I love white desserts. They are just so elegant and delicate and perfect for any occasion.
These particular white delicacies I made for my beautiful niece’s baptism reception. She told me what she wanted and I served. 🙂 It was such a wonderful day. It deserved beautiful treats.
The two desserts on the menu were red velvet cake pops and cream cheese frosted sugar cookies.
This red velvet recipe is a favorite and gives such an awesome texture to cake pops.
*Note: The following is my interpretation and take on cake pops. This is a personal opinion. *
I have not mentioned this before but my cake pops are different from most others and I personally like it better this way. If you do too, then that’s awesome! If not, then you can use these tips to make whatever type you like.
Let’s learn. I like to keep a true cake texture in my cake pops. They are not like the most common truffle style cake pop where the center is smooth and almost creamy. This to me would be called a “Truffle Pop”. 🙂 So when you see the term “cake pop” on my website I will be talking about a cake pop that keeps the structural integrity of the cake. When I term something a “Truffle Pop” then I will be referring to a treat where the center is more creamy and smooth like a truffle. I like this determination because it let’s you know what to expect in the middle! Notice in the picture below you can actually see the cake structure still intact. {I will show you some examples of “truffle pops” when I make some.}
Let’s continue. Not all cake recipes will give you a “cake pop”. You have to have a strong, sturdy crumb. It cannot be made from a very soft, super moist cake. I will admit that I do use a cake mix every once in a while for various desserts but I never like to use them for cake pops because they seem too fluffy and have never turned out a good cake pop for me.
My favorite recipes for cake pops are yellow cake and red velvet cake.
So once you find good recipes with strong crumbs you should know that there are a few other techniques you can use to give you fabulous consistent results.
Factors: Mixing and Cooking Time
To get a strong crumb that is not overly moist what do you do? Make sure it’s mixed very well and overcook it! All the things you don’t want to do to your delicate cupcakes…..well we’re not making delicate cupcakes…
Mixing: When you mix normal cake or cupcake batter you want to mix until “just incorporated” usually (unless you are using cake flour then it doesn’t matter as much) so that you do not overmix the flour and create gluten…and what does gluten do? That’s right, it adds structure (too much sometimes) and makes a strong/tough cake which may or may not be desirable. In this case it is desirable to have a strong crumb. You can go overboard, however, so don’t. Giving your final batter another 20 strokes or so might be enough (depends on your batter…have fun and experiment).
Baking: I’m not talking about waiting ’till it’s black….I’m talking about making sure that your cake is cooked so that pretty much zero crumbs come off on your toothpick and the top is not looking moist. It should look “well cooked”. Even a bit of crusting is ok on the top. My yellow cake recipe is actually amazing when the top crusts because the flavor of the crusted cake is out of this world.
So now that we have mixed our batter a little more than normal and cooked our cake a little longer than normal we should be set up to make yummy cakey cake pops!
Now we want our cake to cool… completely. I do this by placing the cake into a large bowl and putting it in the fridge uncovered. Let it cool completely stirring every once in a while to move the hot spots around. You can break up the cake as you do this too.
The next step is VERY important. Adding the frosting. Well what type of frosting? I actually prefer storebought frosting for this because it is sticky and works as a good glue. Homemade frosting works too. Go with whatever you prefer.
The most important step is to make sure you do not add too much frosting. Adding too much can cause your cake to go mushy and more truffle like.
Add just enough frosting to allow the cake to adhere to itself. Add a little at a time. Mix it all up and then try rolling a little ball like you would a cake pop. If it crumbles and falls apart then you need to add a little bit more. The frosting amount you add to your cake will likely change every time you make a batch depending on the humidity and how well you cook your cake as well as other factors so I wouldn’t just plop in the same amount every time. Once your cake ball rolls well and is pretty stable you have added enough and now you can proceed to roll your cake balls.
This is how you get an amazing cake pop. 🙂
My favorite recipes for cake pops are yellow cake and red velvet cake.
So once you find good recipes with strong crumbs you should know that there are a few other techniques you can use to give you fabulous consistent results.
Factors: Mixing and Cooking Time
To get a strong crumb that is not overly moist what do you do? Make sure it’s mixed very well and overcook it! All the things you don’t want to do to your delicate cupcakes…..well we’re not making delicate cupcakes…
Mixing: When you mix normal cake or cupcake batter you want to mix until “just incorporated” usually (unless you are using cake flour then it doesn’t matter as much) so that you do not overmix the flour and create gluten…and what does gluten do? That’s right, it adds structure (too much sometimes) and makes a strong/tough cake which may or may not be desirable. In this case it is desirable to have a strong crumb. You can go overboard, however, so don’t. Giving your final batter another 20 strokes or so might be enough (depends on your batter…have fun and experiment).
