As far as I understand it, it is graduation time right now. I am not sure of how the high school or even university schedule works, I have no kids. However, it seems to be a rather big deal in North American and there are many ways to celebrate it. Of course some form of dessert needs to be included and thus I was approached with the request of Graduation Cake Pops.
Lucky me, some examples were provided and I was able to make graduation caps with cake pops. Another new thing which I haven’t done so far. The requested colour though was black and that gave me a tiny head ache. The chocolate and candy melts I had at hand were not black, dark yes, but not black. Thankfully Micheal’s had the Wilton Candy Melts in black so my day was saved.
So, how do you do graduation caps? Well, you will need some tools of course.
Items you will need:
– baked cake
– frosting
– candy melts
– Tangy Zangy Sour Wild Fruit belts
– mini M&Ms or sugar flowers (mine looked more round than like a flower and came from a Bulk Barn sugar flower mix) – see picture for reference
– lollipop sticks
– vegetable shortening
– squeeze bottle
Start with the cake, which can be either a box mix or your favourite vanilla/chocolate/whatever cake recipe. I used a white cake mix and separated it because the client was looking for chocolate and vanilla. Adding cocoa powder gave the cake a nice chocolate flavour but also change the consistency, not to the worse though. Once you baked the caked and it cooled off you crumble it and mix in vanilla or chocolate frosting. Make sure you don’t use too much. It should have a moldable consistency.
Take your peanut butter cup mold out and form cake balls according to the size. Make sure they are somewhat smaller in circumference then the cup mold. Let them cool in the fridge. While you wait you can make the cap top. Melt chocolate/candy melts in a squeeze bottle, add some vegetable shortening if necessary to thin it. Fill the molds only half full otherwise the cap tops might be too thick.
Tip 1: My square molds had “thank you” written on them. That’s no problem at all. There are two ways to fix this. Use a knife and stove top to heat the knife, then smooth out anything that is uneven. Use paper towel to hold the squares and let them cool in the fridge again. You can also use aluminum foil to put down in the mold so that the chocolate will not run into the “thank you” cavity.
There is still some more prep work to do, e.g. cutting up the fruit belts. Mine didn’t have a bright yellow but a green that was pretty close. Cut the strips with a sharp knife and separate from the other colours. Of course you can use other colours but yellow seems to be the common one. If your yellow strip is wide enough you might be able to make a tassel.
If you have all your things together it’s time to build your graduation cap cake pop.
Pour some chocolate/candy melt into the peanut butter cup mold, then press a cake ball into the mold. The excess chocolate can be used to cover the top of the cake pop, a small brush is recommended here. Add more chocolate/candy melt if necessary to cover the complete cake pop. Carefully stick a lollipop stick into the cake pop and let sit. Repeat for the other molds.
A minute or so in the freezer should cool down everything so that it can be removed from the mold. Do not pull on the stick, rather press again the mold to loosen everything up.
Tip 2: If your caps are somewhat uneven, use a hot knife to even them out.
Holding the cake pop with on hand, add some chocolate on top and add the cap top to it. Make sure it is centered and let it dry in a cake pop stand or Styrofoam block. Using a small brush, add a bit of chocolate/candy meld to the top and secure the tassel, then finish it off with a mini M&M or sugar flower.
24 cake pops later and you have a full graduation class.
Happy baking!
Baking in Saskatoon 