Happy Halloween {Ghost Cake Pops}

I thought I would jump on the cake pop bandwagon. I mean, why not? It seemed super easy and kind of fun. I tried a first batch for the baby shower, but those didn't work out how I wanted. So rather than bore you all with the recipe (they can be found all over the internet, pretty much the same method everywhere), I thought I would share my tips for success.

1. Don't use too much frosting. The first time I made cake pops, I put the whole can of frosting in and they were just too wet. Cake pops, by nature, taste (to me) like not-fully-baked brownies. So they are going to be super sweet and gooey no matter what you do. No need to make the matter worse by putting in too much frosting. Start with about 1/2 a can and go until you feel you have a consistency just sticky enough to keep their shape.

2. Freeze the cake balls on the stick before coating. The first time I made these, I just refrigerated them and none of the pops would actually stay on their sticks. The second time, I put them in the freezer and they were much more successful. However, with this in mind ,I realized that to take all of the pops out at once, some of them were 'thawing' too much before we dipped them. So if possible, leave the pops in the freezer in batches until you are ready to dip. (The pops seem to stick just fine once you're all done.)

3. Make sure your candy coating is thin, thin, thin. The fact of the matter is, if the candy is too think, you are going to get clumpy, lumpy blobs. I added shortening to thin mine down and it worked great, but you can also just use liquid veggie (or some other flavorless) oil.

4. Do not overheat your candy coating. Yes, the stuff can burn, even by putting it in the mircowave for one minute at a time vs. the 30 seconds suggested. Perhaps I know from experience. It didn't taste terrible, but it did make some little lumps in the candy. (I didn't want to waste anything so in the pictures you can actually see a few ghosts with this "burnt candy" result).

5. Experiment with tools to decorate. My friend splurged and bought us the edible markers to draw faces, and that just plain didn't work. I'm not sure why, but it made it near impossible to see. Instead, we used tubes of gel frosting color.

6. Use this project to teach the love of food and baking early. This is a great and easy project for kids, and these two four-year-olds had a blast. It's hard to get it wrong when one of the directions is "crumble a giant cake."

So there you have it. All my tips from my failed and mildly successful attempt. If you want full instructions, I recommend watching this video by cakeb0t.

Happy Halloween and enjoy!