Cake Bite Try Two

I would love to say this was my first try but I would be lying!  I have only tried one other time, but it was a flop!!!  The cake part was great, but the dipping part was lets just say less than perfect!  So I thought I would put my steps on my blog to help others and more than anything remind myself later of how I made them!  Last time my chocolate was too thick, so called a few friends and went online.  My favorite website was crickpop.com!  She had a whole troubleshooting info pages of her trials of cake pop making!  So here we go!!! 

I started with a box cake mix and a can of frosting.  I needed Red Velvet and this was the only box they had.  YOU DO NOT NEED THE FILLING if you buy a box like this.  Follow the directions on the box of how to make your cake and bake it to the directions for your pan size.  Once the cake is done and a bit cool scrape it into a large mixing bowl and mix in 1 can of frosting.  I learned that if your cake is too hot the ball mix is too sticky ;(

 Next form your cake bite balls.  I wanted them all to be about the same size so they looked nice on the stand and to get an accurate count of how many it would make in the future.  To help with this I used my small Pampered Chef scoop (if I were making cake pops I would use the Med Scoop).  I scooped them out and then put them on a piece of plastic wrap on cookie sheets or in a stack able container in the frig to cool for 5 hours.  (many of my friends freeze them but I read a lot of people online talking about the cake pops cracking from the expansion as they warm?!?) Not to mentioned it did not work for me last time so I was all about trying something new :)

 I took one layer out of the frig at a time.  First I rerolled each  layer to make them smooth.  They are a little rough when they first come out of the frig.

 Ahhhh, my saving products, or so I think.  Everything was the same as my first try until I got to this step.  Last time I put my chocolate in a double broiler on the stove.  I don't know if it got too hot, or the bowl was too big, or if I added too much chocolate, or I did not add enough oil or a mix of things, but last time did not work.  Friends said they used a small bowl and the microwave, so I thought I would leave old school heating and join the microwave era. 

 I put a half of a bag of the chocolates and a little bit of virgin olive oil into the bowl and put it in the microwave for a minute, stopping every 20 seconds to stir.  This great ceramic bowl did wonders.  After about a minute of stirring it was ready.  I dropped each bite in one at a time, swirling it in the cup to coat it.  Then I used the candy dipper to lift it out and tip it onto the plastic wrap lined container .  (Before I had a thicker dipping tong and it was hard to get off the dipper without making a mess.  My friend used a tooth pick but that did not give me enough support, I kept dropping them last time).

The shower is black white and red.  I did not want to use black frosting as drizzle so I used sprinkles.  I covered about 8 bites and then sprinkled.  If they are drying faster or you are taking a bit longer sprinkle 4 at a time.  Once they harden the sprinkles will not stick ;) 

 All done and sorry for the bad picture.  I let them sit for about 10 minutes and then cut one in half so you can see all the colors together and up close.  All together 1 cake mix, 1 can of frosting and 2 bags of Wilton's chocolate melts made a whopping 65 cake bites!!! 

 Storage note:  They can be made and stored for 3 days prior to the event.  Make sure they are at room temperature and in a sealed container.  I like this Snapware container because it has 3 levels and inside each level you can flip over the cupcake racks and it makes 2 short layers ;)  All three layers snap together under 1 lid!

Extra Chocolate Note:  I learned that a way to save your unused chocolate is to pour it into a bowl or pan (depending on how much left) lined with plastic wrap.  Then when it is hard pull out the chocolate and finish wrapping it in the plastic wrap.  To keep it extra sealed place it in a plastic bag or container.  Then just brake it up and reheat when you need it again ;)

Good Luck on your own cake pops or cake balls ;)