Microwave Cake Pops

How many of you have seen magazines and even cook books that are featuring CAKE POPS? How many of you thought, that is way to much work for me? Well, I've got a tip that will cut down nearly half of the time it takes to cook and prepare these new sensations. MICROWAVE the cake itself. Yes, its true. You can microwave a box of cake mix. Instead of taking around 40 minutes in the oven, you can cook a cake in the microwave for about 10 minutes!

What you'll need to make your cake pops:

Cake Mix

Frosting

Lollipop Sticks

Cake pop stand or Styrofoam

Melting Chocolate ( I bought red and green for the Holidays!)

Sprinkles (Optional)

Directions

Start out by following the directions on the back of the cake mix box. Make sure you grease your glass dish, and pour your cake batter into that. Place in the microwave and set the timer for 10 minutes. All microwaves are different and you may have to cook your cake for a longer or shorter amount of time. Make sure the majority of the cake has rose. If the center is still somewhat liquid, or giggly as I like to say, that's okay! Leave the cake set on your counter for 10 minutes, this will allow the cooking process to finish. After 10 minutes ensure the cake is now finished. If not put back into the microwave until it is done. You can now allow the cake to cool.

Ignore the mess in my microwave ;)

Cake after taking it out of the microwave

After the cake is cool, you want to get a large mixing bowl and transferring the cake to the bowl. Obviously, it doesn't matter if you have to take the cake out in pieces, as we are going to mix it up anyways. I find it easiest to mix the cake with a mixer to get the cake into tiny crumbs. But whatever is easiest for you, is just fine.

Cake crumbs!

When the entire cake is now into tiny crumbs, you can start adding your frosting. You'll most likely need around 1/2 to 2/3 of the frosting, but add it in small parts. You can simply use your hands and just mix the frosting with all of the cake crumbs. Ultimately you want to frosting to act as a cement, so that when you roll the balls up they stick and stay put. If that doesn't happen, and your cake balls start to crumble, simply add more frosting. You'll find the perfect amount for your cake mixture, everyone will be different.

What your mixture should look like after adding frosting

When your cake crumbs don't need anymore frosting, you can start rolling them up into small balls and putting them on a cookie sheet. I got 36 cake balls out of my cake mix. Once you are all finished rolling up your balls. Place your cookie sheet in the refrigerator for 1 hour, so they can harden up. 

Rolled up cake balls

After impatiently waiting that long 1 hour, take your balls out of the refrigerator! You can start melting the chocolate in 30 second intervals, until it is completely melted. Dip the end of your lollipop stick in chocolate and then put the stick into your cake balls. Making sure to do one ball at a time, so the chocolate is still sticky when placing your lollipop stick in the cake balls. Yet again, put your cake balls back in the refrigerator to harden up.

After waiting around 15-30 minutes, take your balls out of the refrigerator. You'll most likely have to remelt your chocolate again. Now you can start dipping the entire cake ball into your melted chocolate! If you chose to buy sprinkles, immediately dip your chocolate covered cake ball into a bowl of sprinkles. Now is where the Styrofoam comes in handy. Place the lollipop stick into the Styrofoam so the chocolate will not smear if you were to lay it down. I used a cake pop stand I bought at WalMart, but either one will work just fine.Repeat for all of your cake balls!

Obviously you can create different styles and designs for the Holidays, add some pretzels to the top and your cake pop could be a reindeer! Hope you enjoyed this recipe. Let me know if you decide to try this for yourselves and how it worked out for you! Happy Holidays!!