Let me start by saying that as of just a few months ago, I had never heard of cake pops. I saw some for sale a few weeks ago at a local burger joint, and simply thought, "What a cute gift idea." A few days later, I poked around online to see if I could find a recipe, and found myself sucked into a craze I didn't even know existed! There were blogs, Youtube videos, Facebook pages, troubleshooting advice columns,... galore. WOW!
Gathered what info I could regarding the basics, and set out to have my first go-round on Halloween. I reminded myself that this would be a trial-run with no expectations but to learn from trial and error. Thank goodness I did because all sorts of things went wrong! And with that, lots of learning occurred...
1. A full can of frosting is too much, resulting in soggy balls (haha) that are too heavy, thus falling off the stick when dipping, and too mushy, giving one the sensation of eating raw cake batter. YUK!
2. Overheating the candy coating makes it thick and glumpy, so much so that after a few dips, there is no more dipping to be had.
3. Keeping the coating in the pan it was heated in doesn't allow for a fully coated quick and simple dip.
4. Marbeling is tricky--- a technique yet to be perfected
5. Candy coating cracks for some reason sometimes upon hardening
6. Getting the excess candy coating to drip off in such a way that the result is a smooth coating before the cake ball breaks apart and falls off is a technique to be perfected, as is chilling the balls just enough but not too much. (All sorts of terrible things happen if you don;t get this right, it seems.)
7. Making a ball not too small and not too big is worth striving for. (All sorts of negative consequences either way)
What else? More, I know. Guess I should have been taking notes. And that is part of the reason why I wanted to start this blog---as a place to document, share, receive feedback, and "conversate" about lessons learned, failures, successes, ideas, and questions. Yes, I'm hooked, as you'll soon see for yourself.
Anyway, all failures aside, I got a few good-looking pops nonetheless as you can see from the picture. But, like I said, this was just a trial-run. I needed to get this down in time for Christmas gift-giving, so back online I went to see what I could learn about doing it better next time around. And that's when the obsession took hold.The more I read and saw, the more my mind raced with ideas for fillings, decorating, packaging, displaying, ... And then it was off to Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Walmart, The Dollar Store, ... to gather up supplies. Trial 2... a housewarming gift for a friend. And with that, I will end this first ever blog post to play around a little more with setting up the layout of my blogging station. (If what you write each time is a "blog," as in "journal entry," then what do you call the place where you blog, as in "diary"?
Anyway, next post...Episode 2: The making of a housewarming gift. See you then...
Karen, I'm excited to see what else you plan to post. Good job!
ReplyDeleteGreat Blog Baby
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