Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cake Pops
Anyone who happened to come across my blog around the holidays knows it: chocolate and peanut butter is the food combination of choice in my house. I do love chocolate and peanut butter, but the real reason it shows up here so much is that my husband Evan loves it. That's why, for Valentine's Day this year, I wanted to make him one of his favorite treats – cake pops – in his favorite flavor combination.
The cake pops I make don't require any special cake pop baking tin – these aren't just little cakes covered in chocolate. They're a bit richer (and more time-intensive) than that. Maybe it's because I tend to make these without the lollipop sticks – they make the whole process more difficult, to be honest – but these treats are almost more of a truffle than a cake pop. But I'm going to keep calling them cake pops, thank you very much.
Not long ago, I shared the Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake recipe and reiterated that it does, in fact, make the perfect chocolate cake. With that being said, there was no other choice for the cake portion of these cake pops. And to go with this chocolate cake, I'm using a pretty standard recipe for peanut butter frosting.
These two elements will be combined, then rolled into balls, then frozen. After they're sufficiently chilled, they then get dipped in chocolate. So, to summarize: you make a cake, you make some frosting, you mix it all together, and then dip it in chocolate. Maybe don't give these to small children within, like, 5 hours of bedtime.
Full disclosure: this recipe takes a good amount of time to finish – definitely more time than just a regular cake. You have to make the cake and the frosting, and then there are added steps of rolling, freezing, and dipping. Even if you take some shortcuts and use a box mix for the cake, and/or a can of pre-made frosting, this isn't the simplest of desserts to prepare. But they're totally worth the time investment for special occasions, and gosh, how cute are they?
CHOCOLATE & PEANUT BUTTER CAKE POPS
Total Prep Time: ~3 hours
Active Prep Time: ~2 hours
Ingredients
Cake:
2 cups sugar 1 ¾ cups flour ¾ cup cocoa powder 1 ½ t baking powder 1 ½ t baking soda 1 t salt 2 eggs 1 cup milk ½ cup vegetable oil 2 t vanilla 1 cup boiling water
Frosting:
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter
3-4 T milk
2 cups powdered sugar
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate morsels (for dipping)
1 t of canola oil
Directions
Cake:
Heat oven to 350 F. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans, but instead of flour, use a little cocoa powder. In a large bowl, stir together your dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt). Mix in eggs, milk, oil and vanilla, and stir quickly (or use a mixer on medium) for 2 minutes. Then stir in boiling water – the batter will be thin, but this is how it's meant to be. Split the batter between the two cake pans, and bake 30-35 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool at least 15 minutes, then remove from the pans to cool further on wire racks.
Frosting:
Place the softened butter and peanut butter into a large bowl, and beat with a hand mixer on low/medium. As you mix, add in the milk as well. Then, ½ cup at a time, mix in the powdered sugar until the frosting is light and fluffy, increasing the mixer speed if needed. Try to not to overbeat – do a max of 2 minutes!
When the cakes and the frosting are done, combine the two together until smooth. Yep – stir it all together like an animal. I recommend using an extra large bowl or container to do this mixing as it can get a bit messy. Prepare two cookie sheets with either wax paper or baking mats, roll the cake-frosting mixture into balls (I recommend 1½ inch), and place on the cookie sheets.
If you're actually using lollipop sticks for these, melt a small amount of chocolate. Dip one end of each lollipop stick into the melted chocolate, then place the stick in each of the cake pops – the chocolate helps hold the cake pop to the stick. If you just want to make these like truffles, no stick is needed. They taste the same either way! Then, place them all in the freezer for at least one hour.
Melt the chocolate morsels with a small amount of oil on the stove, using a double-boiler if you have one. If not, you can heat them slowly in the microwave in a glass bowl. Remove the cake balls from the freezer. One by one, dip them in the chocolate, either fully or halfway depending on your preference, then place them back on the wax paper or baking mat so the chocolate can set*. If you'd prefer an easier method, just melt the chocolate and spoon it over each cake ball.
Refrigerate until the chocolate coating has hardened. Makes about 40 cake pops.
*A note if you're making these on lollipop sticks: trust me – it's not worth the trouble of trying to let them dry standing up. Not only do you need floral foam (other types, like styrofoam, just don't work), the pops will sometimes even fall off the stick as they dry due to the weight. It's fine if they have a flat top – really.
Happy Eating,
Natalie