Ice Cream and Donut Cake Pops

This month's AlphaBakes is hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes. Its our monthly blogging challenge that we co-host where we randomly pick a letter each month and bake/create something using that letter as the main ingredient or name of bake. I think we've done all the easy letters and we're left with the trickier ones such as 'I' for this month. My first thoughts were ice cream cupcakes which I made a few years ago but I wanted to make something new this month so decided on ice cream cake pops. I also made some donut ones whilst I was at it! 

Each time I make cake pops, I think never again and then of course I do. They are quite fiddly and time consuming and I just can't seem to get it right. This time the cake pops fell off the stick but they looked quite nice on my new cake stand (more on that later). I made a Nigella chocolate cake and used caramel and strawberry buttons for the coating.

 chocolate cake 

 1 batch of vanilla buttercream + crumbled cake 

 mix buttercream 1 tablespoon at a time into the cake mixture until it's sticky and binds well together

 weigh out 30g of cake mixture and roll them into cone and donut shapes. Chill in the freezer until firm before proceeding to the next step. 

 melt candy melts/flavoured buttons. I had some lovely white candy melts with colours in them (right of photo) but unfortunately they didn't melt properly so I didn't use them at all [you can add some vegetable oil to thin the candy melts but I didn't want to do that in this case]

 the caramel buttons melted beautifully. have everything ready before you start - lollipop sticks, melted coating, cake pops and a stand. 

 dip cake pops into the caramel buttons

 allow to dry fully - I had difficulty keeping the donut ones on a stick

 dip the ice cream cones in melted strawberry buttons about half way. Add sprinkles and allow the cake pops to set. As you can see they fell off the stick whilst drying but all is not lost... 

 finished cake pops minus sticks served on a cake stand 

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to talk about my new cake stand which I was sent to review.  It's a slate 2 tier cake stand by Apollo Housewares.  Apollo Housewares have been specialising in kitchen & homeware products for 24 years and have a great range of baking accessories and cake related products. I served these cake pops at my afternoon tea party and some of my guest comments were that it looks classy and that it fits with any decor. 

My verdict - It's quite a sturdy cake stand which is well made and easy to assemble. I love the colour and simplicity of it. I think it made my cake pops look better especially the donut ones! 

 slate 2 tier cake stand

Disclaimer: I was sent this cake stand to review. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are my own unless otherwise stated.