Back to School Cake Pops

You know what I haven't done enough of lately? Really screw something up. I mean, really, I promised you a "mess of the day," not a "self-serving brag of my superior crafting abilities of the month." So just know, I did this for you...

One of the guys at the lab announced that we needed to have a back to school party at our next meeting. Then, he made a special request for themed cake pops. Because it's been a really stressful week and I needed a good excuse to make a big stinking mess, I decided to lift my ban on cake pops for the occasion.

I'm not the first person to think up red apple cake pops for back to school. They're even in the book. I've made my share of cake pops in the last couple of years, this shouldn't have been a challenge. But, as I'm sure you know, I've got this are famous last words.

I made the cake, cooled, and crumbled it. When I went to plop in the frosting I was a little concerned that it was so runny, as a result of the heat (I live in an oven, these days). The mixture got so wet that I didn't add as much as I usually do, but it looked okay when I formed the balls and popped them in the fridge.

The next day, when I went to stick and dip them, I made a devastating realization. Apples aren't round. So, when I covered the first one with red, it looked more like a tootsie pop than an apple... and I think tootsie pop might actually be a generous description.

So, I set to work trying to make the balls into "apple shapes"-- which is not at all as intuitive as it sounds. That's right. I've made pina colada shapes and beer mug shapes and football shapes even wiener shapes, but apples I struggled with.

Somehow, in reshaping the cake, I must have fatally compromised their structural integrity, because when I went to dip the first apple, it fell off and landed in the candy coating. Even after getting the coating so runny I worried it wouldn't set, within a couple hours, every apple fell from its stick or skewered itself on its stick and slipped off the bottom, crumbling on the way down.

After about 10 of these individually devastating little disasters I just gave up, put pretzel "stems" in the remaining pops, and called it a failure. Sadly, those are probably the best apples in the bunch.

Expectation         

(from bakerella)           

Reality