Cake Pop Dough

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.

Edible Cookie Dough Pops • Pint Sized Baker

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:

How To Make Cake Pops (step By Step)

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.)

Easy Eggless Homemade Cake Pops

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.

Attention All Cookie Dough Lovers: Safe To Eat Cookie Dough 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.

Simple Cake Pops 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.

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 onCookie Dough Pops are like cake pops, only much easier to make (and in this blogger’s opinion, much tastier, too!). I’ll show you how to make this safe-to-eat edible cookie dough with no eggs and with the option to heat treat your flour (recommended if you intend to serve these to others) for a fun and unique snack!

It’s hard to believe how far this website has come in the past three years, and I have every single one of you who is reading this today to thank for it.

Healthy Cookie Dough Cake Pops

So, sincerely, from the very bottom of my heart,  THANK YOU.  Thanks to you baking, photographing, writing, and videoing for Sugar Spun Run has become my full time job (!!!), and I am so, so grateful.

Today I’m sharing these cookie dough pops as a token of my gratitude, and I think they’re a great choice for celebrating three years of cookie dough and sprinkles.

Cookie Dough Pops are similar to cake pops in their appearance, but they’re quite simple to make.  The first thing you’ll want to do is prepare your cookie dough, roll it into balls, and then chill it.

Vanilla Cake Pops From Scratch

Chilling the dough is important so that the dough doesn’t melt when you dip it into your chocolate, but you don’t want the cookie dough to be 

Cold, or it can cause the chocolate to crack as it sets (I discovered this issue when I made my Oreo balls!).

For dipping,  and to help the cookie dough adhere to it you should dip each stick just about half an inch into your melted chocolate before spearing your cookie dough.

How To Make Cake Pops: A Free Step By Step Tutorial

I recommend using melting wafers (you can use regular chocolate or white chocolate!) for this recipe because the chocolate coats smoothly and solidifies quickly, but you still will need a place to set your cookie dough pops while the chocolate hardens.

Ideally you shouldn’t lay them down on wax paper or a cooling rack because they’ll end up with uneven sides or unattractive marks in the chocolate, so I recommend using a small box or piece of styrofoam and using a knife to make small holes over the surface and then standing your cake pops up in the prepared holes while the chocolate sets.

Do make sure that whatever you are using will actually support the cookie dough pops once you’ve added the heavy cookie dough to the end of the sticks!

No Bake Cookie Dough Pops Recipe

The first time I did this, my shoebox refused to hold the pops and they all fell on top of each other, which was so frustrating, to say the least!!

Once more very important thing to note: while these cookie dough pops are made egg free, there have been E. coli outbreaks linked to consuming raw flour. Because of this, I recommend you heat treat your flour, and instructions for doing so can be found in my edible cookie dough post and more information can be found here .

Cookie Dough Pops are like cake pops, only much easier to make (and in this blogger's opinion, much tastier, too!). I'll show you how to make this safe-to-eat edible cookie dough with no eggs and with the option to heat treat your flour (recommended if you intend to serve these to others) for a fun and unique snack! I used these cake pop sticks (affiliate) from Amazon for dipping my cookie dough pops

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake Pops

**Raw flour has been linked to E-Coli. In order to protect yourself you may wish to heat treat your flour before using. You can follow my instructions here in my edible cookie dough post if you would like to heatproof your flour.

Serving: 1 cookie dough pop | Calories: 225 kcal | Carbohydrates: 31 g | Protein: 1 g | Fat: 11 g | Saturated Fat: 7 g | Trans Fat: 1 g | Cholesterol: 23 mg