Spooky Ghost Cake Pops

Halloween is almost here - are you ready? I try to bake a few things for Halloween each year but this year has been exceptionally busy so I've not been able to bake as much as I would have liked to. I am going to bake some muffins and cookies if I have time for the trick or treaters. As I've just moved house, I have no idea how many trick or treaters to expect. There may be none in which case there will be a lot of leftover goodies! Do you buy candy or make something for the trick or treaters or do you avoid them altogether? 

Dr Oetker sent me some goodies to create these Ghost Cake Pops. The recipe is in collaboration with Juliet Sears and she has a very clear, detailed video showing you how to make them. I forget how fiddly cake pops are and these don't look as good as Juliet's but luckily at Halloween ugly and scary is good!! They are actually really simple to make but quite time consuming as there are several steps involved and required chilling time and drying time.

 Dr Oetker ingredients for this recipe

I followed the recipe exactly apart from using jam instead of icing to stick the fondant to the cake pop. I also added a little buttercream to the mix as it was really crumbly and I found it difficult to roll into a ball. Luckily I had some leftover coffee buttercream to hand and I quite like the chocolateand coffee flavour combination.

I'm entering this to Treat Petite hosted by Kat from the Baking Explorer and Stuart from Cakeyboi. The theme this month is Trick or Treat. These are perfect for Halloween and I'm grateful to Kat for including my extremely late entry.

I am also entering it to Let's Cook for Halloween hosted by Nayna from Simply Food. 

 luckily I'm crumbling this up for cake pops as a bit of it stuck to the pan. 

 melted white chocolate, crumbled brownie and lollipop sticks

 ready to go in the freezer

 My rather large and ugly looking cake pops. I bought the cake pop stand at the BBC Bake and Cake show 

 starting to look like ghosts 

 spooky ghosts especially with the shadows! 

Recipe from Dr Oetker Even Better Baking

SPOOKY GHOST CAKE POPS

Preparation time: 2 hours plus cooling and chilling
Cooking time: 40 minutes plus 10 minutes to melt 2 lots of chocolate

​Ingredients:
For the cake balls:
120g Dr. Oetker 72% Cocoa Extra Dark Fine Cooks Chocolate
150g soft unsalted butter at room temp
200g Light Muscovado Sugar
3 medium free range eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp Dr. Oetker Madagascan Vanilla extract
125g Plain FlourFor the cake pops:
2 X 100g bags of Dr. Oetker White Chocolate Chips melted for sticking the balls onto the sticks & coating the cake pops
Teaspoon of vegetable oil

To decorate the ghosts:
1 x pack of Dr. Oetker White Regal Ice
Icing sugar for rolling out
Dr. Oetker White Designer Icing for sticking the regal ice to the cake pops
Dr. Oetker Jet Black Gel Food Colour

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 140°C (275°F, gas mark 1). 
• Grease and line an 18cm (7 inch) square cake tin
• To make the fudge brownie mix melt the extra dark chocolate in a microwave on medium power for 30 seconds at a time, stirring each time until melted, or in a heat proof bowl on a gentle heat over a bain marie. Leave to cool.
• Beat the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer with paddle attachment or electric hand beater for approx. 2 minutes until pale and fluffy. If you haven’t got an electric mixer you can do this with a wooden spoon in a bowl .
• TIP: if you are in a rush or the butter is quite cold, the addition of a couple of tablespoons of boiling water at this stage, beaten on slow until mixed will speed up this process.
• Add your eggs on a slow speed about a third at a time, mixing until combined.
• Add your cooled chocolate stirring continuously. Add the vanilla Extract and stir. On slow speed mix in the flour until just combined. Do not over beat. Alternatively fold in by hand.
• Pour the mix into your cake tin and bake for approx 40 mins. Check it with a sharp knife or metal skewer. You want this to be slightly under baked, so the knife should come out pasty, with a nice paste on the knife.
• Leave to cool, then turn out into a bowl and crumble with your hands to fine fudgy crumb.
• To make the cake balls, take a handful of fudge cake mix and squeeze together tightly - you are aiming for little balls about the size of a large walnut, approx. 30g each. If the mixture is dry, the addition of a little chocolate or vanilla butter cream will help the mixture stick
• Once you have all of your balls ready, dip the end of your stick into the melted chocolate chips and push the stick into each ball, about half way in. Hold the ball to stop it splitting open when the stick goes in
• Once all the cake pops are ready, refrigerate them for 1-2 hours before dipping them, or pop into the freezer for 30 mins, so the balls are firm enough to hold when dipping in the coating
• To coat the cake pops melt Dr. Oetker Fine Cooks White Chocolate on low power in a microwave bowl until just melted - stirring occasionally or over a bain marie on a gentle heat
• Plunge each cake pop into the chocolate coating until completely covered. Tap the cake pop gently on the side of the bowl to shake off the excess. Once all are covered, dip each cake pop again
• To decorate the ghosts roll out half the white regal icing into a large rectangle using plenty of icing sugar and a large plastic rolling pin. Roll fairly thinly – 2 to 3mm thick. Squeeze a little Dr. Oetker White Designer Icing onto the tops of the cake pops or brush with some melted white chocolate, to aid sticking of the sugar paste
• Using a cake cutter or small bowl, cut out circles of regal icing and place on each of the pops, smoothing down with your fingers to create the white sheet effect. Allow a little wavy movement by using your fingers to create smooth creases around the sides. Leave to set for a few hours to dry.
• To add the ghostly expression take some Dr. Oetker black gel colour and squeeze out the eyes and mouth shapes. Leave these to dry overnight.
• TIP: if you want these to look very neat and more painted on rather than squeezed onto the ghost, you can squeeze some gel out on to your surface and use a brush with a tiny bit of water.

