DIY Holiday Ornament Cake Pops

I've been admiring all the fancy schmancy cake pops out there for quite some time, but I've never tried making them because I doubted my artistic abilities. With the holidays coming up, I decided to give it a try. I call my approach "Cake Pops for Dummies," so hopefully if you've never made them before, you'll find this helpful!

First off, I took the laziest possible avenue and made the cake balls with a cake mix and the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker. There are plenty of other ways to make them, so do whatever suits your fancy. This post is more about the decorating, anyways. Just keep in mind, if you do use the Babycakes, the cake balls are quite small.

Anyhow, I decided that I wanted to make cake pops that look like little Christmas ornaments ~ complete with holiday sparkle!

Here's what you'll need to decorate your cake pops like I did:

White candy melts (melted as per package instructions)
Lollipop/cake pop sticks
Food-safe paint brush
Wilton Pearl Dust
Wilton Sugar Pearls

Pastry bag or resealable plastic bag
Cheerios
Ornament toppers (optional)
Cake pop holder or styrofoam block

Decorating Tips ~

These first few steps are pretty standard. Dip one end of the stick in the melted candy and gently shove it about halfway into the cake ball. Rest the stick in your cake pop holder or styrofoam until the candy has set and hardened.

The next step is to dip the cake pop into the melted candy. Dunk it straight in and gently rotate it in a circular motion to coat it entirely. Lift the pop straight up out of the candy and twirl it to remove the excess. You can also gently tap your wrist that's holding the pop to allow extra candy to drip off.

At this point, you can do one of two things: you can make edible ornament tops from Cheerios dipped in the melted candy or you can attach non-edible ornament tops from Christmas ornaments.

If you're going the edible route, dip your Cheerios in the melted candy and lay them out on wax paper to solidify. You can then place them on top of the cake pops while the candy coating is still wet. Otherwise, rinse off an actual ornament top and stick it onto the top of the cake pop.

Now, rest the stick in your holder again and allow the candy coating to fully harden.

Once the candy is hard, you can grab your food-safe brush and "paint" on the Pearl Dust. The Pearl Dust is a really fine, shimmery powder that you just brush on to the cake pop.

Now that your pop is fully painted with the Pearl Dust, you can do the ornamental decorating. I spooned some melted candy into a pastry bag and cut a tiny bit of the tip off so that the opening is quite small. You can do the same thing with a resealable plastic bag - just be sure the hole is small so you can decorate with precision.

Here's where your creativity comes into play ~ I really liked doing swirls, but you can do any decorations you want. I added the occasional sugar pearl while the swirls were still wet so they'd adhere easily.

Finally, allow your decorative "icing" to set completely and enjoy!

--- This project was created by Erika Pitera, the managing editor and art director here at ZEST