I had a really good idea a few weeks ago, but it involved the kitchen so in retrospect I should have ignored it completely. Why not try my hand at creating little strawberry-shaped cake pops, I wondered, as one does from time to time. In fact, why not make some every week to sell at the u-pick farm where I work part time. I’m always looking for ways to spend time that doesn’t involve writing, just to be sure other parts of my brain are still firing on all cylinders. Plus, these tiny cakes should take equally tiny effort, right?
My entire precious weekend was consumed with research. I watched countless videos and studied variations and tips. I printed out lists of most common mistakes, most important reminders, helpful hints. Everything was taped and sticky-noted around the room as reminders that, if I heeded every step along the way, this journey would surely end in a baking bonanza. I would proceed to carrot cake pops as we moved through the growing season, and then onto pumpkin spice pops for Halloween! Pup cakes for canine friends, and gluten free varieties so everyone could enjoy. The world was my oyster!
Strawberry shapes are ‘easy to create, you just work the cake pop ball (cooked and crumbled sponge cake mixture blended with butter cream to the right consistency – all of which was already more baking than I’ve done in a year) in the usual way and then roll it in your hand to create an oblong shape. It will appear like an egg, but it’s the details in the decorating that will help it sprout into a strawberry!’ Okay, well that was reassuring, because my oblong required little driblets of water just to keep the dough intact. But the little water touch-ups surely wouldn’t be noticeable under the frosting details.
I had purchased numerous items from several different stores for this quest, and my kitchen was stocked with cake mixes (once I perfected the art, I would definitely move to scratch cake), a package of one hundred 6 inch lollipop sticks (yes, I was singing that bad Lollipop Guild song from the Wizard of Oz), green fondant for leaves (like, how accomplished does that sound!), a silver cookie cutter for the leaves, green sprinkle balls for the strawberry part (this is what I had to return before I even started, as it was supposed to be small white sprinkles), a tube of decorative frosting (because no store in Red Deer had small white springles, so I would resort to drawing little seed thingys on the strawberries myself), white melting chocolate wafers (because they didn’t have pink or red for the strawberry affect), red food colouring (see previous explanation), plastic wrap that had its own cutting button along the side (for busy bakers), a thin green ribbon (to make a bow on top of each small strawberry wonder), and a little half-domed display case (of course).
Crumbling the perfectly good 9 X 13 inch yellow cake seemed sacrilegious, but I couldn’t disobey the YouTube gang and this was only Step 1. I let it cool, crumbled it, let it cool, dropped in the butter cream, hand mixed it to the consistency of wet sand, let that all cool, rolled a ball carefully measured in my new cookie scoop (oh, add that to the list above), rolled both directions so as to ensure there would be no air bubbles, then carefully placed each ball on a parchment covered cookie sheet. Let that cool, then rolled each again, this time moving one end into the oblong shape I so desired. The smaller end kept popping off (is that where this blasted little blob of sweetness got its name?), so I kept having to glue it back on with water (see above). Let all of it cool again, even though they all looked more like small potatoes rather than eggs.
Then came the part about melting the chocolate wafers. It started off okay, with me carefully referring to all my posted notes. Someone along the way had said adding vegetable oil would help thin the consistency, so the cake could be easily rolled in it and the excess chocolate drips easily tapped back into the bowl. I tried this so much there was a think layer of oil hoovering just above everything. A few drops of cold water might help, I thought, venturing off all the scripts I had studied. Yup, the water helped alright – it helped carry me over the top to the decision that had been brewing for some time by then. It congealed and then crystallized the entire bowl of melting chocolate, but not before a few cake pops had dangled from their lollipop stick and cracked open into it.
One small and distorted piece of cake stood alone on the display platform in the end. It still looked like Mr. Potato Head, with a drip down the front forming a nose and even a tiny ear blob on one side. I bit off its misshapen little head, threw everything else in the garbage, and cracked open a beer. Funny, though, that one bite made a satisfying popping sound as the hardened chocolate gave way. At least there was that. And the beer.