Pink Not-So-Cakey Cake Pops

There is this phenomenon all over the internet that I've been running into called Cake Pops.  Despite bloggers' warnings of being time consuming and messy, I had to try them for absolutely no reason at all.  I read the instructions on multiple sights and thought "Cake Pops? Piece of cake...piece of crumb. Cake."  Needless to say, I should have taken my fellow bloggers' advice because for a project I thought would take me a couple hours tops, ended up taking me two days.  Now granted, I took some 'lessons learned' away and I don't think it will take me nearly as long as it did this time if I make these again.  Before I start my rant, I am going to refer you to Bakerella.  She is the mastermind behind this phenomenon and her cake pops are perfect and absolutely adorable.  You can find the recipe on her website and a lot of inspiration for different ideas of decorating.

Of course I had visions of beautiful pink and green and brown cake pops, perfectly spherical with intricate little decorative details (perfect little polka dots, eye catching 'splatters', and willy wonka swirls) and then adorable little polka dot ribbon bows for the finishing touch. My effort would be flawless; neatly coating little cake balls with brightly colored chocolate. Why is it that my visions are always so far from reality?
                      
                The reality of my perfect cake pop looked like this:

If you would like to hear the reality of the situation, it went something like this: I used one whole can of icing as all of the instructions I read said,  but the 'dough' seemed awfully mushy.  I had a sinking feeling that it wasn't right but then decided that all the time it would spend in the refrigerator would surely firm them up.  I guess the instructions didn't say to eat chunks of cake as you were mashing it into crumbs...hmmm.

Eating this...

will brutally shatter your vision of perfect cake pops.

They also didn't say that the batter needed to go into the refrigerator BEFORE making the balls as I did with mine.  Anyway, after letting the dough chill for about an hour, I tried making the cake balls but they kept sticking to my hands after I'd make a few, so back into the refrigerator the dough went until it was chilled enough that I could make about 5 more cake balls.  Repeat this step for a few hours...that is what my Saturday afternoon consisted of.  Finally, after the balls were made, I chilled them for a few more hours as the recipes said.

Gooey cake batter, does not a perfect cake ball make.

I then coated the ends of my lollipop sticks in chocolate before inserting them into the cake balls...simple right? Nope.  The chocolate dripped down my fingers and the lollipop stick and when I inserted them into the cake balls, the cake ball batter was still too mushy and it squished the balls so they had flat heads.  Then I chilled them again for a few more hours thinking they would surely be firm enough but once again, I was wrong. First off, when I tried to coat the cake balls, some of them actually fell off into the chocolate leaving chunks of cake batter in my chocolate. Secondly, for whatever the reason, the green chocolate clumped up in the microwave and burned to the sides (even though I put it in for 30 seconds at a time as the instructions read...the pink and brown didn't do this).  And then when I tried to decorate them, I didn't have one of those squirt bottles so I used a zip lock bag, but I cut the hole too big so my decorations were a disaster.  Not to mention, I had drops of now hardened chocolate all over the counter, my hands and my styrofoam stand.  Eventually I gave up for the day and only finished about 15 of them.  The next day I went to put the little bags on them and ribbon them up, but my roll of ribbon only covered about 7 of them.

So needless to say, my first cake ball experience was quite the disaster...but knowing what I know now, I think I might be able to make them work the next time.