Hey there! Welcome if you are new or welcome back if you have been around for a while! I’m glad you are here. If you are new or are familiar with Pasta-tively Delicious, you know, I am a cook, not so much a baker, but I have done my fair share of baking. I like baking cakes and muffins mostly, just not bread. Bread and I have are not friends when it comes to baking it. But this saucy story is about a time I tried to make a little something called Cake-Pops, but failed! Don’t worry, this isn’t a sad story, it is actually quite funny. So stick around to see how this cake-pop experiment turned sideways.
Why I Wanted To Make Cake-Pops
Cake-Pops. Part cake, part…..I’m not sure! Cake-pops are a dessert that are in a league of their own. Seriously! I don’t even know where the idea of a cake-pop came from. Yes, I could Google it, but where is the fun in that? I like the mystery of not knowing. Plus, if you don’t know where they originated from, you can make up your own cake-pop origin!
But I am not here to tell you about how I think cake-pops started. I am here to tell you about why I wanted to make them! For a long time, cake-pops were my favorite dessert. I mean, who doesn’t love cake-pops (except for a special someone I know who doesn’t like cake at all. They know who they are)? I didn’t have cake-pops very often because aside from Starbucks, I didn’t know where I could get a cake-pop. I once knew someone who made them for special events and they were always so good, I couldn’t get enough of them. Literally, there was one event I think I had five of them! Hey, I like what I like! But one day, I decided, I was done waiting to find another person who knew how to make cake-pops and ask them to make them for me, I wanted to make them for myself! So, I looked up a recipe and got to work.
Creating The “Cake”
When I was making the cake part of the cake-pop, I didn’t bake a whole cake, I made a little mug cake in a coffee cup and put it in the microwave. Hey, it worked. After I made my little mug cake, I destroyed it, literally. If you have ever made a cake-pop before, you know that in order to make the cake part, you need to destroy the cake that you made. When I say destroy, I mean crumble it. So, that is what I did. I crumbled the cake then added my frosting. The cake part of a cake-pop is made my adding a very specific amount of frosting to a very specific amount of crumbled cake. When I added the frosting, I looked at it and thought, “This is looking great so far. Everything is going smoothly and these are going to taste amazing!”. Everything was indeed going smoothly. It looked perfect but there was that tiny bit of doubt in the back of my mind telling me I did something wrong, but what did I do? I ignored it!
Shaping
After ignoring that small bit of doubt in my mind, I went on to shape the cake-pops. As I rolled the cake into balls and setting them aside, I was still thinking that everything was going smoothly. The only flaw, the cake pops were a little soft, but I ignored that too thinking that they would firm up as I let them sit to do the others. Once I was done shaping them, I let them sit on the counter while I melted the chocolate. I took some baking milk chocolate and melted that in the microwave them melted some baking while chocolate after that. After the chocolate was melted, I was ready to go!
The Disaster Moment
The moment came when it was time to build those magnificent cake-pops. I grabbed my long bamboo skewers and put those cake balls onto the stick to dunk them in the chocolate but what happened next was the opposite of what I expected to happen. Instead of staying on the stick, they slid down the stick. Down, down, down. Was I upset, a little bit, but then I remembered, you have to dip the tip of the skewer in the chocolate so that cake ball will stick to the skewer. So that is exactly what I did. I then added a different cake ball to the skewer and then…down it slid…again! What was I doing wrong? I added the right amount of frosting to the cake, I let them sit, and I even dipped the tip of the skewer in the chocolate. So, what was wrong?
The Alternative
After thinking and thinking about what could have gone wrong, I didn’t know. I did everything right, but it still wasn’t working. So, I switched gears. I decided to ditch the bamboo skewers and make chocolate dipped cake balls!!! Clearly I was not meant to make cake-pops that day, so instead, cake balls it was. I took a fork and put the cake balls in the chocolate and covered then using a fork and into the fridge (or freezer) they went to chill.
The Takeaway
What did I learn from this? I learned that no matter what you do, you could do everything right and it still might not turn out the way you want it to, and that’s ok! Everything you do will not be perfect all the time. You are going to make mistakes. My mistake is that I didn’t let the cake balls chill before I put them on the skewer to dunk into the chocolate. I didn’t let them firm up. But you know what? Those cake balls tasted AMAZING in the end. Would I made cake-pops again? Probably.
Something I want to share with you guys is something I learned that day. In the time I was making those cake-pops, I was going through a very hard time in my life. I was rarely ever happy and nothing seemed fun. But when I was in that kitchen failing at cake-pops, I was happy. I had a smile on my face the whole time, even when those cake balls slid down the skewer. Everything was good. Something I learned that day was the kitchen was my happy place. When everything around me seemed to be dark and gloomy, the kitchen was my light, and I can only thank one person for that. Jesus gave me this gift of cooking and knew that cooking would be the thing that always puts a smile on my face. And I can’t thank him enough for that. My family has even told me that I am happiest when I am in the kitchen. There is something about cooking that makes me happy. But that story is for another time. As for right now, don’t let something as simple as cake-pops that slide down the stick get you down. Try again! And if it doesn’t work the second time, do some research and keep trying till you get it right and it is perfect.
Just remember, you will make mistakes. But you’ve got this. Keep trying. I believe in you!
Until next time…
Stay Saucy
Hailey 🍝
Pasta-tively Delicious 
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