I've been so used to making the classic cake pop. When I heard about the Babycakes Cake Pop maker, I was skeptical. "I bet this won't work. Just another gadget to collect dust in the closet or pantry." Yet, I still wanted to try it. I purchased the gizmo at Chef Central in New York for $19.99.
There are so many cupcake recipes that I want to try. Of course, I have a plethora of cookbooks where I can try different cupcake recipes. I was most afraid that the cupcakes would be dry and wanted to infuse them with homemade buttercream frosting, but I decided not to. Let's just try the gadget out to see if it works.
I decided on a chocolate orange cupcake recipe from one of my books. I decided to cut the recipe in half since the full recipe makes 1.5 dozen cupcakes, which means, that would be a lot of cake pops to dip in chocolate. After deciding to cut the recipe in half, I took all of my ingredients out and hoped for the best.
The cake pop maker made the cake balls perfectly round, but I'm not sure about how moist the cake would be since in my experience, some cupcakes aren't as moist since there isn't a layer of frosting to keep the moisture in. I still went ahead with the original recipe since this was the first time I was making the cakes in a cake pop maker.
The cakes turned out pretty good - shape wise. I've heard some people who reviewed the product to be a waste of money and that their cakes aren't as round as what the product photographs showed. I looked at mine and they are perfectly round!
The instructions on the Cake Pop maker said not to overfill the maker and only to fill it with one tablespoon of batter. I did just that. Also, in order to fill the little holes perfectly without any drips, I suggest that you put the batter in a pastry bag. If you don't have a pastry bag, a ziplock bag would be just fine.
Whilst the cakes are cooling, I began prepping my dipping chocolate over a double broiler. I put the cake balls in the freezer as I melted my chocolate. I was afraid at how the pops would handle on the sticks, but they handled pretty well.
I was a bit disappointed at how the chocolate orange cupcake recipe came out of the cake pops. They were crumbly and not moist. For sure, the cake pop maker cakes is not the same as the classic cake pops since the classic cake pops are ladened with frosting after crumbling a sheet cake into mere molecular crumbs. Babycakes Cake Pop Maker makes the actual cake (which is a lot healthier) and not too sweet.
I'm not dissatisfied with the product at all. I just need to refine my recipes to add more moistness to the cake pop, which means, I have to make sure my batter is not heavy, use oil instead of butter, cook it a minute less, and even infuse it with buttercream frosting. Hmmm.... maybe that's a project I can do today.
I'm really excited to see what else I can do with this machine and it's a great way to experiment with different recipes without turning on the oven and making so much of a failed experiment throughout the year.
