Baking at Home

I hope you’re all well and staying safe in these tough times.

At home, I have already baked a lovely coffee cake, some raspberry muffins and some flapjacks! They all went down a treat with my family, although I think my parents’ “healthy eating” lost out. I will be putting these recipes up in the coming weeks for everyone to enjoy! Baking is something I like to do to relieve stress, as well as reading, so it’s really been helping during this time.

As promised, we are starting our weekly recipes for you to complete at home, either on your own as a bit of relaxation or with the kids to keep them entertained!

Today’s recipe is one for cake pops, but without the need to buy moulds online that might only be used once, twice if you’re lucky…

And let the baking commence!

For the cake you’ll need…

  • 100g butter
  • 100g caster sugar
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • 100g self-raising flour. If you wanted to make chocolate cake pops, you could swap out 25g of the flour for cocoa powder.

For the buttercream and toppings, you will need…

  • 75g butter
  • 150g icing sugar. Again, if you wanted to have chocolate flavoured buttercream, replace 20g of icing sugar with cocoa powder. Can be more if you want a more chocolate-y buttercream!
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tbsp milk
  • 200g chocolate, melted, to dip
  • Sprinkles, to dip
  • Mini cupcake cases (if you have them)

To start with, you will need to make the cake, as this needs to be cooled before you can assemble the cake pops.

  • Pre-heat your oven to 190°C/170°C fan/gas mark 5.
  • Grease and line the base of a 20cm sandwich tin. You can use any type of tin, round or square, whichever you have in the kitchen!
  • Put the butter, sugar and vanilla extract into a bowl and beat well to a creamy consistency that is pale yellow in colour.
  • Slowly beat in the eggs, one by one, then sift in the flour and fold in until it is mixed well. Be careful not to knock out all of the air.
  • Place the mixture into the cake tin and bake for around 20 mins until risen and golden brown. Check the centre with a wooden or metal kebab stick – if there is anything on the stick, give it a few more minutes.
  • Set aside to cool completely.

While the cake is cooling, you will need to make the buttercream that will help form the cake pops.

  • In a large bowl, put the softened butter and sifted icing sugar. Slowly mix the two together until all of the icing sugar is combined, and then proceed to beat until smooth.
  • Once smooth, add the vanilla extract and milk and beat again.
  • When the cake is cooled, crumble into large crumbs into another bowl.
  • Add the butter cream and stir together so that all of the cake is combined to make a yummy mixture.
  • Take chunks of the cake mixture and roll into balls, wearing gloves if you would prefer, putting each ball onto a baking paper-lined tray or plate.
  • Push a lollypop stick into each, then put into the fridge for an hour to set ready for the decorating stage!

At this point you could get the kids to try to start writing up their own version of the recipe that they can add to their own little cookbook. I used to do this, and still have mine! Somewhat a writing exercise that could be made fun…

Once the cake pops have set, you will need to melt the chocolate that you will dip the pops in.

  • Break the chocolate up into a bowl and put in the microwave for 10 second blitzes. You could do this or use a Bain Marie and put the bowl over s pan of simmering water until the chocolate melts.
  • Get another bowl and put your sprinkles in.
  • Take each one of the chilled cake pops and dip them in the melted chocolate, letting them drip a little before taking them away from the bowl.
  • Dip into the sprinkles and stand upright in a mug or glass to set. They can be kept at room temperature or put in the fridge.
  • You can add mini cupcake cases so that they can stand as well, to try and avoid some mess.

 

And Voila! Yummy cake pops for the whole family to enjoy.

I hope you have fun making these, as well as eating them, and look forward to the next recipe! Stay safe; stay home and bake!

Love and best wishes,

Wenzels xo

Back to News