Wanna be a trend setter? If you do, than these cake pops are something out of the ordinary and they are some kind of delicious! After my friend Lauren brought these to my attention, I knew that my sweets addiction would not let me forget about them until I made them. All I could think of  for several days were these cake pops. So I got to work…

I have to say, they were not as easy as I thought that they would be. It went something like this: baking 2 cakes, mixing up some cream cheese icing, mixing it all together, rolling them into little balls, freezing them, coating them with chocolate, decorating them and eating them. Wow, that was a sentence full! One thing I would do differently next time is keep them frozen up until moments before I serve them. If you don’t do this, they will thaw out and fall down the stick, making a not so pretty cake pop.

Adapted from The Velveteen Baker

Ingredients:

For the red velvet cake:
2 ½ cups + 5 tbsp                    All purpose flour
1 ½ cups                                  Sugar
1 tsp                                         Baking soda
1 tsp                                         Salt
1 tbsp + 1 tsp                           Cocoa powder
1 ½ cups                                  Vegetable oil
1 cup                                        Buttermilk
2                                              Large eggs
2 tbsp                                       Red food coloring
1 tsp                                         White distilled vinegar
1 tsp                                         Pure vanilla extract

For the cream cheese icing:
2 ¼ cups                                  Confectioners sugar
4oz                                           Cream cheese, softened
4 tbsp                                       Unsalted butter, softened

½ tsp                                        Pure vanilla extract

For the chocolate coating:
1 or 2 packages of white, milk or dark chocolate chips. Try using more than one package of chocolate because one package only lasts for about 20 cake pops.

Method:

  • Preheat the oven to 350F and grease 2 cake pans.
  • In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt.
  • In a large bowl, beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, vinegar, vanilla and red food coloring until blended.
  • Add in the dry ingredients slowly and beat until smooth.
  • Pour into the prepared pans.
  • Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and let stand in pans for 10 minutes.
  • Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
  • In a large bowl beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth.
  • Slowly add in the confectioners sugar and beat on a low speed until incorporated.
  • Increase the speed until fully blended.
  • Take the prepared cake and crumble it into a large mixing bowl. Add up to two cups of the cream cheese icing and mix with your hands until fully incorporated.
  • It will be the consistency of thick dough. Roll the mixture into balls and lay onto a cookie sheet. Place in the freezer until they are really chilled.
  • Before coating the cake balls, they must be hard but not completely frozen.
  • Melt the chocolate in microwave in 30 second intervals and stirring in between each stage. Dip and cover one cake ball at a time using either a spoon or a dipping fork and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Take one or two cake balls out of the freezer at a time, as they are easier to work with that way.
  • Decorate the balls with candy cane crumbs, sprinkles, coconut, and whatever else you feel like while the chocolate is still wet.