Ben Ten cake pops with mini M &M's

I'm having a bit of bloggers block at the moment.

Yup I have been a bad blogger, nothing inspiring cooked around here the last week of so. Well I did make some of my triple chocolate cookies but y'all have seen those done so I didn't take any pictures.

oh and I did make a cake for my nephew but it was a last minute thing the night before and I used a Harry Potter cake box mix that someone had given me.

So I went back through my archives to try and rustle up some photo's to share with you and found these.

OK the reason I never posted these before is not because they were not totally awesome, it's because I took pretty awful photo's which often happens when I am making something for someone else.

These are some Ben Ten Pop's I made last year for the owner and designer of Australian Made kids fashion line Little Miss J and Mister TJ, well for her son really.

I made the pops with chocolate cake and mini M & M's, which I think is perfect for little boys. Just make up your chocolate cake, add enough frosting so it will be moist and holds it's shape remember not sloppy and the add a handful of mini m&m,s.

OK you need to be a little restrained on the M & M's too many and you will have difficulty popping you lollipop stick into the pop.

Here is a picture of the pop's, I shaped them using a small round fondant cutter and pressing the cake pop mixture in and flattening the top. Then I chilled the mixture and went through and popped the lollipop stick into each one to make a hole, this is pretty important with the M & M pops because if you poke into one of the candies there is no getting through you just need to start in another spot. Some times it's easier to scrap the whole pop and reshape it.

(If you look closely you can see where I had to make a second hole as I could not push through the candy)

Chill the pops again and in the meantime melt your chocolate/ candy melts. Take the pops out of the fridge and insert the lollipop sticks by dipping them into the melted chocolate and pushing them into the pre-made holes. Chill them in the fridge again.

One the lollipop sticks are set you can dip the whole pop in the melted chocolate and set standing up in styrofoam.

With these Ben Ten pops I had pre-made rounds of fondant using the same round fondant cutter and cutting the triangle shapes using a pizza cutter wheel, after the chocolate on the pops were dry I attached the fondant rounds with a little melted chocolate and held them a couple of seconds until secure.

Have yourself a Merry Aussie Christmas

Catherine G, Chris E and Megan S this prawn cake pop is for you (please don't anyone report me to Cake wrecks this pop is a joke).

When I asked on my facebook page what kind of treats you wanted for Christmas there was a varied response.

But a couple of you suggested some Australian Christmas treats, you know seeings as it's summer here and  we don't have any snowflakes, furry hats and snowmen in December.

I thought about it for a while, I searched for what a true Aussie Christmas is and what I found is that we are a country with many different traditions and cultures.......no surprises there.

I live in Brisbane Queensland and about a half hour drive to the beautiful Gold Coast. Growing up Christmas celebrations meant prawns (shrimp), pavlova, mango, beaches and a bit of cricket. It's Christmas to me but just doesn't lend itself to a bunch of pretty Christmas treats.

So I thought about what Christmas really means to me:

• Family
• Joy
• Love
• Sharing

and you know what no matter how diverse our country is or what culture we come from I think these values can work for everyone, and not just in Australia.

I was going to make a bunch of sugar cookies with the words stamped onto them but I just didn't get time and all that would fit on the cake pops was Joy.

Fittingly that was also what I felt when I bit into this pop.
There are some basic instructions after the jump

Tim Tam rush pops

If you follow me on facebook you've probably already seen this photo, but what you might not have seen is that this is not just a normal everyday white Tim Tam truffle cookie pop, it's a Tim Tam Rush pop.

Or maybe when you were growing up they were called a Tim Tam Slam.

Or maybe you think I'm a little weird and you don't know what I'm talking about.

It's when you get a tim tam and slurp your coffee up through it and pop the whole lot in your mouth. I was never a huge fan back in the day but when I was growing up they only had original tim tams. Maybe if they had white tim tams I might have been a convert.

Although I'm not so sure, never was a big fan of soggy. But with these pops you get the yummy coffee/tim tam flavour and none of the unpleasant sogginess. Really the best of both worlds don't you think.

Waiting to be made into pops, the coffee ones at the front and plain old white tim tam at the back

I am a convert now and once you try them you might be too.  Recipe after jump.

Lolli-cake-pops tutorial and cake pop bouquet

By popular vote on my facebook page I am doing a tutorial on the lolli-cake-pops I made up.

