Monday, March 30, 2009

Cupcake Bites

This is Cuppy, isn't she the cutest little thing you've ever seen?!
This is Cuppy's family, notice her good looking husband and beautiful children! She's a lucky gal!
...and this is Cuppy's extended family! Ahh... they are taking over the world!!
Cuppy comes from a long line of Cupcake Bites from Bakerella! Check out Martha Stewart's Cupcake Bites for a video on how to make them.

Ingredients
1 box of cake mix, your choice of flavor (I used Devil’s Food).
1 container of ready-made icing (I used Vanilla)
Almond Bark/Chocolate (I used white almond bark and chocolate almond bark)
M&Ms and Sprinkles for decoration
Waxed paper

Directions
You begin by baking the cake in a 9 x 13 pan according to directions. Let it cool for several hours or overnight. Then you crumble the cake in a large bowl. I used my electric mixer to crumble up the cake.
Then you dump in the tub of icing and stir the mixture together. Slowly but surely, the icing will totally incorporate into the cake and the mixture will be totally uniform in color.
Grab pinches of the mixture and roll them into balls, my dough was really sticky at first so I put it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes before rolling it into balls. My balls were a heaping scoop from my 1/8 measuring cup that I rolled around in my hands. Then you place the cake balls into the fridge for a couple of hours OR into the freezer for a little while. You want them to be nice and firm. Not frozen solid, but not mushy.
To make cupcake pops, you need miniature flower shaped cutter. (Well, you don’t have to have it. You could probably sculpt the balls into the shape you need. But this way’s faster and more foolproof.) My cutter comes from a Wilton Flower Shaped Fondant Cutter set I purchased at JoAnn's. Grab a cake ball and roll it in your hands to form a slight oval shape.
Insert the cake ball into the cutter so that part of it sticks out the other side.
Holding the cutter flat against your palm gently push the cake that's sticking up down so it forms a hill around the cutter.
Then use your fingers to push the cake out from the bottom then pull it out of the cutter, it has a cupcake shape! Cute.
Once all your balls are cupcake shaped put the tray in the freezer for another 10-15 minutes so they can harden up again (it's difficult to dip them in chocolate if they are sticky).
Now, while your mini cupcakes are in the freezer, you need to melt your chocolate. Chocolate or Almond Bark from the baking aisle at the supermarket works great! Just cut your bark into pieces and pop it into a microwave-safe bowl and heat for 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each 30-second increment. When the chocolate is melted, hold the formed cupcake ball in your hand and dip the base into the chocolate. Immediately turn it upside down to allow it to slightly drip downward. Place it face down on a sheet of waxed paper.
When the chocolate is set dip it into a different color of melting chocolate (I used white and pink chocolate). Dip it just up to the level of the chocolate base; try not to go beyond that. Immediately turn it over to allow the white to drip slightly. If there are large gaps that don’t fill in, you can use a toothpick to pull the white down just a tad. Finally, just pop an M & M on top, and sprinkle with cute, colorful sprinkles.
These were fun to make and so cute to look at! Oh yeah, they were delicious too!
It makes you sad to eat them, bye bye Cuppy!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Great job on the Bakerella Bites, I love your step by step instructions. I use marshmallows sometimes when I am in a hurry. Thanks for sharing

The Food Librarian said...

These look soooo adorable and cute! They look just like Bakerella's!

contactos barcelona said...

Oh my god, there's a lot of effective material in this post!