Pirate Cake Pops

Helloooooo SUMMER! Hello to more free time, enjoying that beautiful summer sun, and more baking adventures to please our souls.  Summer is all about relaxing and doing the things that make us happy.  So naturally we had to start this summer off right by making some Cake Pops.  This time around we made little pirates.  They are random but cute and super easy to make.  And most importantly, ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS.  If you're unfamiliar with cake pops, 1. Where have you been lately? 2. You can find the step by step guide here.

Start the pirates by using a white colored modeling chocolate as the base.

Let them dry completely before moving on to the next steps.

Separate some red (or whatever color you would like to use as the bandannas) M&Ms and star sprinkles into a small bowl. You will need them before the dipping of the bandannas starts.

This step requires some quick or multiple sets of hands.  Dip half the cake pop into another color like red.

Ashley's Tip: in order to get a smooth top don't tap the cake pops on the rim of the bowl like you would when dipping the entire pop. 

Immediately after dipping, add the M&M and one sprinkle.  They might want to fall off but if you hold them for a few seconds they will stay.

Last step is to add faces with black marker or frosting.  Then these one eyed pirates are ready to eat.  Hope you enjoy them!

The Best of 2 Broke Bakers: Our 10 Most Favorite Posts

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  Well this blog has had some lack luster posts.  But then, we hit the jack pot.  That is as this blog has progressed we have decided to become blog post geniuses.  From witty one liners, to a plethora of eye catching images, to an insurmountable number of movie references we have found our stride.  Here's our 10 favorite posts-- we came, we made, we posted.

1.  Jeanie's Banana Bread

2. Our Favorite Books Cake Pops

3. Tri-Color Pasta Salad














4. Aebleskivers














5. Cake Pops 101

6. Fresh Raspberry Homemade Ice Cream

7. Mediterranean Grilled Cheese Sandwich

8. Strawberry Banana Angel Food Cake

9. Pumpkin Cupcakes

10. Cake Pop Greatest Hits

The Best of 2 Broke Bakers: The 10 Most Popular Recipes

As 2012 comes to an end we wanted to do a roundup and look at all the favorites posts throughout the year.  Since we've only been around for less than a year it's been quite the journey.

10. Cake Pop Greatest Hits












9. Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

8. One Eyed Monster Cake Pops

7. Dark Chocolate Banana French Toast

6. Not Quite 7 Layer Dip

5. Cake Pops 101

4. Strawberry Banana Angel Food Cake

3. Peacock Cake Pops

2. Hippo Cake Pops on the Prowl

and the most popular post on 2 Broke Bakers in 2012 was.....

1. Elephant Cake Pops

It's been a great year for us and we look forward to more in 2013. Up next is our personal favorite posts of 2012.

Our Favorite Books Cake Pops

During the summer we read...and read...and read some more.  We're in a constant battle between finding new greats and caving in to re-read those older series that we know and love.  (Case in point: We've probably re-read Harry Potter at least 5 times each). Inspired by this inevitable summer activity, we decided to join our library with our kitchen for a short while and turn our beloved novels into cake pop form.  This way we can get the best of both worlds--baking and reading.  If you haven't seen our other cake pop posts be sure to check out Cake Pops 101,  our greatest hits, and the recipe section to view other cake pops we've made in the past.

Start the process as always with a baked cake.  Lemon cake is the flavor of this cake. We wanted to do something different this time.  It turned out a strong flavor and is a refreshing change from our preferred chocolate and chocolate frosting combo.

If you have a conversation with us it will be pretty clear that we have different opinions for many things.  However we are unanimous in our decision to have Aubree shape the cake pops... every single time.

Aubree wanted to share this trick to make the shape: use a knife to help make crisp lines.  Instead of relying on your hands use a knife to ensure a good shape.

These cake pops were a disaster zone to make.  Be careful of the shape you create.  We had to reshape every single cake pop because the shape was too long and thin.  Yup, fun times (please hear sarcasm).  That meant we shaped, chilled and then reshaped and re-chilled every single cake pop before we dipped them.  

Clearly this batch of cake pops wanted to be a problem because we also had issues with the chocolate.