But first I'm going to bore you with share the story of how I came up with these pops as Amanda asked how I come up with these ideas.

Saw some cute dagashi inspired marshmallows on the decorated cookie blog and I thought wow - they are super cute might try making some cake pops like this.

Timing was just before Halloween so I tried out some Halloween inspired ones. I considered these a big fail which is why you didn't see the pics. Will be going back to these with a new improved formula/process one day soon.

However while I was covering them in marshmallow fondant I saw a vision of lollipop cookie pops and that's how I got to these.
 

and while I was making these I came up with another great idea which if they work I'll share as well.

Yup that's me...... I see cake in almost everything I look at.

Then after I finished making them I was inspired to make a lollipop cookie pop bouquet by gorgeous photo's I've seen around of lollipop brides wedding bouquets.

Hint - if you are making the pops for a bouquet use real candy melts not just white chocolate like I did in my second batch as the candy melts set harder and will not smudge while your manipulating your pops around in the bouquet.

The bouquets were really cute and they would probably make a perfect little flower girl bouquet if you can stop the kids from eating them for long enough....

Oh and great news I have a cookbook being released in the US December 2011 - here is a link to Amazon, the preorder price is ah-mazing. Stacks more recipes and ideas for pops and other treats on a stick:



Anyway I know you just want the tutorial so here you go. Recipe after jump.

Halloween Vampire Cake pops, you'll be team cake pop after this

Vampires and cake pops seem to be big at the moment so I thought as a Halloween treat I'd combine them and I came up with these Vampire bite cake pops.

One bite from these and you'll definitely be team cake pop like me.

Now I'll have to admit here that I don't actually follow Twilight or a lot of the vampire stuff around at the moment, not because I don't like it I just never have a lot of time to read books or watch TV.

But.......I have managed to read the Sookie Stackhouse novels (True Blood) and I'm totally Team Eric, well book Team Eric all the way.

I'm not really sure why I thought y'all might like to know that, but maybe it's an insight into how I came up with these cake pops, they were inspired by the cover of the dvd box set.

I know your thinking that's just not normal. I see food everywhere, what can I say.



These pops are chocolate cake and vanilla buttercream inside and raspberry flavour chocolate outside, the teeth were made by hand.

I shaped the cake mixture into lip shapes, popped them into the fridge to set, inserted the sticks/pops with some melted chocolate, back into the fridge and then dipped them into some red chocolate flavoured with raspberry. After they were set I added the decorations with ready rolled fondant.

Bee cake pops (well ok they're Bee Oreo Pops)

I've been busy as a bee in the kitchen lately and one of the things I have whipped up is these bee Oreo cookie truffle pops.

Based on Bakerella's instructions and tweaked a little for those who are piping impaired like me.

I heart sweet cookie pops - Tim Tam Cookie Pop recipe

Not so subliminal message -  I heart sweet cookie pops

I'm on a cookie pop binge at the moment.

I am giving myself a baking breather and cookie pops do not require any real cooking and satisfy my super sweet tooth, and they are fast. Yup ready to eat within an hour.

After those delicious Oreo pops the other day, I thought I would try out some Australian brand cookies and so obviously one of the next cookies of the rank was the Tim Tam.

If your not from Australia, Tim Tams are a grocery store biscuit (that's what we call cookies here) with 2 chocolate rectangle biscuits iced together with a chocolate cream and covered in........chocolate.

Ok not a lot of thought went into that flavour combination there, but it seems to have served Arnott's well as they are a bit of an Aussie icon.

And these pops don't just taste sweet and look sweet, they SAY sweet. Boy I'm as bad as Arnott's not much thought process going on here. My only thoughts are of sweeeet, sweeeeet cookie pops.

I tweaked this recipe by using my Oreo cookie recipe and checking out Not Quite Nigella's post on her Tim Tam pops.

Try these out, if you like Tim Tams I think you'll like them.

Tim Tam Cookie Pop recipe and instructions makes 10 cake pops

1 packet Tim Tams, 200grams (7  1/8 ounce)
80 grams cream cheese softened to room temp (2 7/8 ounce)
150 gram chocolate melts any flavour (5 3/8 ounce) I used white

1. Crush Tim Tams finely in food processor

2. Add cream cheese and pulse until mixture is smooth and comes together in a ball.

3. Shape mixture into balls and roll round in between your palms to shape. Mine are about 25g (7/8 ounce) each. Chill in fridge for a short time.

