Cake Pops

I don't really know what I was thinking, but the other day I thought it would be fun to make cake pops for Lindsay's birthday snack at school. I've seen quite a few of them around the blog world and I think I thought it would be fun. So, in an effort to stay as paleo as possible, I googled gluten-free cake pops. I figured if it wasn't sugar free at least I could keep the gluten out of there. I was surprised to find quite a few blogs on it, but the one from Elana's Pantry is what convinced me to give it a try. I especially loved the video of Bakerella that she linked to in her post because it helped me see the technique for actually constructing the cake pops. You can go to either of those gals' blogs for the actual recipes, I am going to just share my experience with you.

So Elana's started with a gluten free chocolate cake.

Easy enough. And good, I sampled a bite!

I loved that her recipe called for adding raspberry jam to the crumbled cake instead of frosting.

I thought my handy dandy scooper would be the right size for the cake balls, but it was a touch too small, so I ended up getting my hands all messy anyways.

My gluten free cake pops ready to sit in the freezer for an hour. I tried to skimp on that time, but she really means it when she says to leave them in for at least an hour.

Because Lindsay doesn't like dark chocolate, I actually mixed some semi-sweet with the dark when I melted it. The actual technique of covering the cake balls with the melted chocolate was tricky. It took me a few to really get it down.

But even then it just didn't seem great, so I turned to the candiquick, which is most definitely not gluten free, nor is it paleo. Actually the sprinkles I used weren't either. But, because my family is living 80/20 I figured why not, it is her birthday after all.

The candiquick melted so much nicer and made covering the balls so much easier. I really wish it came in a gluten free variety.

And it's such pretty colors. I bought pink & purple. I just loved the white sprinkles on the pink cake pops.

Making cake pops is a slooooowww process. You have to tap off the excess melt and reheat the melt often. I also had to put my cake balls back into the freezer at intervals if they'd been out for more than 10 minutes or so. It was not difficult, just time consuming. Elana's recipe made about 30 cake pops.

Lindsay was NOT excited to find out I'd made gluten-free cake pops. So, I relented and whipped up the one lone box of regular cake mix sitting in the cupboard for another batch of (chemical laden, gluten filled, sugar stocked) "regular" cake pops.

These I made using the yellow cake and most of a tub of vanilla (store bought) icing. 

I must admit, the regular ol' cake pops came together quicker/easier than the gluten-free ones. 

I love how cute they look in their popsicle bags.

Pretty purple before melting.

I spent most of the day making cake pops. My styrofoam wouldn't hold them all at the same time, so I had to take turns letting them set up and putting them in bags. 

I ended up with quite a few cake pops. Bakerella's recipe makes around 50, so with both combined I have somewhere around 80 cake pops. I think that should be enough.

Oh, and when I was done with cake pops, my kitchen was a disaster!

I must confess....one of the regular cake pops came off the stick and so I decided to sample it. It was super sweet, but pretty good. Unfortunately I had a headache the rest of the day and I'm blaming it on all that. I'll be sticking with the gluten free ones for the party, at least for myself.

I will let you know how the kids like them!