Fourth of July Fun!

 Good news: I have the perfect treat anyone can easily whip up just in time for all the 4th of July festivities this weekend. Just head on over to the grocery store(if you don’t have the supplies), whip em’ up tomorrow, and then watch everyone “oooh” and “ahhh” over them at your 4th of July events! Sound easy enough?!

 Great news: I got a call 2 days ago saying my apartment is ready for me to move in! I am so extremely excited! The original plan was to not move in for a couple weeks yet, but the manager said things were moving way ahead of schedule, so I can’t complain even though I am basically packing from morning till night! Warning: Trying to pack up your whole life belongings in 4 days is no small feat, but it’ll be totally worth it x100! So as for my 4th of July plans, the fam is renting a U-Haul(yes—I do have that much stuff sadly), and we will spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday hauling, unpacking, and assembling in my new town 2 hours away. So if I am majorly slacking in the blog world with comments and such, I know you’ll understand—and plus I will be back full swing Monday! =) Onto the food fun stuff!….

What do you get when you combine Angel Food Cake and Lollipop Sticks?!

 + =

Angel Food Cake Pops!

Originally I was a little leery about jumping on the Cake Pop bandwagon in fear that it would be a daunting task. But, then again I am reminded that if you never try, you’ll never know! So after many doses of Cake Pops around the blogosphere I finally attempted it—I’m glad I did!

All of the recipes and tutorials I viewed online used a standard cake mix, but I had one lonely box of Angel Food Cake mix lying around, so I figured why not Angel Food Cake pops for a fun twist? Then the realization that the 4th of July is right around corner hit me, and I decided to incorporate a little holiday flare into these fun treats!

So You Wanna Make The Cake?! I’ll Show Ya How!

What You’ll Need

• 1 box of Cake Mix (I used Angel Food Cake)
• Ingredients called for on Cake Mix box
• 1 16oz can Frosting (I used Fluffy White)
• 1 1-lb. package of Candy Melts (I used Vanilla flavored)
• Lollypop sticks (From Wal-Mart or your local craft store)

How You Do It

• You’ll need to preheat your oven to the degrees called for on the box and prepare the cake as you normally would, baking it in a 9 x 13 pan sprayed with cooking spray.
• Once the cake is done, let it cool COMPLETELY before heading to the next step.(I actually let mine sit overnight)
• Then you need to take the cake out of the pan and dump it into a huge bowl so you can crumble it up nice and good! After it is a complete crumbly mess, add it the container of frosting and keep mixing until you can no longer see the frosting—it takes awhile, but it does happen, I promise!

• Then comes the fun part! You need to have a cookie sheet with tinfoil ready to go, and then you’re going to shape 1 inch balls and place them on sheet. I used a TBSP to try to get the most uniform size possible. Then stick lollipop sticks in each ball.

• Once this is done, pop em’ all in the freezer for about an hour.
• Take them out and prepare a double boiler on the stovetop, or just microwave your candy melts like I did! =) The directions for melting can be found on the back of the package. You’ll want to melt them in a generous sized bowl for dipping.
• Once the melts are smooth and melted you’ll need to work fast and dip each cake pop into the candy melts. Twirl and swirl them a bit to get the excess of, them place them back on the cookie sheet and let cool. (Or if you are going to sprinkle them like I did, make sure to do it before they cool!)
• Once they are done hardening, about a half hour to be safe—chow down! (Oh and save some for friends and fam of course!)

Side Note: If you are not familiar with Candy Melts like I wasn’t until I really got into baking, the most wide-known brand that makes them is Wilton. They come in various colors and flavors and well as different sized bags. They can be tinted with food coloring or you can add flavor by adding extracts. Find more about em’ here.

Hope you all have a safe and fab Fourth of July!