Striped Cake Pops

A few weeks ago I posted cake balls in the form of chocolate covered strawberries, but nothing can quite beat the cuteness of a cake ball on a stick - aka the cake pop.  I made a batch of white cake pops with pink stripes for my blog banner a few years ago, but since I only made them for color-coordinating decoration purposes, I never wrote a post dedicated to them.  Recently I've received a number of emails inquiring about the cake pops, so I re-created them for this post and brought them to a friend's bachelorette party which worked out perfectly since her wedding color is fuchsia too :).  

Since I still haven't gotten around to investing in a large block of styrofoam to dry my pops, I've made these stand upside-down.  But they still have a handle, and that's the best part of eating a cake pop!  Although I'm no expert in making and dipping cake balls, I have picked up a few tips along the way that I thought I would share to help you get a nice and smooth coating:

• Rather than freezing the un-dipped cake balls for a few minutes to firm them up, take the extra time to place them in the fridge for a half hour instead.  I've found that if the cake balls are too cold and the candy coating is too hot, the chocolate will seize.
• After you've melted your candy coating for the second interval of 30 seconds, mix vigorously for at least a minute to see if you can melt any solid pieces this way before popping it back into the microwave again.  If you overheat the candy coating, it will become too thick to work with.
• Add a dash of vegetable oil to your candy coating to help make it less viscous. 
• After you've dipped your cake pop, have a few toothpicks handy to help push away any excess that may pool at the bottom.  

As far as adding stripes, there are a few options.  I first dipped my cake balls in Wilton's pastel color burst candy melts and let them dry completely.  Then you can either put the melted candy coating into a squeeze bottle to pipe stripes or use a toothpick to "draw" on lines.  I started off with the squeeze bottle method but my tip kept getting clogged, so I later opted to draw lines with a toothpick dipped in candy.  Since candy melts dry rather quickly, I would suggest just piping half of the cake ball at a time and adding the sprinkles as  soon as possible.  Finer grain sprinkles like sanding sugar are best for this type of decorating because you don't want the sprinkles weighing down the candy melts.  And make sure to put a small plate or bowl underneath so you can reuse the sprinkles that fall!      

Cake pops are a great dessert to make for a party - they travel well, are single-serving, and super fun!  I chose to make lemon cake for these since that is Caitlin's favorite, and even decorated a few with C+V (her and her fiance's initials) and some hearts.  The possibilities are endless with cake pops, and I think this stripe design is great for a blog header, bachelorette party, or just because!

Lemon Cake Pops

1 box cake mix (I used lemon)

1/4 cup canned vanilla frosting

2 bags Candy melts (I used Wilton's color burst pastel)

Colored sanding sugar

Lollipop sticks

- Bake cake according to package's instructions and allow to cool completely.  

- Crumble baked cake with your fingers and mix in frosting until a malleable dough forms.

- Form dough into balls, place on a wax-paper lined cookie sheet, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.  

- Melt a bit of candy melts and dip ends of lollipop sticks in the candy before inserting into cake balls.  Return cake balls to fridge for another 10-15 minutes.  

- Melt the rest of the candy melts in a deep bowl.  Submerge each cake pop in the melted candy and gently tap the stick on the side of the bowl to help shake off any excess coating.  Invert cake pops onto a wax-paper lined surface and allow to dry completely.

- To make stripes, dip a toothpick in the melted candy and draw the stripes around the ball (I suggest drawing only 1 half-circle at a time since the candy melts dry quickly).  Cover with sprinkles immediately and continue decorating as desired.

Let me know if you have any specific questions regarding cake pops and I'll do my best to help you out!

New York Style Coffee Crumb Cake

I think streusel-topping should be its own food group.  I love it on top of muffins, cakes, and even just on its own.  This is not hard to believe since it's a combination of butter, sugar, and cinnamon with flour, but there's just something magical about these delicious coarse crumbs.  So it should not come as a surprise that I LOVE coffee cake - the absurd amount of streusel piled on top suits me perfectly, and I was very excited, and a little nervous, to try baking it at home.  I've made coffee cake muffins before, and even blueberry coffee cake, but I was ready to try the true classic this time around. Thankfully the result came out wonderfully and I was obsessed with the look and taste of the topping as well as the cake.  

