Ooooh, meatballs on sticks!?! They're actually cake pops, thanks.

Cake pops have been popping up everywhere. I made them a few years ago minus the sticks...easy to just pop in your mouth. It's sort of a gross concept to me. You take some cake. Put it in a bowl. Add some frosting. Mash together. Roll into balls. Cover in chocolate. Something about mashing the cake and mixing the frosting then rolling it into balls is just unappetizing to me. However, the end result is pretty fricken good. I've decided after several attempts, I will stick to just eating these and not making them.

I was making carrot cake cupcakes for an order. They didn't exactly turn out as nice as I wanted them too.  My mom's recipe I use is super moist and needed some tweaking in order to be turned into successful cupcakes. The first batch didn't turn out so good so I figured I'd try out some cake pops.

I unwrapped them, threw them in a bowl and plopped in some cream cheese and buttercream frosting and went to town. No measuring and who doesn't like cream cheese buttercream with carrot cake?! I had some nice little balls.  They were not exactly round and flattened out a bit when I put them on the parchment paper, but I figured they'd be fine once they were dipped in chocolate. I put them in the freezer...another mistake. Apparently you should not freeze you pops.  A few hours later, I took them out, melted some chocolate, which happened to be orange, and stuck em on a stick and dipped. This is the most tedious and time consuming process ever. Here's what I got...lol

 Scrap that. No way I could sell or even serve these. I can just imagine people coming up to me remarking on my variety of baked goods...cupcakes AND meatballs?!? Seriously, they look like meatballs. The chocolate coating only further emphasized the lumpiness of each ball. Back in the freezer they went until I could decided what to do with them. One week later, they actually tasted pretty good...for breakfast.

I thought my relationship with cake pops was over until my friend asked if I could do some for her sister's baby shower. I could not refuse because I absolutely adore this family. I never get worried about doing orders for people but with my cake pop disasters, I wasn't looking forward to the outcome. Chocolate chip cookie dough was the flavor... and I've got an amazing recipe for it. No matter how crappy they turned out, at least I knew they would taste good.  I was able to get them a little rounder this time, and didn't freeze them. Voila! Not too shabby.

Reading this Cake Pop tutorial from Decorate This! did help a bit.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Makes 50 cake pops or spoonfuls for days

2 sticks butter, softened
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
4 tbs vanilla
1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla. Add flour. Add milk. Fold in chocolate chips. Eat.


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