Gluten Free Cake Pops (Bakerella Cake Pops)

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I attempted to make Gluten Free Cake Pops as the treat my son would hand out for his birthday at school.  My son does not have to be Gluten Free. He vowed to be gluten free like me to support the littlest Celiac in the family.  Besides, I wanted to try them gluten free.

Gluten Free cake being a more dense type cake enabled this wonderful treat to be easier to handle, roll and dunk in chocolate.  I am a rookie chocolatier so it took me a few try's to get the coating right.  At first I did not achieve a nice liquid melted chocolate because of overheating.  If your coating is turning out too chunky, add a teaspoon of oil at a time until smooth.  I learned to turn the double boiler on, get the water heated up and steaming, then take it right off.  Chocolate will still be mostly chunky at this point so you have to keep stirring off the heat until it is liquid.  Place back on top of water portion of your double boiler as necessary.

Another key point I wanted to mention is how to do the dunking portion of this project.  Watch the Bakerella video I included and how she dunks the cake pop and swirls around without really moving the cake pop up and down.  This is extremely key.  The cake pop has to come out of the chocolate sideways or the stick will pull right out.  I also found that chilling the cake pop a few minutes after you insert the stick is helpful for new timers.  On this video below, she does not do that.  But I'm sure she has made thousands of these.  Its harder than it looks.  LOL.

The flavor was out of this world.  The best part of the cake, the frosting, all though the pop.  The frosting is the best part of the cake for most folks. What a wonderful idea. It was a HIT with the kids.  My son tells me that another child brought in Lollie Pops and the kids were trying to barter the Lollie Pops for extra cake pops.

The Cake Recipe I Used:
1 Box of Betty Cocker Gluten Free Yellow Cake Mix
3.8 oz Box of of Jello Pudding (I used White Chocolate)
1/3 cup Sugar
4 Eggs
1/2 cup Oil
3/4 cup Milk
1 T Vanilla
1 tub of Betty Crocker Chocolate Frosting
Melting Chocolate (I used white and colored it orange)

• Mix cake up and bake on 350 for approximately 35 to 40 minutes.
• Cool Cake.
• Crumble cake into crumbs.
• Add about half of a tub of Betty Crocker Frosting.
• Combine like you were making meatballs, go ahead and use your hands :-)
• I used a small cookie scoop and got out a heaping bunch and rolled into a meatball style ball.
• Place on parchment lined baking sheet.
• Insert stick with a tiny bit of melted chocolate.
• Chill for 15 minutes.
• Turn double boiler on (water should be only half way and not touch upper pan).
• Place remaining chocolate over double boiler for a few seconds and take right off the heat. 
• Stir like crazy until chocolate melts.
• Take pops out of freezer and insert pop straight into chocolate (I had to tilt pan to get it deep enough).
• Using a rocking motion, GENTLY rock the pop until all of it is covered.
• Lift pop out horizontally so stick does not pull out from the weight of it.
• Tap, tap, tap horizontally until all of the chocolate stops dripping off (this takes some patients).
• Put your coating on if desired and plunge into a double paneled shipping box to cool upright.

I strongly recommend watching the video to see how she does it.



A few Tips:

• Careful not to overheat the chocolate, it will look only slightly melted when you need to take it off the heat.  Stir, stir, stir.  The residual heat from the pan will do the work.
• Does the chocolate not go on your pop smoothly?  The chocolate may be overheated.  Use Oil in your overheated chocolate ~ one teaspoon or two to try and save the overheated chocolate.
• Careful to not move that pop around too much in the chocolate, just gently rock.
• Pull pop out sideways!
• Tap Tap Tap, don't rush.  Its a mess if you don't do this part right.