Valentine Cake Pops — Creative Lifestyle

You just never know what you can create when playing with food! We baked up a simple square single layer cake red velvet snacking cake and trimmed it out to frost it; we don't like to waste food with all the hunger in the world and repurposed the waste to create cake pops. My creative son and blogging sidekick decided to take it a step further being so close to Valentine's Day and decided to roll out the cake and use a heart shaped cookie cutter to create these cute little gems!

Our Valentine Heart Cake Pops can be made using a store bought cake mix and canned frosting as well if you don't have time to bake and they make a great fun activity for kids to offer a helping hand using their creativity to design some pretty wonderful treats for them to give away as gifts to family and friends.

What you're going to need:

Red velvet cake (recipe is below if you want to bake from scratch)

A small bowl of buttercream or cream cheese frosting (recipe is below if you want to make your own)

Lolly pop sticks

White chocolate, white candy melts (we used Belgium White Chocolates)

Assorted sprinkles (we used Shimmering powder and pink kisses)

Red Candy Melts (melted in a zip lock bag for drizzling with a small corner cut off).

We opted for this method - certain brands of candy melts have no flavour whatsoever- so we took oil based candy food colouring; add 1 or two drops of red to our white melted chocolate and placed it into a bag to drizzle over pop.

How to:

Crumble the cake into fine crumbs.

Add a tablespoon of frosting at a time mixing well until moistened and forms a ball that retains its shape.

Roll into balls or take your newly formed ball and roll to a thickness of 1/2 to 3/4 inch(the ball should be stiffer and firmer if rolling; it should feel like sugar cookie dough).

Place on cookie sheet and freeze for 20 minutes.

Melt chocolate - dip lolly pop sticks in chocolate and poke into bottom of heart shape and refreeze until chocolate sets.

Melt more chocolate and dip cake pop into chocolate ensure well coated and shake off excess by gently tapping your wrist.

Decorate and place on parchment or on cake pop tray to set.

RED VELVET CAKE

INGREDIENTS

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons butter, softened

1 1/2 cups white sugar

2 eggs

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup milk

Several drops of red gel food colouring

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour your cake pan and set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and salt and set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well before adding the second egg and stir in vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk; beat well. Add drops of red food colour to the batter incorporating it well until the desired colour of red is achieved.

Bake for25 to 30 minutes for 2 round 8-inch pans or 35 to 40 minutes for a rectangular 8 by 12-inch pan in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 (16-oz.) package powdered sugar (sifted)

1/3 cup milk

DIRECTIONS

Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add powdered sugar alternately with milk, beginning and ending with powdered sugar. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition until it becomes smooth and creamy and of piping consistency.