Welcome to Cake Pops: The Story of a Hot Mess

I have to give serious props to bakers, especially the ones who go on TV and compete in timed competitions. They make the art of baking and decorating look easy.

I'm here to tell you that they aren't. Not in the slightest.

These turned out the prettiest...until they fell over.

For a couple of holiday parties that I was invited to, I decided to make cake pops. I've sort of made them before, but minus the pop stick and sprinkles. Thus, I wanted to try making them again (with all the trimmings) and feature them in my food blog (it's under a different name and website, but click here) while pairing them with that "special edition" cinnamon coke.

I was not prepared.

Baking the cakes went smoothly, it's when I tried to stick them on the pop sticks and add the chocolate coating that I started running into serious problems. Either the cake pops didn't want to stay on the pop stick, they dangerously leaned to one side in the display I had created, or everything just went all over the place. I probably ended up with more chocolate on me than on the cake pops.

If no one has ever told you, making cake pops is a long process. You’ve got to bake the cake, then add some frosting, let them harden in the fridge or freezer (your mileage on this step may vary), put them on pop sticks, add your chocolate (it’s messy), and finally the sprinkles. Then you’ve got to hope to the universe that they don’t fall over in your display. Oh yes, they will fall. This whole thing took me two days to do (mostly because of trial and error). It was a long two days.

Early yesterday, I wrote on Facebook that I thought that making cake pops would be the end of me - mainly because dipping each pop into chocolate has been the bane of my existence. One of my cousins pointed out that the best way to do this was to drizzle the chocolate onto the cake pops instead. So I ran out to pick up some Styrofoam (not something I like buying, but it worked) to hold the cake pops up and drizzled a ton of chocolate on top of the few remaining un-decorated pops. Candy and chocolate still went flying everywhere.

Other people commented on my Facebook post either to give suggestions or to agree with my frustration. Some of the comments were pretty funny.

It was frustrating, taking a lot longer than I thought it would, and turned out hilarious. If I eat another cake pop before next winter, it'll be too soon. I will say they taste really good, but in the looks department, I've seen prettier fails on the Nailed It subreddit. I might have even baked one of the eggs instead of properly adding it into the cake.

I honestly had to laugh. The whole thing felt like an allegory to my current life situation. It's not pretty, has lots of problems, but there are still reasons to laugh and smile. I think a lot of us feel like we should have everything put together by our mid to late twenties. We won’t and I certainly don’t.

Two days of working on these cake pops and at least they taste good, but my kitchen is a disaster zone and I'm not looking forward to cleaning it up. Thankfully they made it to their destinations in one piece. I hope the same happens to me once I make my next big decision.

I also might be on the verge of hysterically crying. The sheer absurdity of making these cake pop has broken my brain for a few days. And why try challenging myself this way? What's the point? Half of the cake pops ended up on the floor anyway.

Maybe it was because I saw a few pictures online, read a few different recipes, and wanted to make something just as pretty. It looked easy. They looked yummy. It looked fun.

Well, one and a half out of three ain't bad.

This attempt at cake pops might not have turned out my best, but that's how these things go sometimes. I'll keep trying different ways to make them and maybe one day I'll get the technique down right. I’ll hopefully not make as much of a mess either.

Just like in life.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off), please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me.

Until next week.