Disclaimer: I was sent ingredients from Dr Oetker to create this recipe. A positive review was not required and all opinions expressed are my own. This is not a sponsored post and I paid for the remaining ingredients myself. 

Peppa Pig Cake

I was asked to make a Peppa Pig Cake for my friend's little boy who turned 2 last week. Peppa pig is his favourite and he had a Peppa Pig themed party. I've never made one of this before so I did a little research on the internet and decided to give it go. Luckily it turned out well and the birthday boy was extremely happy! He wanted a chocolate cake so I made my trusty Nigella Chocolate Cake which never fails. I baked the cakes on the first day, decorated on the second day (approximately 3 hours) and served it on the 3rd day. The cakes remained moist and delicious and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. I also made cake pops with the cut offs but those were less successful. 

 I enlarged and printed a picture of Peppa Pig that I found on the internet to use as my template 

 I made a double recipe and baked 1 round and 1 square cake 

 Using the picture as  a guide, I cut out the head 

 and the body 

 covered in chocolate buttercream and placed in the fridge to set 

 I used the pic as a guide to cover the board with fondant  

 I used blue fondant for the sky and green for the grass. I cut some cloud shapes using white fondant and rolled out 2 white circles for her eyes. The pupils are edible black icing as I didn't have any black fondant 

 The 'muddy puddle' is made of chocolate icing and I cut out the shape of the number 2 to place on her body 

 The finished product

 making cake pops 

 I forgot to shape the ears! oops!

 I decided to try out my new food coloring markers that I bought from America 

 However, it didn't work well on the cake pops so I ended up using writing icing for some of them 

 Not brilliant but it passes for a pig!  

Happy Birthday again H !

Ice Cream and Donut Cake Pops

This month's AlphaBakes is hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes. Its our monthly blogging challenge that we co-host where we randomly pick a letter each month and bake/create something using that letter as the main ingredient or name of bake. I think we've done all the easy letters and we're left with the trickier ones such as 'I' for this month. My first thoughts were ice cream cupcakes which I made a few years ago but I wanted to make something new this month so decided on ice cream cake pops. I also made some donut ones whilst I was at it! 

Each time I make cake pops, I think never again and then of course I do. They are quite fiddly and time consuming and I just can't seem to get it right. This time the cake pops fell off the stick but they looked quite nice on my new cake stand (more on that later). I made a Nigella chocolate cake and used caramel and strawberry buttons for the coating.

 chocolate cake 

 1 batch of vanilla buttercream + crumbled cake 

 mix buttercream 1 tablespoon at a time into the cake mixture until it's sticky and binds well together

 weigh out 30g of cake mixture and roll them into cone and donut shapes. Chill in the freezer until firm before proceeding to the next step. 

 melt candy melts/flavoured buttons. I had some lovely white candy melts with colours in them (right of photo) but unfortunately they didn't melt properly so I didn't use them at all [you can add some vegetable oil to thin the candy melts but I didn't want to do that in this case]

 the caramel buttons melted beautifully. have everything ready before you start - lollipop sticks, melted coating, cake pops and a stand. 

