Saturday, April 7, 2012

Babycakes Cake Pop Maker

I finally bought the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker in March.  Yes, I know the 'Cake Pop' trend is almost over, but I never cared for the original cake pop with the thick gooey frosting mixing in cake and shaping into round balls.  Especially store bought icing.  With shortening.  Enough said.

And I knew about the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker, but I thought it was just too much hassle, until I went to a cake pop party.  Besides, for $20, I can justify for an afternoon activities with my sons and my nieces.  But I also got a Tovolo pancake pen for $10.  It was getting expensive, especially I didn't have any coupon with me.

Before starting, I consulted my best friend, Google, about what to do.  Some tips were helpful, such as using the pancake pen for filling the holes, unplug the maker while filling, coat the holes lightly with oil to prevent sticking, etc.

I started out with a basic vanilla recipe from the booklet that came with the maker.  It turned out well.  Some were round, some were not, and they were all eventually consumed.

This is the basic vanilla mix that came with the instruction booklet.  I didn't fill the wells / holes full enough.

Thus the cake pops came out flat on top.
Then I tried it out with a cake mix since I read that cake mix would work as well.  I wanted a lemon flavor but was too lazy to zest the lemons (that I have not bought), so I got a Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme cakemix. Prepared per instructions, and baked using the Cake Pop Maker. 

Then I tried with the cake mix.  This was the cake mix I used.  You will see that the 'moist' cake mix might not be the best choice for the cake pop maker.

The cake pops were full and well rounded when just baked.

But soon deflated with a cake mix.  The cake were too fluffy and soft and couldn't hold the structure.  Those cake pops made from the recipes from babycakes have firmer, drier and more dense, thus can keep their shapes better.

And finally, the perfect cake pop.  Haa, just kidding!  I just flipped the bottom over.  This must be how the  covered picture from the box was taken.

I went back to the babycakes recipe and tried the lemon one with lemon zest and lemon juice.  Good flavor. But again, a bit drier than cake mix. Tried dipping. The first time, I over heated the candy melt and thus couldn't get it to flow smoothly, no matter now much shortening I added.  I googled and googled and saw that a lot of people were asking the same questions I did - why couldn't I get the smooth shiny texture like others?

I tried again, heating in 20 seconds interval on DEFROST, stirred and stirred, and erred on the side of caution so it wouldn't be overheated.  I was able to create that smooth and shiny texture.  However, by the time the candy got coated and excess dripped off, it was too dry to evenly coated the sprinkles on.  I still needed to play with it a bit more.

My cake pops.  I just tried sprinkles with a few just to experiment.  And actually, by this time, I was pretty lazy and unmotivated to do anything creative.

This is my best one.  I put the sprinkles in the bowl and dip it in right after.  You can see the candy was dried  already.





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