Culinary Chronicles: KD Cake Pops

BID DAY! BID DAY! BID DAY! A day full of crazy outfits, insane amounts of glitter, and very loud cheers.  In my case, it also included maracas and fake mustaches; all in the spirit of Kappa Delta Fiesta! In honor of our new KD babies, my first recipe of the year is KD Cake Pops. These delicious little treats are available for purchase at Starbucks, but why buy one when they are so fun to make yourself! These are only called KD Cake Pops because of the decorations; but you can decorate them any way you’d like. One of my favorites is blogger Amy Bites who decorated her cake pops as little golden snitches for the final Harry Potter premiere! This is my go-t0 rainy day/lazy Sunday activity to do with friends. It can be a little time consuming, but gather your friends, pick out a great movie, and start baking- time will fly almost as fast as your finished cake pops will fly off the plate!
 
What You’ll Need (items in italics are available at Michael’s)

-Cake mix (in a box, like Betty Crocker)
-1 tub of icing (I think funfetti works the best)
–Wilton Candy Melts (any color, I chose pink)
–Food Coloring (I used Duff^TM Electric Color Gels)
–Pearl Dust (any color, I chose white)
–Lollipop Sticks (around 50 or 65)
–Wilton, Ready-to-Use Gum Paste (optional)
–Fondant/Gum Paste stencils (optional)
–Rolling Pin (optional)
 

 
Preperation
Make the cake per instructions on the box, add some food coloring if you want the inside of your cake balls to be a fun color! Let the cake cool, putting the cake in the freezer will speed up this process.
 


 
Once the cake is cool, place the cake in a large bowl and use a fork or your hands to crumble it.

Add half a tub of icing to the crumbled cake, if the cake will not stick together, add a little bit more, but adding too much will cause the cake balls to fall off the stick.
 

Roll the icing+cake mixture into balls and place on wax paper and place in the freezer.
 
While the cake balls are in the freezer, (optional) Take one quarter of the gum paste and ad a few drops of food coloring (if you want) and mix into the gum paste.

Roll out the gum paste and use your stencils to cut out the shapes you want for your decorations.

Set up the lollipop sticks by poking holes in any cardboard box (like a pizza box).

Melt the candy melts and take the cake balls out of the freezer. Dip the top of the stick in the candy melt and stick that in the cake ball, then dip the cake ball into the candy melt.
 

 Use a little bit of the icing as glue to stick the gum paste to the cake ball.
 
Once the cake pops are dry, use a clean, dry paint brush to dust with the pearl dust.
 

Eat and Enjoy!