it ‘magical’. Just delicious moreishness.

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After browsing old cookbooks, I kept coming back to popovers, since they’re like Yorkshire puddings–light and airy and hollow– so when you bite into them, you pop through. I figured popover pans would’ve been available as well. I’m not sure if little ball pans would’ve been? My other reason for going with a popover recipe instead of a cake recipe is that once the honey is added, it’s quite a sweet treat. Just right, not overly sweet, but not bready either.

Whip up an easy delicious batch of your favourite children’s literature treat, pop cakes, for a nostalgic trip back to your childhood.

Recipes are the secret (yet simple) ingredient to transform the ordinary into something extraordinary. This holiday season, take your Home Alone movie night to the next level for your friends and family.Bug and I have been reading The Magic Faraway Tree for the last six months or so. Anyone who has traveled through the pages of Enid Blyton’s creation with Joe, Beth, and Frannie will know about Pop Cakes. A creation from Silky the Fairy, Pop Cakes are described as follows:

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She brought out a tin of Pop Cakes, which were lovely. As soon as you bit into them they went pop! and you suddenly found your mouth filled with new honey from the middle of the little cakes.The Enchanted Wood, pg 26

The children continue to snack on PopCakes throughout the series and after that amazing description how can you not want to try them. We tried a couple different recipes after doing a bit of research online. The first was an effort and a half. It took prep-work and the result was….meh. Not bad. But while I know The Magic Faraway Tree in fictional I also noticed that Silky whips up these delights at the drop of a hat. I also wanted something smaller than a cupcake. The kids always pop the cakes in their mouth so I imagined they’d be only one or two bites. So when I found a recipe that called for five ingredients and was done in 25-30 minutes, that ticked all my boxes.

We’ve tweaked it a bit (as I am want to do) but overall it’s very similar to a recipe from www.inliterature.net with a few alterations. Here is the final recipe below. Enjoy!

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*I’m not a Popover expert. Some of our Pop Cakes were pretty wonky looking. We’re more of a focus on taste family (this also helps me avoid an OCD breakdown!).

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