First things first, I have to make an important distinction that will impact the future of my little baking blog.
Cake Pop = bake cake, crumble cake, mix in frosting, form into balls, dip. Whether it has a stick or not, this is the essence of a Cake Pop. I have an entire category dedicated to them. They are heaven. If you have never tried one, go to Starbucks and get the pink one.
Some people, however, do not like Cake Pops. (Crazy, right?!) They say they are too sweet, too rich, whatever. I use those phrases sometimes too, but not about Cake Pops! Others think the texture is weird. They’re gooey-ish, so it almost seems like they are uncooked. I hate lots of foods because of texture, so I can’t hate those people either. Anywhooo, I won’t judge. Because there is a solution to these Cake Pop hating individuals.
babycakes!!!
It bakes cake (and just cake) into balls, so that you can skip the whole crumble-cake, mix-in-frosting, form-into-balls part. You just bake the cake, then dip it! Another bonus, the little balls of cake take just 4-5 minutes to cook! Sorry for all the exclamation points, this is just a very exciting idea.. especially for all the Cake “Pop” haters.
So has anyone else caught on to the dilemma here?
What do you call these little balls of cake? Although the machine refers to them as Cake Pops, they are not the same thing and I refuse to refer to them with the same name. After much thought on the matter, I have decided to call them…..
Cake Balls.
Creative, I know. (For future reference, Cake Ball posts will be classified under “Cakes” and not “Cake Pops.”)
So here we go with my first Cake Ball run!
I went with a from scratch recipe for the first time, but I am pretty sure box cake works with it too. I’ll let you know next time. (**update** boxed cake does not work!)
First batch was a little brown. Still tastes amazing though!
If you put too much batter in the holes, it makes a little edge where the sphere halves meet. Easily broken off though.
If you don’t put enough batter in the holes, the top half of the Cake Ball is not round. Like these…
Cake Balls ready for their coating!
These are lemon flavored, so instead of coating them in candy melts (like you would use for Cake Pops), I wanted to do more of a glaze. Think donut holes!
I used the same glaze I use on my cookies, but I added some lemon extract and lemon juice to make them just as lemony as the cake.
I dropped them in a bowl of glaze, covered them well with a spatula, then fished it out with a fork and tapped off as much as I could. I carefully set it on the wire rack (with wax paper underneath) and gave it some rainbow sprinkles. Sprinkles make everything 549463135487 times better.
Aren’t they pretty?!
See?! The inside isn’t gooey, just fluffy cake! Very good fluffy cake. A couple people said it reminded them of a donut, especially with the glaze coating.
**Disclaimer – All words above are my views only and I was not paid to talk about the babycakes product. It was a Christmas gift from my brother actually. 🙂 What a good brother I have!
Cookie Carrie 
I love the Starbucks cake pops. I remember I got my first one when I was there and they were giving them away free with a coffee as a promotion because they were new. I got the tiramisu, and it was awesome.
I’ve seen the BabyCakes machine at stores and wondered if it would be like the Starbucks style. Interesting that it’s more of a ‘cake’ consistency.
Yes, definitely different, but still amazing. And of course it feels better to eat a couple of these than a giant cupcake or something. Less guilt!
Hi Carrie, I love all the sprinkles everywhere! Can you share your glaze recipe please? I like making cake balls, but the coating is too think sometimes and people tend to peel it off instead of eat it and a thin coating of glaze would be much better. Thanks for posting.
Thanks Genie! This glaze I made with just powdered sugar and milk, plus a little lemon for flavor. If you aren’t doing lemon then jsut powdered sugar and milk are perfect. Add very little milk at a time until it’s thin enough, but not too thin or none will stay on your pop. Check out my red velvet cake pop post as well, I mixed candy melts and the glaze together to make it thinner and smoother. That might work better for you too!