So Your Cake Pops Keep Falling Off The Sticks — Here's How To Fix It

Cake pops are surprisingly easy to make. They are basically a combination of cake and frosting, and the mixture is rolled into balls, inserted on sticks, and dipped in chocolate. For many novices, the method is smooth as silk until it's time to dip the pops in their chocolate coating because they tend to slip off their sticks, leaving you to fish out the confections and make a mess. To avoid this mini dessert disaster, you'll need to pay attention to a few different elements: Ensure your cake pop balls are properly firm, get your chocolate coating to the correct consistency, and always dip your cake pop stick into some of the melted chocolate coating.

Once you've formed your cake pop mixture into orbs, they can get soft, which will make them more susceptible to slipping off their sticks if you try to dip them in coating right away. Instead, place your formed dough rounds in the refrigerator for about 10 to 15 minutes to firm them up a little. At this point, you can insert your sticks into the cake pop balls, but first, dip the end of the stick into some of your melted chocolate coating. When you press the dipped end into the pops and let them sit for a minute, the chocolate will harden, making the ball more secure when you dip it into the chocolate coating. Finally, the consistency of your chocolate coating definitely matters. When melted, it should be nice and smooth, running seamlessly (not glopping) when you insert a spoon into it and lift it back up. When the chocolate is too hard and thick, it will create a pulling sensation, which can cause your cake pop to unglue from its stick.

Getting your cake pops to stay on their sticks is the most challenging part of creating these trendy, bite-sized desserts, but putting the edible part together is a cinch. The easiest method is to take your leftover cake or cupcakes and smoosh everything together. When the cake and frosting is well combined, you should have a mixture that has an almost fudgy consistency. When you roll it into individual balls, it should stick together like Play-Doh. If it's too dry, this will also prevent the balls from adhering to their sticks, so add more frosting to the mix.

When bakers make homemade cakes, particularly layer cakes, they often will trim the tops of the baked cakes so that the layers will lie perfectly flat on top of each other. Instead of throwing the trimmed pieces of cake away (or snacking on them), crush them together with some frosting and make a small batch of cake pops. This is really all there is to making these treats, outside of the chocolate coating and any other decorations you decide to put in place. These can be as simple as some colored sprinkles, or as intricate as piping on some royal icing. And if you want to make a large batch of cake pops for a celebration or event, you could certainly create them from homemade cake and icing, or opt for a boxed cake mix and a can of premade frosting. Finally, when you're in a hurry, transform some packaged snack cakes into easy cake pops; you'll be amazed at the results.