bumble bee cake pops

I loved making chocolate chip cookies when I was young. Part of it was the quality time spent with an adult supervisor on a project I could help with, but I suspect a larger part was getting to eat cookies. One of my first solo baking attempts lives on in family lore as the notorious salt cookies. I still don't know if I added a cup instead of a teaspoon of salt (they were on either side of the same measuring tool) or if I used salt instead of sugar, but yes, they were that salty. It wasn't even worth picking off the cookie part to eat the chocolate chips. They were a disaster.

Salted caramel makes me nervous. It just seems like too much salt for a dessert. I can't commit. However, Starbucks has salted caramel cake pops and I was challenged to make a better version, so I made a first attempt.

My salted caramel cocoa cake pops didn't taste salted. I suppose that's better than too salty, but now I wish I had more culinary courage. Perhaps my next attempt will be more bold. I used a devils food cake (from a mix) and a mix your own can of caramel frosting. I was worried the chocolate would overpower the caramel, so I used the whole flavor packet with only 8 oz of the frosting. It was still very subtle, so I added a caramel swirl with a jar of ice cream topping we had in the fridge. The outer layer was dark cocoa candy melts, and the bee decor was to fit a baby shower theme.

This project came to me at the last minute. It's not that a week isn't a reasonable time frame to ask someone to prepare a dessert for a baby shower, it's that when I'm asked to bring dessert I decide on cake pops, and when I make cake pops they are usually themed. I was pleased with the vision I had for these little guys (a few bees and a busy looking trail on the others), but I was short on supplies to make them happen. Michaels didn't have any dark cocoa candy melts, so I could only make half the batch with what I had on hand.

The other half I decided on a white cake from a mix and vanilla frosting. That seemed too boring, so I added chai spices. Yum! I know chai isn't as universally liked as vanilla, but these pops may have been my all time favorite flavor so far.

I didn't love the bee-scape, and they felt a little sloppy, but they went over well enough at the party.