Cake Pops: Tips, Tricks, and Recipes for More Than 40 Irresistible Mini Treats Spiral-bound – September 30, 2010

Many suggestions

I just found Bakerella's blog 2 months ago and it gave me a kick to get my creative side going.I've tried making the cake pops before the book only to have my candy coating be too thick (even after I added oil).Now with the book - she includes the secret ingredient to getting the candy melt consistency nice & smooth.We made pops tonight with ages 4, 6, 9 and me and we posted a pic on this site. Had such fun and now we're left with a few pops.My kids are not big fans of cupcakes with the huge heapings of super sweet frosting but these little cake pops are perfect for their consumption - and it helps that they are so cute. Rather than mixing the cake with frosting, I mix in room temperature cream cheese - 'cause I LOVE cream cheese and it's also not as sweet as frosting. Remember the candy melts are sweet too. You can also use Oreo crumbs instead of cake - it's a total winner if you are an oreo fan and there's no baking involved.Find a cake decorating supply place near you and purchase good quality candy melts (Merckens). They're the same price as Wiltons. The Wiltons taste bland whereas you could snack on the Merckens ones.I just received the Bakerella book 5 days ago and my kids and I have gone through it so many times already. They think I bought it for them. haha.The photographs are beautiful and Bakerella makes those cake pops look perfect. The book lists the type of topping/sprinkle used which wasn't consistently available in the blog. Most everything in the book looks do-able for the a person with no cake decorating experience, the challenge is getting the right type of sprinkles.I took off a point because so many of the cake pops were already in her blog.

A year ago when I was hearing about cake pops for the 1st time and had no clue what they were...I did a little research. Bakerella's book was the most recommended book. I learned what cake pops are and the book very clearly gives you step by step instructions on how to start out. Supplies needed, handy tips...love it! Her cute ideas that are doable even by a novice. A great variety of pops for many seasons or reasons. I'm a reader of her blog now and am still picking up new ideas and discovering other things to try out.This is the 2nd copy of this book that I've purchased. The 1st one is mine. This copy is for my friend's daughter. She doesn't need too much to get started in her new married life but doesn't splurge much for herself. She got a full "kit" to help her start making cake pops. I tried to get her things that I use and may be harder for her to find. This book, a  Wilton Chocolate Pro Electric Melting Pot , Gourmet Food Writer Edible Color Markers (10 color set) by AmeriColor , 2 chocolate molds to make the cupcake bites on pg 24,  Wilton Mini Romantic Metal Cookie Cutter Set  so she could make the cupcake pops on pg 18 and spring pops on pg 50 in the book, pop sticks and 1/2 dozen assorted sprinkles. Everything to get her started except cake mix, frosting and chocolate candy for coating the pops, because those are easy for her to get herself. She has many friends that have young kids like she has and this is something I know she would enjoy but may not have purchased all for herself.

Love the blog, like the book. I was SO excited about buying this. I wish I would have bought the hard-cover, and not the e-book for this. It makes the recipes more challenging to follow. It's whimsical, and light, and the creatures, and creations are fun. I made some of the pumpkins for my daughters class, due to nut allgeries, and the kids went nuts, and the teacher asked for the recipe! There are some downsides for some of the decorations, add-ons are not easy to come by, and you must do a lot of "hunting and gathering" for the molds and edible markers. One crucial step is getting the cake to frosting ratio just right, otherwise you end up with a gloppy mess. She recommends 3/4 can of store bought, but 1/2 is close to making them easier to handle. Start with LESS, then add. If you use too much the rolled balls don't retain their shape long. And, make certain NOT to roll your cake balls with a heavy hand. The chocolate coating WILL crack! I am making the Frosty the Snowman pops for Christmas gifts. The only other downside is finding a way to transport these out of home more safely. You definitely need a lollipop stand of some sort, and those aren't easy to find either. Fortunately, I am good with wood, so I am going to get out to the garage to make my own. You will likely ruin your first try or two. Gets better with practice.

the book itself is very cute. it has nice pictures, which i like. instructions seem very comprehensive. some directions are repeated many times throughout the book, which i guess is good if you don't want to go hunting down a specific tip. note, you do need some specialized stuff to make some of these. you need a specific cookie cutter for a few of the cake pops. you need candy sticks and you need styrofoam to hold your pops. the author does tell you if they think a specific idea will not travel well (such as the witch pops). i did appreciate this as it would stink to go through the trouble of making them only to have them come apart in transport. the author also suggests only making 1/4 of the recipe for beginners. i think this is a good idea. you won't get overwhelmed. plus cake freezes so you can always do more pops at a later date.so i tried the pumpkin pops for a halloween party. i had nothing but difficulties with these. specifically, the problem being getting them to stay on the stick. no matter what, the cake balls just wanted to slide right through. the second problem was the candy melts never got thin enough to make a smooth dip. i tried the recommendations to fix this - but it really didn't work. in all i got 6 that stayed on the sticks. the rest i just made into a pumpkin patch, sans stick. i will try again.

