Cupcake Pops!!

As you've been reading, I've been starting to bake more im hopes of getting better and my skills and to gain the ability of making yummy treats in a jiffy for my family and friends.  My girlfriends Leah and Jax introduced me to making cake pops. Apparently they are all the rage in the baking world and we attempted to make them "a la chocolate".  Basically you bake a cake, mush it up, put a stick in it and dip it in chocolate or something.  I decided to make a Devil's food cake ball dipped in mint chocolate. I recently saw Andes baking chips at Target and thought that would be super yummy as my first trial.  Of course the day I decided to go, they were on sale for a RIDICULOUS price of $0.85 and were completely sold out......story of my life! They had a bag of the normal candies for $4.00 so ya, I wasn't going to pay that.  I then went to the Dollar Tree and got a back of orginal Andes mints for $1. HA! in your face Target (just kidding I love u!! )

So I got home and started getting out all my ingredients and supplies.  I've come to find that if you lay everything out before you get started, it helps to stay organized.  Also {of course this has NEVER happened to me...} you can realized ahead of time if you are missing something instead of starting the process and then realizing you can't finish it half way through.....but that's a whole other blog in itself :)  Here's a picture of the stuff I needed:

I decided to use Gluten Free cake mix A) because it was on a great sale and B) so that everyone at work could have some regardless of allergies. 

So first thing I did was mix these with water and then followed the directions on the back of the box.  I knew my oven worked a little differently so I adjusted the time a bit for baking but it came out great. See:

Then once the cake cooled, I broke it up by hand and put it into the KitchenAid mixing bowl:

followed by  some frosting right out of the can dumped right in:

Then I mixed it up real well for about 3 minutes until I couldn't tell where the frosting stopped and the cake started.  Then I got an ice cream scooper and scooped out little balls.  After I scooped them, I formed them a little better before putting them onto 2 non-stick pans to sit.

The next step is to let them cool in the fridge for 2-3 hours.  But before I did that, I cut up some of the mints I was going to use and melted them, then I dipped the skewers in before putting them in the cake balls.  That way when I put them in the fridge, the chocolate would harden and secure the skewers to the cake.

So I let those sit in the fridge for a few hours, and right before they were ready, I chopped up the rest of the Andes mints I had.  Depending on how thick/runny the chocolate was melted down to, it usually take one piece of candy to cover one pop fully just to give you an idea of how much candy to chop.

I melted the chocolate in a little dish for aboue 30 seconds, and then stirred it around.  When I first took it out of the microwave, not all the pieces were melted, but right after I started stirring it around, every thing ended up melting.  Make sure to not overheat the chocolate or it will burn and not spread properly.

The chocolate dried REALLY fast once I dipped them in chocolate, so immediately place them on wherever you want to keep them overnight and don't try to move them or else the chocoloate will smudge around and no one wants that. 

After I dipped them in the chocolate, I put them in fridge for the night and said "peace out" until the morning.  I grabbed them right before I left for work and they were crisp, chilled, and looked devilishly delicious.  I brought them to work and everyone gave rave reviews about them. YUM!!! Here's what it looked like after I took my first bite:

So it's pretty simple to make them, it just takes a lot of time in the fridge so don't try to rush them or they won't come out right.  As I get better, I plan to make my own batter/frosting, but for now, the cake mix is my best friend. My next idea I think will be something with red velvet,....and maybe white chocolate....hmmm...ideas ideas!!!