Cake pops with toffee frosting

Ingredients for 35 servings:

• 250 g butter
• 200 g sugar
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar
• 4 eggs
• 250 g flour
• ½ pack of baking powder
• 1 pinch of salt
• 250 g mascarpone
• 1 can condensed milk, sweetened, 400 g
• Chocolate coating, sprinkles, pearls etc. for decoration

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Rest time approx. 2 hours; Cooking/baking time approx. 2 hours 45 minutes; Total time approx. 5 hours 45 minutes

You will need 35 cake pop sticks, as well as chocolate coating, candy melts, sprinkles, pearls, etc. for decoration. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/convection oven. Beat the softened butter with the sugar and vanilla sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs one at a time, whisking at least one minute between each egg. Mix the flour with the baking powder. Slowly add the salt and the flour with the baking powder, stirring continuously. Bake the basic batter in a springform pan for about 45 minutes. After the baking time is over, let the cake cool and then crumble it into a mixing bowl. For the frosting, put the sweetened condensed milk in a saucepan and fill it with water until the entire can is just covered. Bring the water and the can to a boil, then reduce the heat. The condensed milk should now simmer gently for two hours. Always ensure that the can is covered with water. It is recommended to use an older pot, as the tin can leave marks on the bottom of the pot. These can, however, be removed with a dish sponge. After two hours, let the tin cool down. This can easily be prepared the day before. Mix the mascarpone cream with about 3/4 of the caramelized condensed milk and then add to the cake crumbs. Mix everything together thoroughly until you have a dough that you can knead. Chill the dough for another hour. Now you can shape the cake pops and decorate them as desired. The ingredients for the decoration do not include quantities, as there are no limits to creativity here. Please also plan for additional chocolate coating, candy melts, sprinkles, etc. To shape the cake pops, we recommend using a spoon or an ice cream scoop so that the balls are all the same size. Shape the desired amount of dough between your hands and place them on a baking sheet, for example. In the meantime, you can melt your chocolate coating in a double boiler. Once all the balls have been formed, it’s time to use the cake pop sticks. First, dip the sticks about 1 cm into the melted chocolate and then insert the same end into the center of the dough ball. It’s important to let the chocolate around the stick cool down before dipping the entire ball in chocolate. Once the chocolate around the sticks has cooled, you can dip the entire ball in chocolate. Let the excess chocolate drip back into the container containing the remaining chocolate. This can take a while for each ball, as the chocolate will continue to drip for a long time. You can then decorate the still-dry ball with sprinkles, pearls, etc. Now let the balls cool completely. Another tip: White chocolate contains proportionally more cocoa butter and therefore behaves differently than dark chocolate. It’s also not as opaque as dark chocolate, so if you use white chocolate or couverture, the ball may need to be dipped in white chocolate two or more times. To create the panda bears, I used Smarties for the ears and modeling chocolate for the faces, which I cut out with cookie cutters and then modeled again. I dipped the ears, like the stems, halfway in chocolate and pressed each one into the top right and left corners of the ball. After the chocolate around the ears had dried, I dipped the entire cake pop (the panda head) in white chocolate. I had to repeat this process after it had cooled. I rolled out the modeling chocolate (fondant works too), cut it out with a suitable cookie cutter, and reshaped it slightly to create the black fur. I also had to paint the ears with dark chocolate at the end; dipping them didn’t work so well for me.