Pumpkin Spice Cake Pops

So today I took on my first challenge with cake pops for my kickball league's annual pumpkin bake off! I have so much respect for anyone who makes cake pops on a regular basis I was prepared to spend hours but didn't realize it would take 5+ hours to make. Be warned!!

Step 1: Follow the directions to make and cook the cake and let it cool completely. (Do this the night before) I used the Betty Crocker spice cake mix with some added pumpkin seasoning.
Step 2: Use a fork to break up the cake into a large bowl.
Step 3: Then I mixed in a container of cream cheese frosting, in the future I will only use 3/4 of a container of frosting because I feel like a full container was a little too much.
Step 4: Then I used my hands to roll pumpkin balls and place them on wax paper on a cookie sheet.
Step 5: Put the sheet of pumpkin balls in the freezer for 10 min.
Step 6: I used a bamboo skewer to make notches in the sides to make it like a real pumpkin.
Step 7:Then put the cake balls back in the fridge till they are cold but not frozen.
Step 8: Heat up a small portion of the candies and dip the stick in the melted candy and stick them in the cool cake balls.
Step 9: Stick back in the fridge.
Step 10: Melt the rest of the candies in a double boiler, I did one bag at a time next time I'd melt two bags at once.
(I stopped by Fancy Cakes by Leslie after the bake off today to ask some advice and they suggested using white chocolate gnash next time and adding food coloring to get a smooth texture on the cake balls. They also said to make sure the cake pops don't freeze or the candy shell will react badly.)

Step 11: Dip the cake pops into the melted candy coating. I saw lots of examples on line of people who dipped completely under and the pops came right out to get the bottom. Well that didn't work for me every time I dipped the pops would fall off and go for a swim so I defaulted to a dunk and spin method that left them looking like this picture. Yes I got to eat those little swimmers, yummy!
Step 12: Put the pops in Styrofoam to harden. I poked holes in the Styrofoam in advance so I had places to put the pops.


Step 13: I had green candies to melt to make the green stems but I had to leave for an event downtown so at this point I used store bought green topping. They look cute but not exactly what I had hoped for. But here's the finished product after drying!





So, I didn't win the pumpkin bake-off today but I'm proud of my first attempt at cake pops and had a great feedback from the crowd most of which thought I had won! I got a 9 out of 10 for taste and only a 3/5 on creativity (for real?? One of the judges said he didn't like that it was on a stick- isn't that creative??) and 3/5 on presentation (I have no idea what they were looking for here it was a pumpkin patch! How else could I show the cake pops off?) so a total score of 15/20 points. The winner had a pumpkin cheesecake pie (where's the creativity in that??) and oh yea she's a professional baker. Oh well... my pops did stand out on the entry table and they were gone very quickly!