Cake Pops

Cake Pops are the new 'in cake' sweeping the cake shops & cafe's.


They are made from cake mixed with buttercream, formed into a ball, popped on a stick and covered with chocolate & decorated....simple!


I was going to make Rocky Road Cake Pops that I had seen on Vanessa Kimbells great blog, as I didn't want to make a cake for the sole purpose of mushing it up again, and these Pops use biscuits instead of cake as the base. However when I made Jacks birthday cake I had some scraps of chocolate cake that I had cut off the top to level it up, so I used those, along with some leftover chocolate buttercream.


In a food mixer I mixed the broken up cake scraps with enough buttercream to form a dough.


Roll small balls (approx ping pong sized) of dough and set aside.


Melt a small amount of chocolate to act as a glue to stick the balls to the sticks.


Dip the lollipop sticks in the melted chocolate and then into the balls, and allow to set.

Store in an airtight container until ready to decorate.


It's best to put the cake pops into the freezer for a couple of hours before coating with the chocolate as it helps the chocolate to set more quickly, making it easier to decorate.


Melt some more chocolate (dark, milk or white can be used) and dip each cake pop into the melted chocolate and swirl around.


Decorate with whatever you fancy - I chose coloured sprinkles, mini marshmallows, M&M's and chopped salted peanuts.


Insert into a halved orange or a piece of polystyrene or floral oasis until set.

Baileys Coffee Cupcakes

For these delicious cupcakes I slightly adapted a recipe for Tiramisu Cupcakes from The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book. It's a lovely book, with great photos for each recipe and step by step directions.


Basically its a vanilla sponge, with a piece cut out and a coffee & Kahlua syrup (I replaced the Kahlua with Baileys - that was the slightly adapted part!) poured into the hole. On top of that a marscarpone/double cream/icing sugar & Kahlua mix (I used Baileys again here!) is spooned on, and then the piece of cake is replaced, after it has been soaked in the coffee liquor syrup. The cake is then frosted with the remaining mascarpone mixture.


They were absolutely delicious, but the general consensus was that you couldn't eat more than one!!