Pokemon Pokeball Cake Pops

Well for Mr. Intellectual's 7th birthday, we went Rock Climbing at a wonderful Indoor rock climbing facility on the Mornington Peninsula called Bayside Rock. Highly recommend them, fabulous facility, great service and every child had an amazing time. I had a client brief from my 7 yr old that there were a few things that HAD to be included in the day. A Pokemon cake, Pokemon poke ball cake pops, and some cake pops for the girls (who i guess weren't interested in the whole Pokemon craze).

So away i went gathering supplies, consulting web images and Pokemon books so i knew what the blazes the poke balls looked like.

Here's the recipe and supply list so you can give it a go yourself.....

• Two home brand packet cake mixes- chocolate or vanilla.
• 1 tub of ready made cake frosting from Betty crocker chocolate or vanilla- found in cake section of the supermarket, top shelf.
• 1 packet of lollie pop sticks - from Spotlight stores in cake decorating section OR bamboo skewers cut down in length.
• Candy coating in white vanilla - Spotlight. OR chocolate melts
• 100's & 1000's Sprinkles or other decorative sprinkles like hearts, dinosaurs etc.
• Food colouring- oil based for colouring chocolate, or jell for colouring the cake mix. ( the supermarket colouring just doesn't give you the vibrant colours needed for kids parties.
• Floral foam
• Platter
• Grease proof paper.

The how to:-

• Make up both packet cake mixes and bake as per directions. We coloured one of the batters red, and left the other one white.  let them cool completely on a cooling rack. ( don't be tempted to use cake mix warm, it will spoil the cake pops) We used vanilla, because we wanted to colour half of them red inside.
• Crumble cakes up into a large mixing bowl, removing any hardened bits that may have happened round the edges of the cake tin. If making white vanilla inside, you really need to be removing any parts of the cooked cake that have browned slightly, otherwise it shows when the finished cake is eaten.
• Stir through the ready made frosting, until a very sticky consistency is reached. Depending on how much of the browned cake you need to remove, you may not need the entire tub of frosting.
• Place grease proof paper on platter, then roll mixture into balls, smaller than a golf ball, adult bite size. Leaving to set in the fridge for an hour or so.
• Melt a small amount of chocolate in a microwave safe bowl. Start with 30 seconds, stir, then in 10 second blocks until melted and smooth. Be careful not to burn the chocolate, there's no fixing it if you do!!
• 
  dip the end of a lolly pop stick or skewer into the melted chocolate or candy coating and insert into the cake ball. I like to have it inserted stick over half way into the ball, ensuring it doesn't fall off when trying to coat the ball in chocolate or candy coating later.  Let the chocolate set OUT of the fridge. 

• Melt the remainder of the chocolate or Candy coating and dip each of the cake pops, coating the entire cake pop and smoothing off the excess with a knife, spatula or your finger. while the chocolate is still runny, sprinkle or decorate as you wish.  Place standing upright into florist foam and avoid them touching while they set. Do not try and set them in the fridge, otherwise they'll sweat when taken out of the fridge, and that's not a great look. * I like to cover the florist foam in colour co-ordinating wrapping paper, to avoid the ugly green colour, messing with my colour scheme.
• For the Pokemon cake pops, we used the white cake mix, then used red candy coating to cover half the cake pop, inserting the skewer after the bottom colour had been put on, and then dipped the remainder of the cake pop in white candy coating. We then used some stiff black royal icing to pipe on the black line around the middle of the ball, and make the circle on the front.  Once set, cover with a cellophane treat bag, and tie with red ribbon. These will store nicely in a Tupperware container for several days before the party, to help avoid an all nighter!! And make them perfect to put in treat/ goodie bags or displayed on the table during the party.  The perfect little sweet treat for the party go-ers. a great alternative to serving up slices of cake which can get quite messy.

Have a go! you can get extremely creative with the concept. If you have the time, there are many different coloured poke balls to make- for the die hard Pokemon fan's birthday. Or check out the bakerella book entitled cake pops, or check out their web blog www.bakerella.blogspot.com to see some amazing creations by the very talented crew over there.

ENJOY!