This year for Rachel's birthday Maddie and I (Michael was in Shanghai) wanted to do some really special decorations.  So we spent a while looking at blogs and finally came to one about party decor, among other things.  Something that really stood out to me as a classy/elegant party snack were cake pops.  If you are not familiar with this little "sweet tooth delight" then you may think of it just like it's name; it is a cross between a cake and a lolly pop.  Any ways, Maddie and I felt that these were a necessary treat for this special event so we went to work making them.  Let me tell you it looks and sounds easier than it is!  First we made a cake, cooled and then crumbled it up.  To the cake we added frosting.  This created a thick and sticky blob of cake (more delicious than it sounds!).  Then we formed balls and put them on wooden chopsticks (for the cake pop handle).  Now, here's the difficult part: the chocolate coating.  It definitely takes a learning curve to do this step.  Our first 5 cake pop were too big and the chocolate to thick that they all broke and did not stay on the stick.  This became very frustrating, as you can imagine.  So, Maddie and I added milk to the chocolate and made the cake balls smaller.  Both highly improved our results.  The cake pops finally stayed on the sticks, and though they were not as beautiful as the recipe picture (when is it ever as pretty as the picture?), they still tasted amazing!  The next day we made bright pink icing and drizzled it on top of the chocolate cake pops to complete the finished look.  Though after making the first five cake pops I was ready to totally give up, I am glad I kept trying and finally produced delicious, and not altogether ugly, cake pops for one of Rachel's birthday surprises!

Tips for those of you who would like to try making Cake Pops:
1. White chocolate is probably better than melted milk chocolate chips
2. You may add paraffin wax to the chocolate to beautify the end product
3. Thin your chocolate
4. Make smaller cake balls
5. Put your cake pops on sturdy sticks