Happy Fourth of July: Celebrating with Something Sweet

Happy Fourth of July!  I am going to a Fourth of July party and of course decided I'd bring something sweet to share!

Sorry that my weekly posting streak ended.  Between the end of the school year recital, an AMAZING trip to Seattle/ Alaska, and coming home to a flooded basement...there hasn't been to much baking happening.

As I posted in my Easter Cake Pop post, I wanted to try to make the cake pops that get baked in the mold. Pat bought me two for my birthday (back in March) and I just got around to testing them out.  I decided to use the recipe that came on the box with a few adaptations.

This recipe is adapted from Nordic Ware's Fudgy Cake Pops:

Ingredients:
1 1/2 C. of semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 sticks of butter
1 1/2 C. of sugar
6 Tbsp. of unsweetened cocoa powder
4 eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 C. of flour
1 tsp. of salt

For the cake pops you'll then also need lollipop sticks, melting chocolate (I use Make 'n Mold), and what ever decorations, such as sprinkles.

Melt the chocolate chips and butter on the stove top over low heat (I did 3).  Continue to stir until it is all melted.  While I was stirring, I added the sugar and cocoa powder to my stand mixer.  Once the chocolate was melted, I poured it into the mixer as well.  Then add the eggs one at a time. Next, add the vanilla.  Finally, mix in the flour and salt until well combined.

I used my cookie dough scoop to then fill in my cake pop mold.  They baked at 325 for 18 minutes.  This recipe is doubled and it made 42 cake pops.  My adaptions to Nordic Ware's recipe was I doubled the salt and added the tsp. of vanilla.

Once the cake pops cooled, I dipped the sticks in melted chocolate and inserted the stick into each cake pop.  After that had cooled, I dipped the cake pops into the melted chocolate.

For the American flag, I used Make 'n Mold's dark red, dark blue, and white chips.  I used about 1/4 of the bag of the white, 1/2 of the bag of blue, and 2/3 of the red.  Six of the cake pops were blue with white sprinkles for the stars ( I couldn't find star sprinkles); 18 of the cake pops were red with white stripes.

And here you go!

I made little American flag cake pops with my extras!

I would definitely make cake pops again by baking them in the mold. It was less messy!  Can't wait to try out other flavors! Enjoy your Fourth of July!