Brussels Sprout Cake Pops

Preheat your oven to 150ºc/130ºc fan/Gas 2. Grease and line the base and sides of a 6-inch spring form round tin.

Cream together the butter and sugar until very pale and soft. 

Add the eggs one at a time with a spoonful of flour to stop the mixture from curdling. 

Add the remaining flours and cocoa. Mix well to make a smooth fairly stiff batter.

Place in your prepared tin and level the top. Bake in your preheated oven for 1 hr 15 mins. and then check to see if it's ready. You may need a further 10-15 minutes. When cooked, allow the cake to cool in its tin for 15 minutes before cooling completely on a rack.

When you are ready to make the truffles, crumble 200g of the cake into fine crumbs. We used a food processor for this.

In a separate bowl mix together all the ingredients for the frosting until you have a smooth paste. Mix in the cake crumbs to make stiff dough like consistency.

Roll the mixture into 20 sprout sized balls. Each one will weigh about 18g.

Place the balls on a plate or board covered with cling film and chill for 30 minutes in the freezer or a bit longer in the fridge.

While the balls are chilling, melt your candy melts over a pan of simmering water. Once melted, you may need to add 1/2 a teaspoon of vegetable shortening to thin the mixture.

One by one dip the chilled balls into the green candy. Shake off any drips and place on a board covered with baking parchment. Use a cocktail stick or paintbrush to rough up the surface a little.

If you would like to, you can paint little faces on them, using a fine brush and black food paint. We used edible lustre powder applied with a soft brush to give them rosy cheeks.