How to Make Cake Pops: Easy Step-by-Step Recipe

Put 3/4 cup of room-temperature unsalted butter in the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Cream it on medium for three or four minutes until it looks pale and fluffy. The texture matters here - cold butter or under-whipped butter gives a heavy buttercream that fights the cake crumbs later.

With the mixer on low, add about three cups of powdered sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Once it comes together, drizzle in a tablespoon of heavy cream and beat for another minute. You want it light, glossy, and easy to scoop. Skip the canned frosting from the store. Real buttercream takes five minutes and the cake pops are noticeably better for it.

Cake pops only taste right if the inside is uniformly soft and pale. The dark caramelized top and the firmer outer edge of a baked cake layer both ruin the texture and color, so trim them off with a serrated knife. Aim for an even golden interior on every chunk.

Two 8-inch rounds are what John uses in the video, but a single 9x13 sheet cake is even easier because there's less crust to remove. Save the trimmings for cake parfaits or feed them to whoever is in the kitchen - they're still delicious, they just shouldn't go in the cake pops.

Drop the trimmed cake into a big mixing bowl and start crumbling it apart with your hands. Use small circular motions and keep going until every chunk is roughly the size of a pea or smaller. Big clumps create soft spots in the finished pop that crack the candy shell.

Run your fingers through the bowl one more time after you think you're done. The pieces hiding under the surface are always bigger than the ones on top. The goal is something close to coarse breadcrumbs - uniform, fluffy, no recognizable cake pieces left.

Add the buttercream to the cake crumbs a few spoonfuls at a time. Use a spatula and toss the mixture around rather than mashing it - you want the buttercream to coat every crumb without turning the whole thing into paste.

The texture you're after is wet sand: it should hold together when you squeeze a handful, but still feel grainy and a little loose. Too dry and the balls crack. Too wet and they go gummy. Stop adding buttercream the moment a test squeeze holds its shape, which is usually around 3/4 of what you whipped up.

Look at the bowl. There should be no dry patches and no chunks of un-coated cake. Everything should look the same homogeneous beige.

Use a 1.5-inch cookie scoop to portion the mixture - about 35 grams per ball if you're weighing. Drop each scoop onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, then roll it briefly between your palms to round it off. They don't have to be perfect spheres at this stage. Slightly lopsided is fine because there's another round of rolling after they chill.

Work fast on the first pass and just get everything portioned. You should end up with around 30-40 balls depending on scoop size. A smaller scoop gives you more pops but each one needs less candy coating.

Before you roll the rest, stir a couple tablespoons of rainbow sprinkles directly into the cake mixture. The sprinkles distribute through every pop, so when someone bites into one they get a surprise of color inside the candy shell. Skip this if you want a plain vanilla center.

Slide the whole tray of rolled balls into the freezer for 30 minutes (or the fridge for 4 hours). The balls need to be cold and firm before they meet the warm candy melts, or the coating will crack as it sets. Pull them out toward the end of the chill time and re-roll any that lost their shape - they're much easier to round when they're firm.

Bring an inch of water to a simmer in a small saucepan. Set a heatproof bowl on top, add the candy melts, and stir constantly with a spatula until everything is smooth and runny. The double boiler is gentler than the microwave - candy melts scorch and seize the second they get too hot, and the residual heat from a hot bowl keeps cooking them even after you stop.

Once the candy is fully melted, stir in a teaspoon of shortening or solid coconut oil. The fat thins the candy so it actually flows around the cake pop instead of sitting in a thick blob. Mix it in completely - any streaks of un-incorporated fat become weak spots in the coating later.

When the candy slides off the spatula in a smooth ribbon, you're ready to dip.

Pull a few cake balls out of the freezer at a time, keeping the rest cold. Dip the tip of a lollipop stick into the melted candy - just about half an inch - and push it straight into a cake ball. Stop when the stick is about two-thirds of the way through. If you push too far it pokes out the top when you dip.

The candy on the stick acts as glue. It hardens fast against the cold cake and locks the stick in place so the pop doesn't slide off mid-dip. Work in small batches because the dipped sticks set in under a minute.

Transfer the melted candy into a tall, narrow cup so you can dip each pop straight down in one motion. Submerge the cake ball completely, lift it out, and tap the stick gently against the side of the cup to shake off the excess. Spin the pop slowly while you tap so the coating distributes evenly.

Add sprinkles immediately while the coating is still wet - they won't stick once it sets. For a drizzled finish, melt a second color of candy in a sandwich bag, snip the corner, and pipe thin lines across the top. Stand each finished pop in a cake-pop holder or a foam block to set. They harden in about 10 minutes at room temperature.