Christmas Pudding Cake Pop Bites

Today I have unwrapped the first gift, and look what's inside :D! Ta daa, it's a little Christmas Pudding Cake pop bites ^^!  Hehe, isn't it so cute! This is seriously the BEST investment I have EVER made on baking decorations. These little holly sprinkles are SO SO adorable, and utterly perfect for my Christmas themed gifts ^^!

You may or may not remember me saying, but I do a lot of research prior to baking, and given I'm in my last year of university, time is seriously invaluable. So what could I do to bring smiles upon everyones faces this Christmas? Make Christmas cards? Buy everyone a separate present? I just didn't have the time or money to do anything, and I felt really upset that I couldn't bring some Christmas joy to everyone's faces. Suddenly I thought, well, some people enjoyed my cake pops before, maybe I could make them festive & give them out? A lot of cake pop makers or bakers have been making these for years, so this is nothing new, but definitely a new challenge for me! So here it is :D 

My most favourite and most simple recipe I chose to use, is always Emma's Easy One Bowl Chocolate Cake, perfect in every single way!  Here are the ingredients I used instead:

Ingredients:
Unsalted Butter at room temperature (125 g)
Caster Sugar (125 g)
Doves Farm Gluten Free Plain Flour (125g)
Eggs at room temperature (2 eggs)
Bournville's cocoa powder (6 teaspoons)
Baking powder (2 teaspoons)
Cravendale's Whole Milk (2 tablespoons)
Vanilla Extract (1 teaspoon)
Baking time! :)
Find the recipe and how to make the binding agent at my Cake Pop Fanatic recipe page (click on the link to access), or go to Emma's recipe, linked above. 

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Decorating time! :)

Ingredients:

Cooking milk and white chocolate 

Asda Holly Sprinkles - THE BEST INVESTMENT EVER!

N.B: Cooking chocolate is thicker than normal chocolate, therefore reducing the chance of dripping and making a lot of mess! You can find them anywhere in the baking section of your local supermarket! :)

1) Melt the milk chocolate, using a toothpick, skewer the cake ball, and dip it into the melted chocolate, until fully coated, and then pop it off onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. I prefer to use a teaspoon to help coating the whole cake pop, I tend to use it scoop out of the bowl in case it slides off the toothpick. 

2) After you have coated all the cake balls, then place them in the fridge until the chocolate has hardened. I left them in the fridge for about 3 hours, but it depends on how cool your fridge is, and of course it is better if they are pretty solid before you add the final touches. 

3) Take out the cake balls and let them cool for about 10 minutes, enough time to melt your white chocolate and get your decorating station ready. 

4) With your melted white chocolate, take a teaspoon, and spoon a little white chocolate onto the cake pop, and spread it out a little if needed, before adding the holly sprinkles. Repeat this process until all the cake balls are done, and tadahhh ^^

I've given out all of these little cuties, and even managed to bake some for my friend to help fundraise for children with life threatening diseases & raising funds for Japan  Check out the link here, for more info -https://www.facebook.com/4Deserts4Children?fref=ts) It's such a worthy cause, I'm so happy to have been a part of it, and hopefully I can be part of it in the new year by baking more and raising even more money ^^! Whether you are selling them for a fundraise or simply baking to give to your friends and family, I am sure they'll be overjoyed with how cute it looks, and how much love and care you took in making them ^^ So let's get baking, so simple and so cute too :) 8 more days until Christmas! Not long now :D!

Stay safe & keep smiling, 

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=(^Y^)= ♡