Bakerella's Cake Pops

I've been following food blogs for a few months, and I knew at some point I would be making these. They are just so darn cute! In this batch, I made:
Cupcake bites:"Spring" Cake Pops:

and Cake "truffles":Bakerella is the master here, so I defer all questions and instructions to her. Cupcake bites are explained in the previous link, and all things cake pop related are here. She really has some FABULOUS ideas on her site, so you should check that out. I'm still going to post some pictures and comments, because well, I took a ton of pics and had fun making these!

You start by making a standard 9 x 13" cake, flavor of your choice, and crumbling it into a bowl. Then stir in about 3/4 of a can of frosting. This could be messy, but keep going. This time I used a box mix and store bought frosting, but in the future I might take the time to make my own. These are a chocolate cake/vanilla frosting mix.

Then, for the cupcake bites and cake truffles, roll the mixture into balls. I used heaping scoops with my small cookie scoop. Place these on some wax paper and then set in the fridge or freezer for a while to set. By the way, did I mention this commentary is just to explain my pictures? If you really want to know what to do, Bakerella explains it better.

Anyways, for the cake pops, I used small fondant cutters to make the shapes. The bigger and less detailed the shape, the better. Trust me on this one. I made a lot of "blob" pops.For the cupcake bites, put a little chocolate in a candy mold, then set the balls in the chocolate to make the bottom. Put the mold in the fridge until the chocolate sets. (Bakerella has picture by picture instructions. I don't. I'm not Bakerella.)
Once the bottom chocolate has set, dip the top of the circle in a colored chocolate for the icing of the cupcake. I thought my green turned out kind of blah, but I was really happy with the blue. I topped with colored non-pariels, and a candy coated chocolate (imatation M&Ms).Ta-da! Cupcake bite perfection!!!For the truffles, I just dipped balls in chocolate, and set them on wax paper to harden. Then I drizzled some white chocolate on top to make them pretty. Aren't they pretty? I took these into work and got some fabulous comments on them!
All this started as a treat for my sister-in-law's birthday (Happy Bday Sarah!). Some family was getting together, so I brought the cupcake bites for dessert. I had this idea in my head that I could make cake pops in the shapes of flowers coming out of a flower pot. It looked a little better in my head, but it still turned out pretty cool.

I put some styrofoam in the mini flower pot, and iced the top of it. I put some extra cake crumbs on top of the icing for the "dirt". Not all of the cake-pops turned out to be gift-able. Check out some of my lessons learned at the end of the post for some "no-duh" tips.

Josh thought he could tie a prettier bow than me. We both need practice in pretty-bow tying.
His bow won.

So, I had fun with this (and I impressed my in-laws!). I learned a few things along the way too. Some of these things may seem obvious... but when you have a counter top full of cake balls, sticks, bowls of chocolate, sprinkles and M&Ms, your judgement can be clouded. Or you could be on a sugar high. From the fumes. Not because you had to test-eat any of the cake pops.

Lesson's Learned in Round 1 of Bakerella Cake Pop Making:
1. Red chocolate + Blue chocolate = a really ugly shade of purple chocolate. I need to invest in some Wilton gel colors before the next go around. Or buy purple chocolate (yes, they make that).
2. Butterfly cut-outs fall off sucker sticks when dipped in chocolate 7 out of 10 times. All shapes need a good strong center, and the butterflies skinny body just doesn't cut it.
3. Detailed shapes don't work. The more exaggerated the shape, the better it turns out after being dipped in chocolate. My tulips looked more like fists than flowers. Hopefully the flower pot gave them away. The butterflies just looked like blobs.
4. Colored sprinkles don't show up on dark chocolate.
5. Chocolate dries fast. Apply sprinkles ASAP!
6. I really can't tie a pretty bow. Mom, help!
7. Some things just turn out better in my head. At least I could find a few pops that were still passable.

Thats officially the longest post I've ever written. Hope you enjoyed it!
Yummy!