Monday, July 9, 2012

Neapolitan Cake Pops - Three Flavors in One Pop

These neapolitan ice cream cake pops were the result of my having "leftovers" of each of these three flavors in my freezer, all at the same time. They turned out really good, and really pretty. But I will warn you that making these is not for the cake pop beginner. They're time consuming and a little challenging.

What You Need:
Cake in each strawberry, vanilla & chocolate flavors*
Cream Cheese Icing
Candy Meltsin Pink, White and Chocolate
Vegetable Oil
Lollipop Sticks
Styrofoam or parchment paper

*Note: Please click the link to see how I made one cake mix into the three neapolitan flavors. It's really easy to do!


Make the Cake Balls

If you have never made cake pops before, please refer to my How to Make Cake Pops post for more detailed instructions.

In short, you need to make the cake into small crumbs. Add a small amount of icing to each. With these, because the strawberry cake is always so moist, you need hardly any icing in the strawberry- I'm talking a Tablespoon or two at the most.
*Note: I think making the dough too "wet" is a common mistake a lot of new cake pop makers. Go easy on the icing. It takes less than you'd expect. Assuming all three flavors come from one cake mix, you'll need, I'd bet, less than 1 cup of icing for all three combined. 

To layer the cake pops, start with a small - about small marble or large pea-sized - ball. Remember that you want to smash the dough so that it makes a compact ball. (This one actually looks a little big to me now. Aim a little smaller than this.) Set aside.

Now, choose your second flavor. Pinch a little larger amount of it and roll it into a ball to get the dough to stick together.

Flatten the ball between two pieces of parchment paper. (I actually just folded over the end of my parchment paper.)

Place the first cake ball in the center of the flattened dough. Fold the parchment over and gently peel the second flavor off and wrap it around the ball.

Completely cover the original cake ball as evenly as possible. I would pinch off the excess areas, and generally needed to move a little to the bottom to cover a hole there. The gently roll the cake ball again to make it round and smooth.

Repeat the second step, with the last flavor. Roll the dough, flatten it, and wrap it around.

Finish by rolling the cake pop smooth one, final time.
Set these into the refrigerator for at least three hours or overnight.

*Note: It took me about 5 minutes to roll each of these. So, what I did was made 12 of the "nesting flavor" ones, then I made the rest of the dough into "single flavor" smaller pops to accompany these. The nesting pops are bigger than my normal pops. They're about the size of a golf ball before they're dipped.

Dip the Cake Pops:
I had all kinds of plans for these pops. I was going to dip them in all three colors. I was going to decorate them with drizzles of the remaining two colors after I dipped them. But in the end, I went with simple... mostly because I got lazy. But I still think they look beautiful as simple pops.

Melt the Candy with 1 Tbsp. of vegetable oil in a tall mug. (I got these from WalMart.)
To melt, I use 30% power for about 3 minutes, then stir, and return to 30% power at 30-second intervals until they're just melted, not hot.
I needed about 3/4 of a bag of each color for mine.

Always remember to dip the stick in the melted candy before you stick it into the cake ball. This helps keep the cake pop from falling off of the stick.
Also note that I only work on about 5-10 cake pops at a time, so that they don't get too warm waiting. And, if you're working in a hot, summertime kitchen, place an ice pack underneath the cake ball plate to help keep them cool. (You want them cool or they'll fall off of the stick when you're dipping them.)

Dip the pop into the candy, remembering to dip straight down and right back up, don't swirl or twirl, or you're more likely to lose the pop.

Tap the stick on the edge of the mug, allowing the excess candy to come off of the pop. (If you skip this step you'll have drippy or uneven pops.)

Place the pops either upside down on to parchment paper, or into a small candy paper- like you see above- (or use a mini-cupcake liner, but those would probably be a little small for these gigantic pops). Or you can do them as usual, by inserting the stick into a piece of styrofoam to set.

This is what they look like on the inside. I alternated the order of the flavors so that whatever color was on the outside was what the outside flavor was. So, this has chocolate in the middle, vanilla, then strawberry.

A lot of work, but they are awfully pretty! (And tasty!)

Click the Links Below to See:
How to Make Cake Pops
How to Make Neapolitan Cake (with one mix)
How Long Do Cake Pops Take?
Other Cake Pop Ideas and Tricks

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3 comments:

  1. http://www.myhiccupcakes.com/2012/08/neapolitan-cake-pops-heart-shapes.html#

    Check out my version of these!
    I made up an easy way to roll them out~

    ReplyDelete
  2. How inventive, Beki! All they are missing is a little Italian flag sticking out of the top. :)

    Hat tipped, as ever, at OCP: Beki's Neapolitan Cake Pops

    Kate.

    ReplyDelete

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