Ok I'll admit it, I have been making a lot of bird themed stuff lately.
I'm blaming the bird baby shower I made stuff for late last year. 'Cause while I was thinking up stuff to make I came up with lots of other ideas. Like when I made up the speckled 'bird egg' macarons I thought, hmmmm......they sure would make pretty cake pops.
And then once I've thought that it's not like I could stop thinking it. It's like a done deal.
Also I blame the birds, or rather the graphic designers who make birds look so cute. In real life birds aren't really that cute. Well around here anyway, they are pretty swoopy in the spring time. specially when they are nesting, more kinda the Alfred Hitchcock type deal.
But in my mind they are protecting cute little chicks that will grow up to be whimsically pretty with rosy cheeks so I can forgive them all the swooping and still pretend they are adorable.
And this is what their eggs will look like :)
I used blue Wilton Candy melts to make these delicate looking speckled eggs, but you could use any color you like including plain white chocolate, which would give a lovely creamy colored egg.
I mixed Blue and White candy melts together to get a more subtle light blue color for my eggs, and y'all might think, well why didn't you just color your own chocolate.
So I thought I might share my reasoning with you:
- Regular food color can not be used on chocolate - Water is chocolate's nemesis and most regular food color is water based, even those gel colors. You need to buy special oil based food colors or get a special product (like AmeriColor™ Flo-Coat™) which somehow magically allows you to mix in the regular color.
- I prefer to use the candy coating for cake pops for a couple of reasons - it sets way quicker than regular chocolate. Also once set it doesn't leave fingerprints as easily as regular chocolate.
- I actually like the taste of the Candy melts/ coating when paired with the cake truffle. It's not really chocolate and from the name you can tell it's not pretending to be. It has a kind of vanilla flavor which is really sweet and I feel lends the finished treat a bit of a lighter taste.
- Plus that's what I had in my pantry (probably for the reasons listed above).
and in case you missed my earlier post. I noticed Fishpond having a 24 pre-order sale on Peggy Porschen's new book boutique bakery, for $21.97 including free postage in Australia - nice!
Blue Speckled Robin Egg Cake Truffle
1 batch Oreo Cookie Truffle or Cake pop mixture#
Blue candy melts
White candy melts
Chocolate
Copha or Paramount crystals
Toothpicks
Clean brush/ toothbrush
# cake pop mixture is cake crumbled up with buttercream or other frosting mixed in until it is moist enough to hold it's shape.
Line a tray with parchment paper. Take around 3 teaspoons of the cake pop mixture and roll it between your palms to make a smooth ball, then using your fingers and palms turn the ball into an egg/oval shape. I find that shaping the mixture into the ball first makes it easier to get a smooth finish.
Place the egg shaped truffles on the tray in fridge to chill until firm
Melt the chocolate. To get the color I desired I mixed the Wilton Blue Candy Melts and Wilton White Candy Melts at a ratio of 2 parts white chocolate to each 1 part chocolate (eg 400g Blue to 200g White or 14 oz Blue to 7 oz white). Mix in quite a bit of copha or paramount crystals during the melting process until the mixture is very fluid (but not so much that it is watery). The mixture should be like condensed milk.
This is NOT how the finished melted blue/white candy melt mixture should look - this is just showing how I mixed a couple of colors together. It should be a consistent color and much more fluid than this bowl.
I melt my chocolate in the microwave on medium low, medium is too hot and high is way too hot. If you heat your chocolate at too high a temperature it will burn and not be salvageable for dipping .Remember medium/low for short bursts of 60 to 90 seconds.
Grab a bunch of toothpicks. Holding one end of the stick dip the other end into the melted chocolate/candy coating and insert it into a egg shape so the stick is sitting in the larger rounded bottom side of the egg (see picture) and the stick is parallel to the tray. Repeat for remaining eggs.
Place the tray back into the fridge to chill for 10 minutes or until the sticks are secure.
Make sure the chocolate/candy coating is still melted, if needed remelt in the microwave at medium low. Holding the end of the stick dip the whole egg truffle into the melted chocolate/candy coating. Lift it up and allow as much of the candy/chocolate mixture to fall off as possible. Place upright in a stryofoam block to set.
Once set you can lay the cloud pops back down on a tray to work on. Holding the toothpick securely twist and pull the toothpick out and repeat for all the eggs.
Make sure you still have some of the melted chocolate. For this step I like the chocolate to be nearly set, but not quite.Make sure your hands are really clean (I know you would be doing that anyway) or pop on gloves and stick your finger into the melted chocolate. Then press the chocolate into the hole left by the toothpick and smooth it around with the tip of you finger.
Next melt up very small amount of the dark chocolate you can add a little copha or paramount crystal if you like.
Place one of the eggs away from the others on a clean workbench (like your kitchen bench). Dip your brush in the chocolate and then holding the brush by one hand, run your fingers through the bristles sot that the chocolate splatters onto the egg.
Yup just like you used to do when you were a kid.
I like to hold the brush down just under the larger rounded bottom side so that the flicks of chocolate are larger down there and graduate up to less at the top of the egg, but that's just my preference.
Repeat for remaining eggs.
Eggs can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 days.
If you enjoy cake pops, my book Sweets on a Stick has lots of recipes for making cake pops from scratch and more fun ideas is a US Release however there is a conversion chart in the back of the book for metric.It's available from bookstores in the US and here online at:
Or here at fishpond (Aus/NZ)
