Valentines Gift...

Today, I've literally spent the WHOLE day, making a small thoughtful valentines gift. Me & the boyf haven't been together that long at all (just over a month) So i didn't want to get anything to extravagant or too sentimental, tbh, Its such early days, i don't want to look a bit of a keeno haha.

So i thought, I'll make him a card, and bake him a little something. I've been wanting to make Cake Pops for AGES now. My family in the states actually sent me a Cake Pop book a few years ago, but they hadn't taken off over here yet and i found sourcing things to make them fairly difficult. But thanks to bespoke/boutique bakeries and the growing passion for baking over here in the UK, its gotten a lot easier.

It also helps that a fairly large craft 'Superstore' has opened up fairly locally, where they stock everything to fulfil my Cake Pop Need.

I'm not going to lie and say i made everything from scratch because i didn't, i cheated quite a bit. I used a store bought cake mix AND store bought icing/frosting. But in my defence the book did say if you've never made them before, its the best option to get a consistent result, so you know, gotta do what the book says.

The book i used for little helpers, was a book called 'Cake Pops' By Angie Dudley. I found it super helpful, the first quarter of the book, is literally just going through all the things you need, tips and tricks and general helpfulness. There's loads of clear pictures and it is perfect for beginners. It then goes on to give you loads of super cute ideas! Everything from animals to aliens and all special occasions, weddings, Easter, graduation, valentines etc.

Here's a selection of some of my favourites...

Cute eh?

I thought I'd do a quick little guide as to how i made my Cake Pops, i must say its fairly simple BUT very time consuming. If I'd known, i probably would have made the actual cakes yesterday then i could of just cracked on with forming and decorating today.

I started off by just making up my boxed bake mix, i used a Betty Crocker Red Velvet mix, but I'm pretty sure they would work with any cake mix. 

On the box it said to split it between 2 cake tins, but my cakes ended up pretty flat, not that it really mattered.

After leaving the cakes to completely cool, i carefully sliced off the top 'skin' of the cake as it seemed to be pretty sticky, and you need to be able to crumble the cake.

Once all the cakes been crumbled into a bowl, i added a large scoop of frosting, and you just mix it up until you get a good consistency. You need to be careful when adding the frosting, not to add to much. It should disappear into the cake mix, and shouldn't be too sloppy. I think i added just a tiny bit to much as they were quite a smooth consistency and not amazingly cakey, but as well as they can hold a ball shape, that's all that really matters. I imagine its a bit trial and error with how much frosting you add.

I then bunged then in the freezer for about 20mins so they were firm enough to coat.

This was my decorating set up, i used a polystyrene block to hold the lollipop sticks in, and silicone cake case to put sprinkles and bits in.

To coat the Cake Pops i used the suggested 'Candy Melts' I've never worked with this product before, and I personally found it tricky to get the hang of, but eventually managed to get a good coating on my pops.

And here's the finished result...

These were just the ones that turned out well, there were plenty that went terribly terribly wrong!

But for a first attempt I'm pretty please with the outcome.

To finish them off, I've popped a couple in little cellophane bags and tied with pink ribbon, just to give a bit of a finishing touch.

I think these are a really cute idea, as just a small gesture for any special occasion. They'd be great at birthday parties as well, as one cake mix could of made around 20ish pops (if you're good)

I hope you like this post, a little different from my usual beauty related ones.

Are you doing anything for Valentines?

Lots of Love

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