Mr Potato Head Goes POP ... [cake]

I've been busy exploring theme ideas for my daughters Birthday and my Son pipes up telling me he wants a 'Buzz n Duddy Party'. OK, his Birthday isn't till November and by then he'll most probably be into something totally different but it got me researching Toy Story related crafts and I came across Bakerella's Mr Potato Head Cake Pop Tutorial and I just had to try them.

I admit most of the ingredients listed on the tutorial looked like they weren't going to be readily available in the UK - and if they were, would probably cost more than I was prepared to pay (especially for a 'trial run'). But figured I could probably make do with the contents of the kids sweetie box for most of it. The big problem was the 'peanut butter candy melts', I discovered I could source some via eBay, but then yesterday at my local supermarket I spotted a little (100g) bag of "Silver Spoon Create: Orange Flavour Buttons" and rushed home to experiment.

I wasn't originally intending on attempting a Mr Potato Head straight off the bat. My original plan was to test out the process of melting the 'flavour buttons' and application tecniques ... but, I've always raced ahead of myself and before the buttons had melted I was raiding the sweetie box for potential 'body parts' :D
I had a little left over black sugar paste, so used this for his hat and moustache, blue smarties for feet, white chocolate chips with a chocolate sprinkle for eyes, pink chocolate beans for ears and a chopped up tooty frooities for the nose and mouth and cut up lolly sticks for arms.
Not a patch on Bakerella's but not bad for a first attempt, I shall keep practising!

Today's the day, the Teddy Bears have their ... cake-pops

While making my Mr Potato Head cake-pops, I decided to experiment with the left over  coating (melted Silver spoon orange flavoured buttons) and came up with this cute and incredibly simple Cake-Pop, prefect for any cake-pop novices out there (like me). Basically made with two milk chocolate buttons as 'ears', brown smarties on for the 'nose' and chocolate sprinkles for 'eyes'.

The only disaster was leaving them out to dry over night and the coating came up a bit splotchy, I'm hoping this isn't an issue with proper candy melts, but will be making sure I they go in an air tight container as soon as they set next time. This is exactly why I like test runs on all experimental baking projects, lol.

The kids' friends are coming over today, and despite the mottling effect I don't think they'll last long :)

Cakes go pop!

Decided to have a quick trial run on making cake-pops this weekend. It's against my baking nature to buy a packet mix' but for this type of receipe I relented. Mr S however convinced me against spending money on candy melts or melting chocolate for a trial run - which is where I think I went wrong, lol. I learned the hard way icing is just no good for the job: it's either too thick to dip or too runny to stay put, they actually looked alright when hardened - but lesson learned for next time :D