Baking: I’m not talking about waiting ’till it’s black….I’m talking about making sure that your cake is cooked so that pretty much zero crumbs come off on your toothpick and the top is not looking moist. It should look “well cooked”. Even a bit of crusting is ok on the top. My yellow cake recipe is actually amazing when the top crusts because the flavor of the crusted cake is out of this world.
So now that we have mixed our batter a little more than normal and cooked our cake a little longer than normal we should be set up to make yummy cakey cake pops!
Now we want our cake to cool… completely. I do this by placing the cake into a large bowl and putting it in the fridge uncovered. Let it cool completely stirring every once in a while to move the hot spots around. You can break up the cake as you do this too.
The next step is VERY important. Adding the frosting. Well what type of frosting? I actually prefer storebought frosting for this because it is sticky and works as a good glue. Homemade frosting works too. Go with whatever you prefer.
The most important step is to make sure you do not add too much frosting. Adding too much can cause your cake to go mushy and more truffle like.
Add just enough frosting to allow the cake to adhere to itself. Add a little at a time. Mix it all up and then try rolling a little ball like you would a cake pop. If it crumbles and falls apart then you need to add a little bit more. The frosting amount you add to your cake will likely change every time you make a batch depending on the humidity and how well you cook your cake as well as other factors so I wouldn’t just plop in the same amount every time. Once your cake ball rolls well and is pretty stable you have added enough and now you can proceed to roll your cake balls.
This is how you get an amazing cake pop. 🙂
Up Next…. Frosted Cookies.
These cookies are just so pretty…too pretty to eat! But I am sure you will get over that when you think of the rich creamy cream cheese frosting covering the soft delicious sweet sugar cookie. Mmmm…..
There’s really not much more to say.
But I’ll ruin the moment by saying something anyway.
These cookies are made with a new rolled sugar cookie recipe I tried and love. It holds its shape well and is super yummy! You won’t stop eating the dough! (…if you can get past that raw egg business)
The hubster kept asking how many he could have. I made these the night before the event and I woke up to quite a few missing cookies. Disclaimer: He is not the husband that will eat just anything especially sweet stuff. He is actually pretty picky so when he can’t stop eating something I can automatically mark the recipe down as a keeper. 🙂
Here is the rolled sugar cookie recipe. You will roll the dough out as thick as you want it to be and then cut using a round 3″ cookie cutter. To decorate, I used a 3M tip in a piping bag with store bought Pillsbury cream cheese frosting because I ran out of time (surprise). I recommend Pillsbury or Duncan Hines. They taste different but are both delicious. I would say Pillsbury is a little more tangy. Whatever frosting you use will need to be thick enough to hold shape and be melt-resistant. Translation: True buttercreams that use all butter like to melt when exposed to heat so it may not be the best option for these if they will be in a warm place. Buttercream recipes that contain at least half shortening in place of butter should work quite well.
If your frosting is made but not thick enough, you can add powdered sugar to get it stiffer, but keep in mind that it will make it sweeter. Using a powdered sugar that is store brand but not Target brand (instead of C&H or other expensive powdered sugars) can help decrease the sweetnesss slightly because it actually has more cornstarch and less sugar than the brand name products.
Good for your budget….good for your frosting!
To make the rose, start in the middle of the cookie and, pressing evenly, sweep the frosting around about 2 times. Release the pressure and sweep the tail around the side of the cookie.
The frosting will stiffen slightly but it is meant to stay soft so these are not stackable cookies. There are other recipes that will harden so you can stack them (more like a royal icing).
Keep these cookies covered so they stay soft and delicious.
Enjoy.
Great! I am glad you enjoy the posts! I love to make desserts too! 🙂
Let me know how your cream cheese recipe turns out! I hope amazing!
I always use cream cheese frosting for red velvet cake pops because it just goes so well. I like to use Duncan Hines or Pillsbury canned frosting because it is real sticky and a great binder for the cake. If you want a homemade cream cheese frosting though, you can find it here.
htpps://www.sharedessertcompany.com/2011/10/baby-blessing-dessert-bar-red-velvet.html
Thanks for asking! Good Luck! 🙂