Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake Pops: Take 2

Remember my cake pop failure from a few days ago?  I didn't let it defeat me and I managed to successfully make my cake pops.  Yay!!  Since several people asked me questions about how to actually make cake pops, I'm going to share the whole process in detail.  I'm still perfecting the process myself, but this will give you a good starting place.

First, bake a cake.  I made a strawberrry cake using a recipe from a friend, but you can make any flavor you want.  You're going to crumble the cake up in the next step, so it really doesn't matter what pan you bake it in.  For this size cake (which is about the size of one box of cake mix), I was able to make about 40 cake pops. 

Now, the crumbling part.  Just dig in with your hands.  You will get messy.  Just keep breaking it up until it is a consistent mix of small crumbs.  Sometimes the edges are a bit harder than the rest of the cake and won't crumble well.  I suggest eating those.

Now, add frosting.  I used strawberry frosting that I made myself but store-bought is fine.  When I have done this before, I found that one box of cake mix needed about 2/3 a can of frosting.  Now, HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART.  Add the frosting a little at a time and mix thoroughly before adding more.  The mistake I made the other day was adding in all my frosting at once.  It ended up way to moist and sweet.

Keep mixing and adding frosting until you get a nice, mold-able consistency.   My way of testing this is to just pick some up and see how easy it is to form it into a ball. 

Now shape your cake balls.  Grab some of your cake/frosting dough and roll it into a ball.  You have to be a little gentle with it so just work it slowly till you get your shape.  Now stick a stick in the middle.  Once I finished all of them, I stuck them in the fridge for awhile to harden up a bit more.

The next step is melting your chocolate.  I used baker's chocolate and melted it in a mug in the microwave.  This was convenient but I also had some problems with chocolate burning even when I followed the melting instructions.  So be careful and go slow.  I spent some time scooping out lumps of burnt chocolate.  Not fun.

Now start dipping your cake pops.  I find this to be the hardest step.  The cake really wants to slide off of the sticks.  I found it easiest to tilt the mug to the side and dip the cake pop in the entire way.  I started by going slowly and trying to turn the cake pop around near the surface, but I had a lot more sliding problems.  Once I started dunking in and out quickly, it worked much better.  Set each pop on parchment paper to dry.

I got crazy and added sprinkles.  I also did some in white chocolate.  I recommend setting your pops inside of a pan if you are going to sprinkle.  I didn't do this with the first set and got sprinkles everywhere.

That's it!  They harden faster in the refrigerator and I have always stored mine in there as well.  I'm still working on perfecting the look of mine; they are a bit blobby :)  But they tasted good!

I hope that overview helped!  And if you have any tips for me, I'd love to hear them.  I'm still struggling with getting a really "tidy" look to them :)