I really did love this recipe - both sides of my extended family hail from the Empire State, so I've had my fair share of NY-style coffee cakes and this one was right on par.  My Grandma is famous in her small town for her coffee cake recipe, so it's safe to say my expectations for this cake were high.  But I as pleasantly surprised with my results - the cake had a dense crumb but also seemed light and moist and had a great taste.  When I first took my cake out of the oven, the crumbs were a little crunchy - I may have cooked the cake a little too long - but after the cake sat overnight, the crumbs softened up perfectly.  I couldn't help myself from immediately eating any crumb that fell off after cutting, moving, and photographing these delightful cakes. I may or may not have purposefully treated them a little rough to free off some extra crumbs along the way :)  

I often bake for group meetings, get-togethers, and parties, so I really prefer preparing single-serving baked goods that are easy to grab and share.  This is the reason you see a lot of cupcakes, cookies, and muffins on my blog that feed a lot of people without the hassle of cutting and serving.  Coffee cake would normally be considered a bit annoying to cut and serve during class (and also pretty messy with all the crumbs), but I avoided this by cutting up the cake ahead of time and placing each serving in a cupcake liner.  So when I passed around the coffee cake, everyone simply grabbed a piece and used the liner as a mini plate! 

New York Style Coffee Crumb Cake

Recipe adapted from Smells Like Home

For the crumb topping:

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup dark brown sugar

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

8 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and still warm

1-3/4 cups cake flour

- In a medium bowl, whisk together sugars, cinnamon, salt, and butter to combine.  Add flour and stir until mixture forms a thick, cohesive dough.

- Set aside to cool to room temperature (about 10-15 minutes).

For the cake:

1-1/4 cups cake flour (don't use AP here, it makes a difference!)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

6 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces (softened, but still cool)

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup buttermilk

Confectioner's sugar for dusting (I forgot this step, whoops!)

- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

- Line a 8x8" dish with parchment paper or aluminum foil (allowing excess to overhang the edges) and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

- In the bowl of an electric mixer on low speed, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.  With the mixer still on low, add butter one piece at a time until the mixture resembles moist crumb with no visible butter chunks remaining.  

- Add egg, egg yolk, vanilla, and buttermilk and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. 

- Transfer batter to prepared pan and use a rubber spatula to smooth the top into an even layer.  

- Break apart the crumb topping into large pea-sized chunks using your fingers and sprinkle evenly on the batter.  

- Bake until crumbs are golden and cake tester comes out clean, about 35-40 minutes.  

- Cool cake completely until cutting, at least 30 minutes.  Dust with confectioner's sugar just before serving.  

Words with Cookies

Ryan and I have always loved playing Scrabble together, even before Words with Friends and Word Feud dominated our smart phones - so when I saw a Scrabble-themed Valentine's Day card a few years ago, I had to buy it.  I've pulled inspiration from this card (yes he saved it, how cuuute) and from Bridget of Bake at 350 to make some lovey-dovey Scrabble-themed cookies for Valentine's Day this year.  I've been wanting to make these cookies ever since I saw Bridget's post, but only just got around to it and I'm so glad I did - they're adorable and certainly embody the "play with your food" expression.  

These cookies were so fun to make and play with, and best of all they were SO easy to put together.  I had some leftover sugar cookie dough in the freezer, so I just let it thaw in the fridge, rolled it out into a big rectangle, and cut squares.  Then I made white royal icing to flood the backgrounds and went back the next day to pipe in the letters and numbers.  I love that these only required dying one small batch of icing!  I used a red food marker to make the hearts, and I could have done all the letters with a black food marker if mine hadn't been out of ink.  I used an Ateco #1 tip for the black lettering, but I wished I had a #0 or #00 especially for the teeny-tiny numbers.  They're not perfect but they certainly get the point across :) 

My cookies were a bit too big for our Scrabble board, so next time I might make sure they're smaller and prepare a full batch of the 100 Scrabble letters to play a whole game with cookies (here's a picture of all the letters you'd need).  Or if you don't want to worry about fitting them to a specific board, play "Bananagrams" style and split the tiles among players to see how many words they can make free-style.  Whoever wins gets to eat a cookie!  And of course these cookies don't have to be Valentine's Day themed at all (I know there are a lot of V-Day haters out there), but 'tis the season and I was feeling the love .  

Scrabble Cookies
Idea adapted from Bake at 350


1 batch of sugar cookie dough
1 batch of royal icing 
Black food coloring or black food marker

- Prepare cookie dough according to the recipe and roll it out into a large rectangle on a floured surface.
- Measure how large you want your squares to be and cut even tiles with a sharp knife. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 9 minutes.
- Prepare the plain white royal icing and load 3/4 of the icing into a plastic squeeze bottle or piping bag to flood the backgrounds of the tiles.  Reserve the rest of the icing in a small bowl covered with a damp paper towel.
- When the white backgrounds are completely dry, dye the remaining royal icing black and load it into a decorating bag with a very small round tip.  (You could also skip this step and just use a black food marker!)  Pipe the letters and numbers and allow the icing to dry for at least 12 hours before handling them.


Happy Valentine's Day!  If you want some more inspiration, check out a recap of Valentine's Day recipes from last year and don't forget to my Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake Balls from last week too!  Can you tell I kind of like this holiday??