June 7, 2010

Burgers and Bees

Bzzzzzzzz. Bees first. I did these a while back. They were some of my first attempts at turning cake pops into little creatures. Since doing them, I’ve seen other variations shared by readers that are pretty darn cute, too. Some with smaller wings using jumbo white heart sprinkles that I think are just darling. I’ll try to post some of them in the Pop Stars section in the future. But until then, I hope these spark some ideas for you.

Bee Cake Pops

Follow the instructions for making basic cake pops, shaping the balls into ovals and use the following to decorate.

You’ll need:

Yellow candy melts

White candy melts

Black candy writers

Black edible ink pen

Chocolate jimmies

Lollipop sticks

Styrofoam block

bees

You can prepare the wings ahead of time. Use a round cutter to cut away a small section from each white candy melt. You want the curve to be similar in shape to the side of the cake pop so you can attach it without much of a gap.

Dip the pops in yellow coating. When dry, use a black candy writer to pipe on stripes and then dip the wings, cut side down into a tiny bit of leftover yellow coating. Then carefully attached it to the cake pop, holding the wings in place until the coating sets. Place in a styrofoam block to dry.

This step would have been easier if I had thought about those jumbo heart sprinkles back then instead of the melts. Plus, it makes the bees look a little cuddlier… if bees can look cuddly.

When the pops are dry, draw on cute little faces with a black edible ink pen.

Now for the Hamburgers.

Are you ready?

Burger Bites

Burger bites, baby!

Candy Melts

To decorate these you just need:

Dark chocolate candy melts

Peanut butter candy melts

Red candy melts

Green candy melts

White non-pareils

And a little patience dipping. These are achieved by applying the coating in several steps and letting dry in between.

Follow the basic cake ball instructions and after rolling them into balls, flatten them slightly so they aren’t too round.

Then start dipping.

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Completely cover in dark chocolate first. You can break off any pooling when they are dry or use a toothpick to draw a separating line around the base of the ball while the coating is still wet and then it will break much easier.

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When dry, dip about 1/3 of the ball in red candy coating, place red side up and let dry.

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Then dip the opposite side about 1/3 of the way in green candy coating. Place green side up and let dry.

You’ll be left with the dark chocolate remaining visible in the middle.

You can use a toothpick to dip in any remaining green coating and apply ectra right around the edges so it will look a little more random. More lettuce-like.

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When the green is dry, dip the bottoms in peanut butter coating. Make sure you leave some of the red visible. This time you can place them back to dry bottom side down and the coating will dry with more of a flat surface for the bottom of the bun. If the coating is too hot, let it set a few minutes before dipping so it doesn’t pool too much.

Burger Cake Bites

Finally dip the tops allowing some of the lettuce to show and sprinkle with non-pareils. Lots of dipping and drying, but pretty darn cute.

Let dry completely and you can have dinner and dessert all in one bite.

bandb

FYI … originally these were going to be in the Cake Pop book, but now… they’re not. Bzzzzzzzzz kill. I know. It was hard not to include them… really hard. But ultimately it came down to page count. I needed to stick to a certain number of pages and there just wasn’t room for a few of the projects. I decided to take out the burgers because you are basically putting three layers of coating on the cake balls and I thought that might be too thick for most people’s taste. And the bees… I don’t really know. I guess I thought they weren’t cuddly enough. Now, I’m having second thoughts. I do that a lot. Too bad, though… it’s too late.

Anyway, hope you like them.

And if cake pops aren’t your thing, take a look at these Father’s Day Hamburger cupcakes.

Categories: Cake Balls, Cake Pops, Summer Time
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