Cake Pops without Sticks Revisited!

It is time to revisit the cake pop.  I have made literally hundreds of these since my first attempt.  They were one of the deserts that I made for our wedding.  After about the 5th or 6th cake I started to experiment a little more with flavors.  The coffee one was my biggest success.  I also found an easier way of dipping them in the chocolate with out having the sucker stick, so I thought that would be a good tip to share.  My original cake pop post is by far my most visited post to date, so time to out due myself.

Supreme Coffee Cake Pops (without sticks)
What you'll need:
1 chocolate cake mix
1/2 container chocolate frosting
2 tablespoons freeze dried coffee
1 teaspoon water
chocolate melting chocolate (if I had to guess, I'd say 4 cups but be sure and have extra.)
chocolate covered coffee beans for garnish (you could use slivered almonds or anything here)

You can make homemade cake or frosting if you'd like.  I'm just being lazy, and I'm not sure it would make a huge difference.

Bake cake according to directions.  Once tooth pick comes out clean, allow to cool then use a fork and crumble until there is no more chunks.  Place frosting in a microwave safe dish and heat for 20 seconds.  Mix freeze dried coffee with water to dissolve, add to warm frosting and combine.  Now pour frosting into cake and mix until evenly distributed and cake is now just one big dense ball.  Shape into golf ball sized balls.  Set aside.

Heat chocolate either in a double boiler or microwave, your choice.  The double boiler is safer, chocolate will burn in microwave quicker. Here is the new tip, take a chop stick and stick half way into ball then use the stick to dip into chocolate.  Set the ball into the chocolate on one end then pull through, then turn half a turn and do again until the ball is covered.  Gently bob to remove excess chocolate, then place onto wax paper and lightly twist remove stick.  Now place a chocolate covered coffee bean over the hole in the top where stick was.  Done.  Allow to cool.  You can place in freezer to speed up the process, just be sure to not to freeze.

I ran out of wax paper so I covered my pizza stone with cling wrap.  Make due with what ya got!

If you don't want that many cake balls laying around, you can freeze them before you dip them in chocolate.  Then when you are ready to dip, take them out the night before and let the return to room temperature.  They will be perfect.  Just don't freeze after you have dipped them.  Now share with everyone you know.  Enjoy!

by the way...if you are unsure of where to buy the sticks and thats why you want to skip that step, Michaels sells them for a good price in their cake decorating section.