 dip cake pops into the caramel buttons

 allow to dry fully - I had difficulty keeping the donut ones on a stick

 dip the ice cream cones in melted strawberry buttons about half way. Add sprinkles and allow the cake pops to set. As you can see they fell off the stick whilst drying but all is not lost... 

 finished cake pops minus sticks served on a cake stand 

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to talk about my new cake stand which I was sent to review.  It's a slate 2 tier cake stand by Apollo Housewares.  Apollo Housewares have been specialising in kitchen & homeware products for 24 years and have a great range of baking accessories and cake related products. I served these cake pops at my afternoon tea party and some of my guest comments were that it looks classy and that it fits with any decor. 

My verdict - It's quite a sturdy cake stand which is well made and easy to assemble. I love the colour and simplicity of it. I think it made my cake pops look better especially the donut ones! 

 slate 2 tier cake stand

Disclaimer: I was sent this cake stand to review. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are my own unless otherwise stated. 

Spring Cake Pops

I hope everyone is having a good Easter weekend! A quick post from me today - no baking involved. Just cake and buttercream and sprinkles on a stick otherwise known as cake pops. I had quite a bit of cake leftover from making my easter eggs with a twist. The cakes overflowed over the egg shells and I kept the cake crumbs with the intention of just eating them but then I thought why not make some cake pops? I thought about making cute easter chicks/bunnies or easter eggs but in the end decided to just use some sprinkles as it was much easier and less time consuming! 

I'm sending this to Frugal Food Fridays run by Helen from Fuss Free Flavours and hosted by Utterly Scrummy this month. Cake pops are a great way to use up leftover/stale cake and is a fun project to do with the kids. You can make it as fancy or simple as you like. Here I've used leftover cake, candy melts and sprinkles (I had an odd assortment of sprinkles which had just a small amount in each box).

I'm also sending this to Bunny hop, an Easter link party hosted by Mrs Fox's Sweets 

 cake crumbs, candy melts, buttercream

 shape cake pops, then chill in the fridge for approximately 15 minutes or until firm

 dip the cake balls in candy melts and pour sprinkles over them before the candy melt sets. Allow to dry completely. 

Halloween Cake Pops

It has been a mega halloween baking effort from me this year. I managed to make about 100 cake pops and cake balls over a few days which have all been eaten! Plus Halloween candy and cupcakes which will be featured next.  I went on a cake pops class earlier this year taught by Leigh of Craft Cakes at the Oak Studio. Been planning to make cake pops since then but not had a chance until now. Luckily I still remembered how to but really need to practice my decorating skills. I did fail art at school so really you can't blame me! I also had some help from my friend P who was staying over and helped decorate the cake pops. The first time, we used writing icing which was difficult to control resulting in the cake pops above.
I then asked for some help from Olivia of livalittlebakery as her cake pops looks amazing, check it out here.
So the second time round, I used sugarflair colour paste with a paintbrush. However my brush was not fine enough and by then I was really tired and just wanted to get them done. Lesson learnt for next time. Leigh also had a great tip of using royal icing which I will definitely try next time.

 prepare your items. I forgot to add in the tic tacs which I used for the pumpkin stem. Sainsbury's has an amazing baking range at the moment including these orange buttons. 

 dip cake balls and allow to set. I 

 I had this brilliant idea of using a pumpkin to display my cake pops and am glad it worked. Its also my first time carving a pumpkin so I'm pretty pleased with myself :) I need to carve the mouth a bit higher though. 

 yummy mummies (all decorating ideas are from Bakerella's cake pops - highly recommend if you want to make amazing looking cake pops) 

 2nd time - I tried making some skulls - ugh. Good thing its Halloween so ugly is pretty haha. I also got these oasis foam blocks and wilton candy melts from hobbycraft - great for cake pops. They were still a little difficult to balance using the empty egg cartons. 

 pumpkins using black sugarflair paste with a (too thick) brush and wilton candy melts - brighter orange colour but I think the silverspoon buttons gave a smoother appearance. 

 little pumpkins when I ran out of lollipop sticks and time to draw more faces... still looked good and tasted great. 

If you need a reminder on how to make the actual cake pops, click here

Happy Halloween Everyone!