Copycat recipe, Starbucks Coffeehouse

Don’t we all love Starbucks especially during the holidays with their Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Peppermint Chai. Nuff said.

My best friend and I cherish our little meetings after we drop the kids to school and promise each time never to buy those sneaky little cake lollipop morsels that look so perfect and enticing behind the glass panes.  I drool at the mere sight of the pastel colored, terribly cute little caksicles. Well our promises never hold up and we find ourselves ordering them anyways. I have a widening waistline to show for my indulgences. I was talking to my sister about the cake pops and she told me my nieces are obsessed with them so I decided to try my hand at them. It’s a challenge for me to recreate something that is so divine.  In the world of food, recreating is called a copycat recipe. I am making a generic chocolate cake pop for my first try with assorted sprinkles for decoration.

In simple works Cake pops are smushed up balls of crumbled cake mixed with something to hold them up into a ball, coated with some glaze and sprinkles and there you have the latest and greatest tidal wave of desserts.

I had to go to a friend’s house for dinner last night so I decided to take these fun and exciting single serve desserts which are quite the craze. A little out of the ordinary, but that’s what I am all about. They got rave reviews from friends and now I would like to venture into more complex flavors like Tiramisu, Italian cream cake and Crème brulee that you can’t find in the ready-made cake mix isles hence the challenge J

So without further ado, here is a step by step guide to making the little devils. This is what it looks like.

Chocolate cake ball pops coated in light cocoa with coconut and rainbow sugar sprinkles.

Tools needed:

9 x 13 in. Baking Pan metal or glass

Styrofoam or Floral arrangement  foam (available at hobby stores like Michales) to stand the sticks up for drying.

Lollipop sticks or cookie sticks (available at Michaels) In a pinch you could use bamboo skewers as well.

Step by step process.

I used a 9 by 13” glass pan for my cake. Bake the cake according to the recipe, very easy to follow (full recipe below) This is what the cake looks like cut up into pieces.

This is what it looks like crumbled up. (easiest way to achieve this is to rub two pieces together and they crumble real easy, pick out the drier side chunks and dispose them off. Mine ended up in my mouth, he he )

Add icing; mix with fingers until well combined.

Make it into balls and roll it around so they make a firm ball and are not breaking apart.

Let them chill for 2 hours. Melt some of the light cocoa candy melts in a bowl. Microwave them for a minute and stir them till it makes a smooth chocolate mixture. Dip cookie sticks into melted Candy Melts and insert into cake balls; let set for 30 minutes. Wait until candy is completely firm before dipping the pops completely in melted Candy Melts. I had to use a small spatula to coat mine since they would crumble easily if I dipped them directly.

Sprinkle with toppings of choice while they are still wet and tacky. I used some shredded coconut and some rainbow sugar sprinkles to decorate mine.

Recipe for Cake Ball Pops

Ingredients:

1 box (about 18 ounces) Devil’s food cake mix or any mix that you like

1 box (3.9 ounces) instant Chocolate pudding mix, or any pudding you like

4 eggs

1 cup water

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup Ready-To-Use milk chocolate icing or other icing of your choice

1 bag (14 ounces) Candy Melts, I used light cocoa from Michaels, you can use any chocolate, even white.

Method:

step 1

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray one 13 x 9 x 2 in. sheet pan or two 8 in. or 9 in. round pans with vegetable pan spray.

step 2

In large bowl, combine Devil’s food cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, water and oil; beat at medium speed with electric mixer 2 minutes. Pour into prepared pan.

step 3

Bake 30-35 minutes for round pans; 35-40 minutes for sheet pan, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes; remove from pan to cooling grid and cool completely. Divide cake in half; freeze one half for future use. Well mine got devoured before I could put it away.

step 4

In large bowl, use hands to crumble cake until no large chunks remain. Add icing; mix with fingers until well combined. Form mixture into cake balls.

Note: I took a tablespoon and measured out two tbsp mixture to form my cake balls so they all turn out uniform in the end. Nothing screams novice than unproportionate looking desserts. This is where my obsessive compulsiveness kicks in.

Chill in refrigerator at least 2 hours.

step 5

Melt  Light Cocoa Candy Melts according to package directions. Dip cookie sticks into melted Candy Melts and insert into cake balls; let set for 30 minutes. Wait until candy is completely firm before dipping the pops completely in melted Candy Melts. I had to use a small spatula to coat mine since they would crumble easily if I dipped them directly.

Makes 48 - 1 tablespoon sized cake ball pops (each about 1-1/4 in. diameter)
Makes 24 - 2 tablespoon sized cake ball pops (each about 1-1/2 in. diameter) , I made half a cake so they made 14 very proportionate looking pops.
Makes 16 - 3 tablespoon sized cake ball pops (each about 1-3/4 in. diameter)