Dessert Alert!

 

No quilt content here, but plenty of yummy dessert!   I've been wanting to make cake pops again, and a co-worker's talk about her love of caramel made me decide to try to make caramel cake pops.  I surfed the web again, and much to my delight found Stephanie of 52 Kitchen Adventures who also prefers her cake pop made from scratch, not with box mixes or canned frosting.  Her Salted Caramel Cake Pops sounded wonderful, so I used her recipe as a jumping off point.

My co-worker's talk about caramel also reminded me of something I'd done many years ago- making caramel by boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk in a water bath.  Stephanie made caramel from scratch, I decided I would try making it with the sweetened condensed milk.  I spent three hours watching carefully over the can of milk in the water bath, making sure the water never got below the can. I left it to cool until the next day.

Meanwhile, I made the Brown Sugar cake on Stephanie's recipe, only I did it in a 7 X 11 pan.

After getting some chores out of the way early this morning, I made my frosting.  

Simple- a stick of softened butter, about a cup or so of powdered sugar, vanilla, and about two-thirds of that can of caramel.  Yes, my boiled milk caramel turned out perfectly- that's it sitting next to my mixing bowl.  

Next, I crumbled up my cake.  This time I took the easy way and used my food processor.

Add the frosting- not all of it, just enough to hold the cake crumbs together, and throw it in the frig to get cold.  Once cold, I rolled it into cake balls, and popped it back into the frig to get cold again.

Stephanie dipped her cake balls in chocolate, but I didn't want anything to compete with the caramel.  So I used white chocolate, which is a lot more finicky when it comes to melting.  I learned that using a double boiler setup is the way to go, and also found that adding a bit of canola oil can help smooth it out.  Once I got them all dipped and sitting up on my styrofoam, they went into the freezer to get good and cold before I decorated them.

I used dark chocolate and the caramel sauce to decorate them, just drizzling it over the pops.

Here they are, partway through the decorating.

And here are all thirty, decorated and sprinkled with a bit of kosher salt. Having had one for dessert tonight, I can say for sure they are delicious!!