Here is our story. Once upon a time we decided to buy molding chocolate while it was on sale.  That was months ago.  Now when we went to make some, the chocolate did not melt in the right way.  After realizing this and being frustrated we put the cake pops in the refrigerator and waited to go buy new chocolate.

The moral of this story... only use newer chocolate.  Old chocolate will make dipping the cake pops a nightmare.  

So on to the fun part.  After you've dipped them put some of the left over vanilla frosting into a ziplock bag.  Aubree has become a genius with this stuff.  To make the pages take a small tip and carefully make lines across the top and one of the sides.  This creates the pages.

Aubree's Note: Its impossible to make the lines straight and perfect like a book.  After 2 seconds I realized that even with all my OCD, its gonna look messy (more like an old, crinkled book).

Also more fun times while this happened because we could not shake the table.  lol we survived.
















The type of icing that you use on the cake pops is also important. The gel type of the left does not harden. So the work you do will smear.... stay away.  We use the icing on the right to write the book titles and authors on the binding.

Harry Potter & Divergent Cake Pops

Made-up titles, just as cool as the classics. 

Pride & Prejudice Cake Pops

Here is our moment to "lightly" mention the reasons why we chose these specific books for this batch of book cake pops.  To say it lightly, WE LOVE THESE NOVELS.  When given a chance to show our love for Jane Austen, J.K. Rowling, and Jodi Picoult, we absolutely could not resist! Just Saying...and some of our recent discoveries like The Hunger Games and Divergent must be added too (just because). When in doubt, go read Harry Potter :)
Oh, and stay away from old chocolate.

One Eyed Monster Cake Pops

It has been said: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  Well, we say when you overheat your modeling chocolate, make One Eyed Monsters. Baking often involves adapting and coming up with new and creative ways to salvage your food even if you make a mistake.  Luckily for us this time, we had some store bought eye balls and some helpers who weren't afraid to get their hands dirty.

If you haven't made cake pops before check out Cake Pops 101 to get the step by step.

To make the wild and nonuniform chocolate covering,  just dip the cake pops and mess up the surface with a spoon or your fingers.

Then we stuck on the eyes which we purchased from Target. I'm sure you could make your own eyes but we thought these were pretty good looking plus for 75+ eyes we paid $3.

There's really no rhyme or reason to the way we made these.  Just stick on a couple eyes and it should do the trick.

 Desperate times call for desperate measures, and over heated modeling chocolate is a pretty rough place.  However when in doubt, don't be afraid to take a breathe, let your chocolate cool, and find another creative solution to your cake pop struggles.

Elephant Cake Pops

Colored Elephants remind us of the elephants in the Disney version of the Jungle Book.  It also is an easy animal to create.  A lot of the elephant cake pops on the internet have this sweet crafted trunks. Who has time for that? Not us. So we found another way to create these bad boys of the jungle and make them bright blue for a friend's birthday.

Start with the classic cake pop. If you need more specific directions take a look at the Cake Pop 101 Guide.  

We went with the classic baby blue cake pop.  However there's always grey, purple, brown, green, or almost any color available.  Reference Jungle Book Elephants. 

To make the floppy ears and stiff nose we used blue fruit roll-ups and blue Sour Punch Straws.  The cost for these cake pops is around $5.

The easy part is to cut the sour punch straws into 1-2 inch sections for the trunk.  It doesn't take that many straws so there's plenty for leftovers. 

The more challenging aspect are the ears.  Unroll one fruit roll-up, have some parchment or wax paper out on the counter and grab a knife.

Then slowly cut the ears using the knife tip.  Our shape is a kidney bean that's had a rough day, but the basic idea is to have one straight side and one wavy.

Remember it's 2 ears per cake pop. So get cutting early.  It's a little time consuming. 

The final steps involve assembly.  Use some of the left over melted chocolate for the outside coating and put it into a ziplock bag.  Cut a super small corner off of it and fill it up.  It's the simplest icing bag without having to actually buy them.

Put a little melted chocolate for the ears and then for the nose.  This became a two person part, however Aubree was a yoda with assembly and figured out a way to do it on her own. 

Add some black frosting for the eyes and viola!

Elephant Cake Pops