Making and Decorating Cake Pops for Adults

Most adults have a sweet tooth, whether they admit it or not, and the combination of cake, chocolate and luscious alcohol is always going to be a crowd pleaser! These cake pops are similar in appearance to the ones made for children but they pack considerably more punch, and it’s important to make sure that kiddies don’t get hold of them, for obvious reasons.

Whisky Mac Binding Ingredients

• 50g (2oz) softened butter
• 50g (2oz) cream cheese
• 10g (½oz) minced crystallised ginger
• 2 tablespoons whisky
• 150g (5oz) icing sugar (try to obtain the unbleached kind)

Method

Beat together the butter and cream cheese until pale and smooth and then add the whisky and ginger, beating briefly together before beginning to sift in the icing sugar and folding it into the wet ingredients. When you have finished, you should have a smooth thick cream that will bind the cake pops together.

Whisky Mac Pops Ingredients

• 200g (7oz) ginger cake (use a basic Victoria sponge recipe with 1 teaspoon of grated fresh ginger and 1 teaspoon powdered ginger added to the mixture before baking)
• 150g (5oz) dark couverture chocolate
• Finely chopped crystallised ginger mixed with cocoa nibs

Method

Break the cake into chunks and feed it into a food processor until it becomes fine crumbs. At this point add the Whisky Mac Binding a tablespoon at a time and blend together with a spatula or wooden spoon until it becomes a stiff mixture. It’s difficult to say how much of the binding agent you need as that depends on the dryness of the original sponge.

Lay out a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper or use a marble slab. Dampen your hands slightly to prevent sticking and roll walnuts sized amounts of the cake mixture into balls. Space them out on the baking sheet and chill for an hour in the fridge. You should obtain between 18 – 24 balls, depending on the denseness of the crumb in the original sponge cake.

To coat the pops, use a polystyrene block (or a cardboard egg box turned upside down with a hole punched through the bottom of each egg holder) to support the pops while they set.

Melt the couverture chocolate in a double saucepan or in the microwave. Use the same number of paper lollipop sticks as you have cake pops and dip them into the mixture to a depth of about 2 cm before pushing them into a chilled cake ball to about half the depth of the ball. Put them back on the tray to set.

Once the chocolate has set and the sticks are firm to the touch, lift each one and dip the pop into the melted chocolate, ensuring you coat the whole surface, including about the first centimetre of the stick, but also tapping each pop slightly so that excess chocolate falls back into the pan – this ensures the coating is crisp and shatters in the mouth when bitten into.

Turn each pop as you hold it above the pan so that the coating is even and smooth. This requires a little patience but gives the best effect.

Once all the excess has dripped off and the pop is neatly coated, dip the top into the ginger and cocoa nibs mixture to decorate, before sliding the stick into the polystyrene block or egg box to set firm

When they are fully set you can display your cake pops either as they are or by wrapping them in gold cellophane and tying with black ribbon.

They will keep in a cool place for up to a week.

Alternative Recipes

Rum added to the cake binding and desiccated coconut rather than ginger added to the Sponge Mix, topped with white couverture chocolate and slices of glace fruit gives you ‘tropical punch’ pops.

Coffee liqueur added to the cake binding, coffee essence to the cake sponge and a milk couverture chocolate topped with a slice of white marshmallow gives you ‘alcochino’ pops.