First off, I'm not sure why some people are lambasting this for not using home-made cake. Do you honestly buy a book like this for recipes? I could understand the annoyance if this book was for standard cakes or cupcakes, but these are neither, they're little novelties and as such I wouldn't expect a massive variety of recipes for it. In addition, if you are looking at this book I'd be willing to bet you have a pretty good understanding of baking, so knocking up your own cake shouldn't be an issue, especially since it states very clearly what size cake and what weight of frosting is required.It is explained immediately that the author prefers the shop-bought mixes and frostings as a) they give standard quantities and b) it means she can get to her favourite bit, the designing, more quickly. Personally I don't like mixes so I would use my own recipes, although she does give one or two basic ones at the back of the book.The designs themselves are very cute, and they are all explained in great detail. Despite the fact they look complex, I think these could be accomplished by anyone so please don't be put off if you're new to baking and decorating. The steps are explained from scratch on each design so you don't need to look back to the beginning for the basics which is a nice touch. I also really like the ideas she has for using sweeties like candy necklaces (robot eyes) and mini marshmallows (popcorn) - that really got my imagination running with ideas for how to create other things:)Candy melts are available over here online - check the Wilton website for UK suppliers. Googling also brings up a few results. Failing that, use white chocolate (if you're confident with working with chocolate), or if you're not then just use white chocolate flavoured cake covering. Both can be coloured, although you must make sure you don't use water based colourings. Again, candy/chocolate colourings can be bought online or in cake decoration shops. Ebay now has a massive selection of things for the cake pop market too, and is normally a good source for the odd bits of American candy that you can't find here, such as candy corn (although I did think some of them looked very similar to our coke bottles/milkshake bottle sweets).My one complaint, and it's a small one, is that the spiral binding is one of those that doesn't flow very well. It's only a minor niggle though and nothing that reflects poorly on the content, so this is still a five star book imo.

From other reviews, I was expecting this to be fantastic, but I found it similar to other cake pop books to be honest. I liked the cupcake pops and the popcorn ones, but everything else was pretty self-explanatory and because it's American, you can't get some of the decorative sweets and ingredients in the UK. So you have to either order from the States and pay astronomical prices, or substitute. We have a shop in town that sells American sweets so I can get some of the things, but again, they're pretty pricey. The other thing I found annoying was that all of her cake pop 'recipes' were instructions to buy an 18-25oz box of cake mix and a 16oz container of ready made frosting. Which is difficult to convert into British recipes...and if you (like me) have a round silicone cake pop mould, then you're not going to be able follow her instructions to reshape those to make many of the pops in this book. So you'd need to figure out your own 'frosting' to cake recipe to be able to do these.So if you're in the UK, you're probably better off buying a British book on cake pops.

I thought of gifting this book to my mom and which I did. As I am not at all related anywhere to baking, I don't know anything. But I am disappointed by the book as the ingredients mentioned are not at all or rarely available in our country. We need to hunt down the ingredients and many times some or the other items are missing. This book is great because the viral fever of cake pops has spread in each and every country of this world but this book doesn't do justice at all. You should think and purchase this. First look inside and try to sort out if you can get ingredients or not in your locality or country.

This book is FANTASTIC.. clear and fab pictures and good Recipes to follow.. I loved it, HOWEVER when I received this book it is printed back to front and upside down.. !!! It would have cost me more to send this book back to Amazon.. than the book actually cost.. (as its quite a heavy book and hardback) so I was not happy about this at all.. !!other than this book being PRINTED WRONG.. it is a fantastic book and well worth every penny... just a shame it is printed back to front and upside down.. !!

I bought the Kindle edition, which looks good on a colour tablet but I find it annoying that even if I enlarge the font the pictures still stay very small and you can't see the photos very clearly - I wish I'd bought the book edition. Saying that it was twice the price and £14 is a bit much; £6-7 for a printed book would be fair, there are lots of idea in there though so don't let me review put you off.