Halloween Cake Pops

I'm so happy to report that take #2 of my adventures in cake pops was a success! You might remember my take #1 post that ended in frustration? Well today I regrouped, gathered the supplies I bought last night and tried again. 

First, I followed the advice I received about dipping the end of each stick in a bit of melted chocolate before inserting them into the balls. The idea is that when the chocolate hardens it helps the stick to hold in the ball. It really did make a huge difference. Once I had inserted all the sticks I popped the container into the fridge for a few minutes just to make sure that the chocolate was completely hardened.

Next I set up my various stations from left to right on the counter. The uncovered balls were on the far left, next the container of melted chocolate, followed by the sprinkles and then the Styrofoam dummy cake at the end of the line.  It's a good idea to set things up this way because you have to work quickly as the chocolate hardens fast and you want to make sure your sprinkles stick. But I had all of my uncovered balls out on the counter and this was a mistake. The cake warms up so quickly that by the time I got to the last few balls they were sliding off the sticks. Next time I would only take about 15 at a time out of the fridge.

Dipping the balls in chocolate is somewhat time consuming. Once you dip, you have to spin and tap the stick repeatedly to shake all of the excess chocolate off. I found the process really awkward at first but after I had done a few I found a rhythm and that made it a lot easier. All in all it took me about 40 minutes to complete 36 balls. You also make things a lot easier on yourself if your chocolate container is tall and thin so that you can cover the entire ball by dipping it just once. The more you have to roll the ball, the more excess chocolate you'll need to remove. I did have to reheat my chocolate a couple of times, just to keep it as runny as possible.

Once I had dipped (and tapped and spun!) I placed the sticks in my Styrofoam and tossed some sprinkles on top. At first I was dipping in the sprinkles but that just messed up the finish on the balls and left chocolate in the sprinkles.

It only takes about 5 minutes for the chocolate to harden long enough for the pops to be removed from the Styrofoam. And then they are ready to eat! I fed a couple to my husband (he loved them) and then piled the rest in a container and stuck it in the fridge. According to what I've read, they should last for a few days so I hope to share them with the girls at work on Monday!