Taking my turn at Creating a Cake Pop Truffling thing!!

When I was working at the bakery we used to save the un-frosted cupcakes every night in Ziploc bags. The intention had been to create "cake bites" or Cake Pops out of the left overs, essentially not wasting anything. Well on occasion this happened, but I was never involved. If it did not involve the oven I was not usually asked to help. I was pretty much a mess when it came to frosting or decorating anything! So this is going to stretch my abilities, it will be a growth opportunity. Often when I make multi layer cakes or large cakes I trim a good portion from the top to level the cake then I freeze to make it into something like a trifle. These pops and bites are another good use for cake trimming scraps, especially if you have already made butter cream!

Here are my cake trimmings. Chocolate cake is a favorite in my house and in the neighborhood for that matter. The neighbors are my test subjects and what I a creating they are tasting!

The next ingredient is the creamy stuff that my kids would eat with out cake. Light fluffy vanilla butter cream.

This is sweet cream butter whipped nice and light. 1 T vanilla extract and 2T Half and Half. Whip it some more and add air until the butter is almost white. Now add about 1 pound confectioners sugar in two additions and blend well  after each addition, it may need 1-2T more of the half and half. Now allow to mix until the volume increases slightly.

Break the cake into crumbles and add 1 cup of the butter cream and fold together until it looks like the mixture above. Then roll mixture into 1 inch balls. Place them on a sheet tray covered with foil or parchment paper. (the mixture should make about 40 balls.)

 The Cake balls can be lightly covered and placed in the refrigerator for1-2 hours. Or if you are in a hurry, like I always am, place them in the freezer for 15-20 minutes until firm. Next prepare the chocolate.

Here we have Guittard Coverture Chocolate. This chocolate it used for molding and coating candies. It has a higher percentage of cocoa butter (the fat in chocolate) that allows it to melt easily, adhere and dry at room temperature. It is melted until smooth over simmering water. today I made cake pops so I stuck the ends of the pop sticks in the melted chocolate to help it bind to the cake and butter cream.

Place the chocolate dipped sticks about 3/4 of the way into the cake and then dip in the coveture chocolate.
The pops can be cooled by standing on end; or if you have a piece of Styrofoam around the sticks can be poked into the foam and allowed to dry perfectly round. I chose chocolate and white choco late coating but and of the "colors" used for candy molding can be used to cover you cake and then to decorate. My out come was great. It was simple and came together nicely. My husband was ready for me to go into mass production. The neighbors want more! Hope you enjoy making these as well. It was a nice way to spend a snowy winter day.

List of Ingredients:
1 layer cake or the equivalent in cake scraps
1 small batch of butter cream ( if you are pushed a can of Duncan Hines frosting will work!)1 pound of coverture or candy making chocolate
Lollipop sticks about 4 inches long