Green Glorious Green...Part 1...Have The Cake Monthly Challenge

This month's challenge on Have The Cake is to make Cake Pops...something I have never attempted, but been very tempted by an many an occasion...so it just had to done...

The first thing I had to do was decide on which cake recipe to use...which was when I stumbled upon this...and that was that...(what an amazing website, it's one of my new favourites)...Green Velvet it was...

I started them off yesterday, by baking the cake...or should I say cakes...the recipe gave enough batter to make this lot...(not the sugar, but will come to that later)...I was a bit disappointed that the green wasn't as deep as it could have been, possibly due to my reluctance to add more...but all the same, they are green!!! 

The cakes went in the tin until this morning...when the real work started!!!

 

The first job in my list was to make the Cream Cheese Frosting that will bind the cake to make the balls...My frosting is a mix of many different cream cheese frosting recipes that are around, but 'tweaked' to suit our tastes...(the smallish people actually call it vanilla ice-cream frosting!!) we find many of the others too sweet!!

So the recipe is:

cream cheese - 115g

butter, softened - 115g

icing sugar - 125g

vanilla - 1tsp

I whizz the butter first, until pale and creamy looking, then add the cream cheese and whizz again...then the vanilla, whizz again...then the icing sugar...I find it best to stir this in slowly by hand before giving it a final whizz to ensure everything is mixed properly...this will keep for a few days in the fridge...and this amount gave enough for 14 Cake Pops, 12 Cake Balls, 6 Cupcakes and 6 Mini Green Velvet Cakes...(all will be revealed in later posts)...but now continuing with the Cake Pops...

  Pop your cake into a processor, and whizz until it looks like breadcrumbs...

 ...then add in some of your frosting...I put in 2 large spoonfuls in total...you need enough to bind the cake crumbs into a cakey dough!!

 Using your hands, you now need to shape the cakey dough into the balls...pop them on a baking tray and in the fridge to firm up for an hour or so...

 Once they are firmed up and ready you need to melt some chocolate - your choice of which chocolate...or even candy melts... and use a little to attach the sticks (in my case disposable chopsticks as I had no sticks!!) Let set and then get messy by dipping the Cake Pops in and decorating anyway you want...I used the coloured sugar and a few sprinkles...

 Leave to set before enjoying at your leisure!!

 I was quite pleased with end results...and think I may have another go using a different cake mix...maybe Red Velvet...??

...As for taste...they were delish...very moreish, but not too sweet...perfect little bites of cakey loveliness!!!

I had more balls of cake than sticks, so decided to roll the rest in chocolate and decorate and serve as Cake Balls...which looked really pretty and would make a lovely gift for someone...

...especially with Easter on it's way...you could even shape them like eggs...now that's an idea for a later post...well I'm off out to dinner now, so will post the rest of this Green Glorious Green series later...xx