What's Halloween without a carved pumpkin? We have made a whole pumpkin patch of fun vanilla cake pops which we are sure your little ghosts and ghouls will love making (and eating) this Halloween. Cake pops are a great way to use up stale cake to avoid wastage and are a great alternative to sweets for Trick or Treaters or Halloween centrepiece at a party.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan, gas mark 4). Grease and line an 8” cake tin.
Step 2:
Mix together all of the sponge ingredients until smooth.
Step 3:
Pour into the tin and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and cooked throughout.
Step 4:
Leave to cool on a wire rack. This sponge can be made days in advance as stale crumbs work well for cake pops.
Step 5:
To make the buttercream, beat together the icing sugar, butter, milk and vanilla extract until smooth.
Step 6:
When the cake has fully cooled, crumble it up in a large mixing bowl and then mix together with the buttercream until it combines into a stiff mixture.
Step 7:
Using a teaspoon scoop out the mixture and roll into walnut sized balls. Place on a baking sheet.
Step 8:
Once all of the mixture has been rolled, pop in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes.
Step 9:
Insert the cake pop sticks into each of the balls.
Step 10:
Melt the orange candy melts in a heatproof bowl over simmering water or in short bursts in the microwave.
Step 11:
Dip each of the cake pops in the coloured chocolate so that they are fully coated.
Step 12:
Allow the cake pops to drip dry, twirling the pops once dipped to avoid the chocolate running.
Step 13:
Once the cake pops are fully dried decorate the facial feature and pumpkin stalks with writing icing.