4. To secure sticks for dipping, melt some of the chocolate melts (I just do mine in the microwave for short bursts on med low) and dip the end of your sticks/pops in the chocolate and push into the firm truffles. Return to fridge.
5. Melt remainder of chocolate, make sure it is completely smooth. Holding the stick/pop dip truffles into the melted chocolate, allow excess to drip off and then place into a holder to set. I use blocks of styrofoam covered in plastic wrap.

Sweeeeeet!

These pops are decorated with some round fondant I cut out using the top of a large piping tip which I then decorated by hand prior to placing them on the pops.

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Here is the link for instructions on how to stamp the decorations

Oreo Cookie Truffle Pops Recipe

 
I am soooo loving cake pops at the moment, for me they are the new cupcake, or macaron, or whatever....... I'm not even up with what's "it" at the moment but for me Cake pops are definitely 'it'.

Not to say I don't still enjoy a couple of macarons each day. Variety is the spice of life. But given a choice I'm going for those cake pops for sure.

Dense, moist and cakey inside and creamy sweet chocolate outside, there's no way I'm tiring of these delicious treats any time soon.

The ones in these pictures are not technically cake pops, they're cookie pops, Oreo cookie truffle pops to be exact.

And how about this, just 3 ingredients: Oreo cookies, cream cheese and chocolate. None of that messy time consuming cake making and baking for these pops.

Do you know what that means, yup they are ready to eat even faster. Just mix, chill, dip and eat.

I served these Oreo Truffle pops at the Ava's Tea Party we held in memory of Ava Rosemeyer, if you haven't had a chance check out the post.

Of course can't mention cake pops without mentioning Bakerella whom has a new cookbook out on...... yes you guessed it cake pops. I'm sure I don't need to tell you to check out her site if you love cake pops like I love cake pops.


Oreo Cookie Truffle Pop Recipe - makes approx 16 truffle pops

Note for US conversion, pretty much just add half the amount of cream cheese to what ever size packet oreo's you get. So if you have a 16oz package of Oreos add 8oz cream cheese which will make around 23 or 24 Oreo truffles.

300g Oreo Cookies
150g Cream Cheese at room temp
397g Packet Wilton Chocolate Melts (mine were pink) or use white eating chocolate with a little copha melted in.

1. Crush Oreo cookies finely in a food processor

2. Add cream cheese and process until the mixture clumps together

3 Roll into small balls, mine are about 25g (7/8 ounce) each and refrigerate until firm


4. To secure sticks for dipping, melt some of the chocolate melts (I just do mine in the microwave for short bursts on med low) and dip the end of your sticks/pops in the chocolate and push into the firm truffles. Return to fridge.

5. Melt remainder of chocolate, make sure it is completely smooth. Holding the stick/pop dip truffles into the melted chocolate, allow excess to drip off and then place into a holder to set. I use styrofoam covered in plastic.

These pops are decorated with modeling chocolate butterflies. If you want to add on any decorations you can either add while the chocolate has not yet set or afterwards you can melt a little more chocolate and add using a little of the melted chocolate as the glue.
Linda Vandermeer is a blogger, baker, maker and author of the cookbook ' Sweets on a Stick': More than 150 kid friendly recipes for cakes, candies, cookies and pies on the go!. Published in the US the book is available at most online book stores:

Or here at fishpond (Aus/NZ)

Sweets on a Stick also available at the Bleeding Heart Brisbane: contact details info@bleedingheart.com.au

Little Red Bird Cake Pops

EDIT UPDATE
I now have a quick youtube video on how to make these cute cake pops here:

My gorgeous niece and God daughter Molly is about to turn 3. I just received her invitation with the cutest little red birdie on it and I had a crazy idea to make bird cake pops for her party.

Seemed like a simple enough idea.

So I sat down to channel my inner Bakerella (cake pop queen).......but just so you know not in a creepy Julia and Julia blogging way where I sat around in pearls and made my husband watch endless videos.

I thought I had a pretty good plan, but like everything it seems so much easier when someone else does it. My first one was pretty lumpy. But I quickly worked out a dipping and twirling technique that seemed to make all the difference. These birds required dipping the back/top first, then starting at one side, the front, other side and finally the back in a kind of twirly movement.

But I persevered and I'm not unhappy with my little red bird cake pops,

and also their matching red polka dot partners.