Fun Day Auction Cake Pops

Last year for Reagan's school fundraiser "Fun Day" I entered 2 custom cake pop items into the silent auction...each of them earning $20.  The first one was won by my parents and my mom requested turkey cake pops for Thanksgiving.

I haven't made these for awhile because they are a true labor of love!  The pops themselves aren't bad at all, but the detailing of the faces and the addition of the feathers on the back are tiring.  The legs are broken stick pretzels, the faces are made out of brown pretzel M&Ms with mini colored "kisses" for the eyes and gobble, and then candy corn for the feathers, which are held on by more chocolate almond bark.

I did a better job of them this time, than the first time and was happy with how they turned out.  Mom liked them too as did the kiddos so all was well!

Reagan's Birthday Treats: Part 2

She picked out cake pops long before that November day when we actually took them to school.  I was surprised that after last year's Frogs, she didn't want to do a green pop this year.  She picked out small ice cream cone pops instead!  I loved them and they were super easy to make.

Thanks to Bakerella and her great cookbook for the inspiration for them!  I did use a pretzel M&M on the top instead of a peanut one, since there is someone with allergies in Reagan's class, but after carefully looking I saw that they are made on the same machines, so this didn't really help me and I ended up leaving some without the "cherry" on top.  I made them even easier since I used the kid sized cones, instead of cutting down regular waffle cones to size.  As you can see, I used my mini-muffin tin to hold them while they dried and the only drawback came when I tried to slide it across the counter and it stuck a bit and then gave way making most of them tip over and causing some to smudge!

The only bad part about these was the lack of weight in the bottom!  The were hard to transport since they didn't have sticks to hold them in a carrier and they were so top heavy they couldn't ride very well standing up.  As you can see I used small tea towels and washrags (all clean) to help brace them in the dishes I took.

Next time I try these I think I will pour some candy melts into the base of the cone to give it some added weight!

Past Pops

I made these cake pops in the shapes of apples (with pretzel stems) and pumpkins (with tic tac stems).  I made a lemon cake and a spice cake and took these for the bake sale at Wil's preschool fall festival fundraiser.

Teacher Appreciation

I decided to give the traditional teach appreciation gift a face lift.  I made apple shaped cake pops!  I made them with a lemon cake/lemon frosting mix and they turned out tasting great.  I was planning to use a spice cake to hint at the fall theme of apples, but I didn't get the mix thawed in an unexpected time crunch to get them made.

You can see I used both a red (which I created using some red and pink melts - due to lack of red) and I used a lime green and I think both shades looked good on my apples!  I also used the ends of pretzel sticks to make the stems on the top.

Cinco de Mayo pops

I had some cake just lying around so I decided to try to make some chili pepper cake pops in honor of Cinco de Mayo.  They turned out really cute, but I think next time I will choose to coat them differently.

I started after I shaped them (using my mini cookie cutters from Pampered Chef) I dipped them into the lime green color on the tops by hand.  After they rested and firmed up I dipped them into the red melts and added the stick to them.  I think in the future I will just dip the entire pop with the stick in the red candy melts and then I will go back and redip the tops in a green color.  If I had had easy access to a darker green I would have just used that, but I was using the lime green for another pop project so I added the green sanding sugar to give them some pizzazz and also to darken the color up.  They turned out great and I am so glad I made them, but have learned a little something for next time too!  Win...win in my book!

PINKALICIOUS!

Reagan's Girl Scout troop had a Pinkalicious party to celebrate all things pink just like in the great books by Victoria and Elizabeth Kann.  What is more pinkalicious than teaching the girls how to decorate up some cake pops!  I made a strawberry cake with strawberry frosting mixed in for the cake balls and then had a whole slew of pink toppings for the girls to add after they finished dipping them.  It took awhile, but each girl got to fix up 2 pops and they all had a fun time!
I also made up little cupcakes and labels using my Cricut machine so the girls could decorate them and label their pops so we would know who's was who's.

I will post pictures once I get them from one of the other moms that had a camera...ours was still out of commission since I dropped and broke it at Funday :(  Thankfully Best Buy came to the rescue with our extended warranty and we got it back shortly after!

Ridgeway Cake Pops

I made 3 cakes into cake pops for Reagan's school Fun Day fundraiser.  I made a chocolate cake into blue pops, a lemon cake into yellow pops and a white cake into white pops.  The Ridgeway school colors are Blue and Gold so I wanted to have pops with lots of school spirit.

This was my first time to use sanding sugar to decorate the pops.  It turned out to be fairly easy and they look super cute!  I also found out that it doesn't take much in the way of supplies (for about 1/2 of a cake I only used about 1/3 of a large container of sanding sugar).

Some of my pops were sold in the Bake Sale/Country Store and one batch of them went into the silent auction as a sample for a winning bidder to get a 36 cake pop custom order in the near future.  I'm looking forward to see what they want and making something new!

Red, White and Blue Holiday

While making some batches of cake pops for Reagan's school Bake Sale during thier annual fundraiser, I decided to experiment with some of the leftover cake and I made 3 stars.  I then dipped them in red, white and blue colors to make them look nice and festive for the 4th of July.

I was pleased with how they turned out and I think they would be fairly simple to make with the only time consuming part being the forming of the stars (for which I used my Pampered Chef mini cookie cutter).

Heart Pops for the Girl Scouts

For the second year I made heart shaped strawberry flavored cake pops for Reagan.  This year she took them to her Feb Girl Scout meeting for snack time.

Froggie Pops

Reagan requested frog cake pops for her birthday school treat this year, and I must say I was disappointed she didn't want turkeys but I WAS happy with how much easier the frogs are than the turkeys!  I even added green food coloring into the white cake I made so it was green inside and out :) 

These were simple just dip, add eyes and then later put on the mouths and noses.  Some hungry ones got tongues too.  They were a big hit at school!

One yummy bite :) (you can see the ones with tongues drying in the background, too bad I didn't get any pictures of these by themselves)

Baby Shower Pops

I had so much fun making the cake pops for my sister, Kathleen's, baby shower in April.  The shower had a jungle theme and we ended up making a diaper cake and used that help display the pops.  I used both long and short lollipop sticks to add some dimension to the final display.  I made Lions, Tigers and Monkeys...oh my!

Easter Cake Pops

I have been getting more and more brave with cake pops over time (I love the Bakerella Cake Pops Cookbook I got for Christmas).  I made some bunnies - both pink and white, chicks and little Easter baskets (which were terribly cute, but difficult to eat).

More Cake Pops

Here are the strawberry Valentine's heart cake pops I made for Reagan's class and also the football shaped pops I made for Wil's birthday to go with his Grover cake.

Past Cake Pop Success

I get most of my baking inspiration from the Bakerella blog and once I got her Cake Pops book last year for Christmas I have really been able to step up cake pop making. They are more time consuming than regular cupcakes, for instance, but I just love the response I get from people!

Reagan's Soutwest Playschool Fall Festival (apples and pumpkins)

I also made turkey's for Thanksgiving