New year, old tricks: cake pops!

Happy 2013, folks! 

What have I been posting about lately... more baking, less outfits (more baking -> less outfits fit). :) Oh well, fortunately the situation is not too bad after the holidays, but you can definitely tell the difference of how you feel after even a small break from exercising and simultaneously eating whatever you hand reaches first. Most often chocolate...

And what I do is share this super unhealthy caloriebomb with you: gingerbread cake pops with coconut and mint chocolate topping. Nice, huh? :) Actually these are something I made for Christmas, but ran out of time to post about. So let's make them winter cake pops instead. And if you are slimming down for now, you can always try them in February!

GINGERBREAD CAKE POPS WITH COCONUT AND MINT CHOCOLATE TOPPING WOW THAT'S A LONG TITLE

(This is my own variation of cake pops recipes I've tried so far.) 

350 g gingerbreads
100 g cream cheese
200-300 g white chocolate
coconut flakes
mint chocolate (I used Marianne flavoured Kismet bar I found in my sister's kitchen)

1. Crumble the gingerbreads into small bits and mix with cream cheese. Roll small balls and put in fridge for about 1 hour.
2. Melt the chocolate. Dip the other end of a stick in chocolate before sticking it into a ball. Roll in chocolate and sprinkle coconut flakes or crumbled mint chocolate on top.

Cake pop time!

What a week! Got fever on Monday and it lasted until Wednesday. And the sluggish feeling lasted even longer. So got nothing done, including blog updates.

Cake pops have been around for a good while, but in case there's someone who hasn't tried to make them yet, I decided to post about them. Hope you get inspired! What is so cool about these cute treats is that only your imagination is on your way when planning the flavour, shape, colors and decoration. I used Valio's mango cake pops recipe, which you can find here. The idea is to 

1. Crumble a ready made cake (150 g), mix it with cream cheese (100 g) and powdered sugar (1 dl) and roll balls.

(I baked the cake myself, but don't think it's worth the trouble. Use basic sugar cake, chocolate cake, tart or whatever you think matches with the cover you're going to use. Mango-flavored cream cheese worked well in this recipe, gets my recommendations!)

2. Dip the balls in topping, whatever you choose it to be.

(I used melted white chocolate (100 g). I coloured the other half with red food colouring, but for some reason it thickened the topping so badly I ended up shaping it on the balls instead of dipping. That made the balls too heavy for the sticks, see the picture below.)

3. Decorate!

I didn't find lollipop sticks to buy, so I used these long grilling sticks. There are many ways to serve cake pops: you can e.g. stick the sticks in sugar or serve them upside down on a plate. Find some nice examples here. Since I used these ridiculously long sticks, I ended up sticking them in a half cut cabbage which I covered with a nice napkin. I added some two-sided tape on the cabbage to keep te napkin in place. Voila!