Valentine Cake Balls (on a stiiiiick)

Those of you who know me well know that I DO NOT COOK.  At least not for pleasure or creative purposes anyway.  I do not own all kinds of kitchen appliances.  The Food Network may as well be a foreign language and I don't know (or even care) what most of The Pampered Chef gadgets are for.  I never read recipes that call for more than 3-4 ingredients.  I'm not exaggerating.

Every great once in a while, the stars will misalign or something and I will try something new in the kitchen that involves cooking.  Last year my sister and best friend we made chocolate covered apples for the favors for our daughter's wedding.  I was looking online for the sticks to put in them and I stumbled upon Bakerella's website.  She has some of the cutest ideas and she actually makes it look fun and simple.  Weird, but I was dying to try her cake pops so I called my sister  - who is The Pampered Chef and Betty Crocker all rolled into one.  The Food Network is on at her house on some sort of continuous feedback loop or something and she actually cooks for fun.  I don't get it, but I knew there was no way I was going to attempt anything like that without her there.  We tried them and actually had a grand 'ol time. 

Well, I guess lightning can indeed strike twice in the same place because for some reason, I thought it would be a good idea again.  We actually learned a few things from the first time and decided to make Valentine cake pops.  Now believe me, people....if I can do it, YOU can!  This would even be a lot of fun to do with your kids or grandkids.

Bakerella has a whole book dedicated to cake pops, but she has the basic recipe on her website.  Just make your cake a day or two ahead of time, cut up into small squares and refrigerate until your ready to go. Since we were making Valentine pops, we used red velvet cake mix.  Dump the cake squares into a bowl and mix in about 3/4 can of ready-made (is there any other kind?) cream cheese frosting. 

Mix it all together until you get a play-dough like consistency.  It's easiest to just use your hands - and yes - it gets very messy!

Roll into balls and place on wax paper.  Melt a little of your almond bark, dip one end of a lollipop stick in it and place the stick about halfway down into the cake ball.  Something we learned from last time is the cake balls will stay on the stick a lot better during dipping if you let them freeze solid.  Once you get the sticks into them, pop them into the freezer and this might be good time to go steal decorating ideas from look at model homes.  Just a suggestion.

After a couple of hours, we melted the almond bark in the microwave, thinned it out a little with some Crisco and dipped away.  We used white almond bark, tinted some white bark pink, and we used chocolate bark.  Then just go crazy with the sprinkles.  We had some foam blocks handy to stand them in and let them dry until they were ready to be bagged. 

We bagged them and tied them with some pretty ribbon and made a centerpiece for sis's Bunco group she's hosting Friday and I made a centerpiece to take to work this week.  

We had about 50 pops left over so we just poked them down into some red lace-covered styrofoam.  Wouldn't these be cute in pastel colors for Easter or a baby shower?

  

Even though I had a lot of fun making them and spending time with Sis, I don't think it will inspire me on to be a better cook.  I am a klutz in the kitchen and at one point had a big blob of Crisco hanging from my eyelashes.  Cooking is dangerous.  I'll stick to the power tools.