The Tale of the Really Ugly Beach Ball

First off, I want to let you all know that my mom will probably be horrified that I am sharing this photo with all of you.  It is not representative of our best work, but I figure half the fun is in laughing at your mistakes as well as rejoicing in your successes, right?

As I mentioned in my last post, we are officially done with December-holiday-themed cake pops!  Mom and I were looking for something easy to do (meaning, something spherical), so we decided to skip ahead a few seasons to summer and try our hand at Beach Ball cake pops.

Now, as you can see, it's a pretty ugly beach ball.  I will be the first to admit that we made some rookie mistakes with the sprinkles.  For some reason, I thought we could attach them using candy melt.  WRONG. It dries too fast before you can get all the colored sugar on the cake pop.  We were so disappointed in how this one turned out that we only made one (and vowed never to make any more again!).

It's okay, though, because after calming down, we decided to reflect on our failed experience and gather some practical advice to share.  First, as soon as your finish dipping the cake pop, before the candy melt dries, score it with a tooth pick.  That way you know where each sprinkles sections goes.  Second, you should probably pour your colored sugar into separate bowls and spoon them onto each section.  We tried sprinkling it on out of a shaker.  No go.  Third, we did eventually figure out the best way to glue colored sugar to a cake pop.  The secret is corn syrup.  Don't bother with candy melt or white chocolate or whatever else.  It dries too fast, leaving you with ugly gaps in the sugar.  Yuck.

Long story short, if you want to order beach ball cake pops, I suppose we will revisit this design and acquiesce.  But give it a few months.  I think we'll be more in the mood once summer actually rolls around!