Flag Cake Pops

I really like to challenge my baking skills and my sanity during holidays. I figure if I’m going to spend 5 hours making something, it better be for a special occasion. However, when it’s something you’ve never made before, it adds a bit of stress not knowing how it’s going to turn out and especially not being able to taste it prior to your guests having their first bite. Minus the first bad batch, these bad boys took me about 3 hours start to finish. I think it’s the kind of things where the more you do it the easier it becomes. They almost look too pretty to eat. Almost. 

Ingredients

Sally Fields or Pillsbury Moist Cake mix (a box that says pudding in mix) - the first batch I made was homemade cake. Someday I’ll master it for the cake pops (they didn’t rise much), until then, there’s always box mix. 

Colored chocolate melts, red, white, and blue (from Michaels)

Star sprinkles (from Michaels)

Cake pop sticks 

What To Do

The day before or even two days before…

you plan on serving this, make the cake pops in a cake pop maker. Basically make the cake mix and spoon it into your heated cake pop maker. I filled the holes to the top (against the instructions, but I found it was the only way to make the big balls). Then bake for 6 minutes. Take them out and let them cool on a rack then continue to bake the rest of the batter. You need approximately 50 cake pops depending on the size of your serving platter. When the cake pops are cool, proceed to the next step.

The day before (preferable) or the day of…

Melt either blue or red chocolate first in microwave. Dip the cake pop sticks in melted chocolate and stick into the cake pop. Arrange cake pops with sticks on a baking sheet and stick in the freezer for 15 minutes. Pull out and decorate with the melted chocolate (I spooned mine on an smoothed it instead of dipping) and sprinkle with stars if you frosted the blue cake pops. If you don’t have a cake pop stand (who needs another appliance), stick the decorated pops in a bowl with rice and they will stand on their own. When they are dry, put them in tupperware in the fridge unless you are serving that day. 

Continue with the red chocolate. Melt white chocolate in a ziplock bag and cut a small tip off and drizzle over the red pops after the pops have cooled in the freezer.

If traveling…

I would recommend bringing the cake pops in the tupperware in a cooler so they don’t melt. Then pour a light layer of rice on the platter and arrange the pops on top of the rice. If the rice wasn’t there, the cake pops would just fall over. So unless you want your time consuming project to look like a hot mess, do the rice.