Adventures in Cake Pops

My sister- and brother-in-law (i.e. Big Daddy's sister and her hubby) got me a cake pop maker for my birthday.

Emma was desperate to try it out as soon as we got home. I was really not so much in the mood to tackle that right then, but we all decided to do it as a family. And we had a blast!

We picked the red velvet cake pop recipe from the booklet that came with the device. But we didn't have any cocoa or buttermilk. Did we go to the store? Heck no! We improvised.

Thanks to Big Daddy's interweb prowess, he figured out how to use a mini Hershey bar + slightly less butter in place of the cocoa. Instead of mixing the cocoa powder with the dry ingredients, we blended the melted Hershey bar with the softened butter (which we decreased by a 1/2 tablespoon). Big Daddy used to watch a lot of Alton Brown's "Good Eats," so he learned a lot of the science of food and how important it is to keep the dry and wet ingredients separate until the right time. Totally worked.

He also figured out how to simulate buttermilk. I was busy mixing other ingredients while he did that part, so I'm not exactly sure how he did it. You'll have to ask him about it. I think it involved milk and lemon juice; but whatever it was, it worked.

We also made a vanilla glaze to go on the cake pops. So basically we made red velvet doughnut holes on sticks.

(That pill bottle is Norbert's antibiotic. He had a hurt-y paw the other day that required a trip to the vet. We use that knife to make a little opening in a piece of hot dog and slip in the pill. Works like a charm. Just in case you were wondering about the random pills and knife in the middle of the photo...)
*Also note Emma's concentration face. Hehe*

And you know what? They tasted pretty darn good!

Next time we'll do a thicker icing on the cake pops so we can decorate them with rainbow sprinkles (Emma's favorite). And I'll make sure to have the proper ingredients before we start.