On to phase two of our Wednesday afternoon baking session ! After trying out a gluten-free cheesebread mix, we decided to investigate an Asda Home Baking Cake Pop Kit that was also hiding in the baking cupboard. Now, I've always loved the idea of cake pops - lollipops made of cake, if you're not familiar with the concept - but I always thought they'd be really fiddly and incredibly fragile so the chances of succeeding would be slim. I hoped that using a kit would make it all much simpler.
We unpacked the kit and Juliette thought the contents looked very intriguing. There is a bag of biscuit crumbs, an icing pouch of chocolate frosting, a bag of chocolate buttons, some edible gold glitter, cake pop sticks and a stand.
The first stage was emptying the biscuit crumbs into a bowl. There were some rather large lumps so I told Juliette to smash the bag to bits with a spoon before we cut the top off - she thought this part was great fun !
The chocolate frosting needs to be squeezed out of the pouch and mixed in with the biscuit crumbs now. Juliette didn't need my help at all so far.
It intitially looked quite dry but with a bit more mixing and squishing with the back of a spoon, it did actually end up having a homogenous moist texture.
We rolled them into five balls and put them in the fridge to chill. (Despite the word cake in the name, there is actually no cooking involved whatsoever.)
Juliette stuck the sticks in and declared that it looked like the O2 arena from the Olympic games !
After melting the chocolate buttons in the microwave - the instructions suggest heating the chocolate in 20 second bursts but one 20 second burst was all it needed - the biscuity balls (yes, I know that sounds painful !!) need to be rolled in the melted chocolate then in the edible glitter. As I feared, they did crumble a bit at this stage but I just squished the whole thing back into shape and the melted chocolate held it all together.
We ran out of glitter so Juliette looked in the baking cupboard and found some flower and dolphin-shaped sugar sprinkles so we finished them off with those, which actually looked really funky. Of the six cake pops, only one totally fell apart which wasn't actually as bad as it could have been ! They were all eaten up in record time by the kids, even the broken one.
The final verdict was that they are nice but it's a lot of messing around for what you end up with and that the cake pops need to be firmer. It's still an enjoyable kit to make with the kids on a rainy afternoon though.
star rating : 4/5
RRP : £2.98 for 235g
Disclosure : I received an Asda Home Baking Cake Pop Kit in order to write an honest review.
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Ive not seen these, they look good though
ReplyDeleteOh this does look like fun, my H would love to do this.
ReplyDeletei saw these last week, they look so fun to make and means that kids can join in too x
ReplyDeletehttp://adventuresofayorkshiremummy.blogspot.co.uk/
an interesting idea! think i will stick to regular cakes though - looks a bit messy
ReplyDeleteLooking for ideas for things to do with the kids now the dark nights are coming in and the temp is dropping dramatically!
ReplyDeleteThese look like lots of fun, and something the kids can manage themselves with minimum supervision (they are 7 and 8).
The only downside is they're not actually cake :( I don't think I fancy eating biscuit mush so all the more for the wee ones :D
Good review and great pics, thanks x
These look like good, messy fun. Would need a bit of time to spare though
ReplyDeleteIt's all really quick actually, about 10 minutes all in, plus 1/2 hour in the fridge for them to firm up ideally
DeleteThese look amazing!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this review, as my eldest little girl adores baking, anything from cakes to muffins to biscuits. She has mentioned wanting to try these and after having read this review, I will definitely be popping one of these in my trolley next time I'm in asda!
ReplyDeletecoppelia100@btinternet.com
Have fun, I think the trick is to let them chill in the fridge for ages so they firm up more. We were too impatient !
Deletemy sister always makes cake pops and they are fab, sure the kids would love to give it a go!
ReplyDeleteMy son loves making cake pop's but ours take a while To make as we do it all from scratch :-) x
ReplyDelete