Cake Pops

This is a recipe from the archive of a previous blog. I hope you enjoy!

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For the dessert table at the baby shower I made my regular buttery biscuits, Grandma’s sponge cake, our favourite chocolate muffins and, for the first time, cake pops: little balls of crumbled cake dipped in icing, resembling lollipops. Most of the recipes are already published on the blog, and today I’m also sharing the one for the cake pops.

For the base I made a Battenberg-style sponge using a recipe from Good Food magazine, because it is lovely on its own: light, sweet, moist, with a very pleasant texture. To bind the crumbs I needed a buttercream (essentially butter, icing sugar and a splash of milk). The coating is a Wilton ready-made glaze that comes in small buttons and melts in the microwave.

Ingredients

For the sponge:

• 175 g soft butter

• 175 g brown sugar

• 140 g flour

• 5 g baking powder

• 50 g ground almonds

• 3 medium eggs

For the buttercream “binder”

• 70 g soft butter

• 120 g icing sugar

• 1 tablespoon milk

Edit: Use soft cheese instead: it tastes better and is not as sweet.

How to make the cake pops

1. You can put all the sponge ingredients into a bowl and beat them together, or, like civilised people, first cream the butter and sugar, then add the eggs (lightly beaten with a fork beforehand), and finally add the dry ingredients, sifting the flour together with the baking powder and adding the almonds at the end.

2. Pour into a suitable tin depending on what you’re making: for the original recipe you’ll need a rectangular tin; for a cake layer, a round one. Depending on the diameter, the sponge will be thicker or thinner, which makes no difference for this recipe. Bake in the centre of the oven at 160°C until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Once removed from the oven, leave to rest for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

3. Crumble the cooled sponge into fine crumbs. Prepare the buttercream by mixing the ingredients well. Combine the crumbs with the buttercream, shape the mixture into a dough with your hands and divide it into small balls. Place them in the fridge for half an hour. Tip: arrange them on a tray lined with baking paper so they don’t stick and are easy to handle.

4. Meanwhile, melt the glaze. Once the balls are chilled, take the plastic sticks, dip one end into the glaze to create a bond, and insert it into a ball. Dip the ball into the glaze, turning it so it’s fully coated. Remove and place on baking paper to set. If desired, decorate with sugar sprinkles while the coating is still sticky and liquid.

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NIB & Ember