Today on Light and Tasty we’ve decided to dedicate our recipes to children, and it’s the perfect opportunity for me to finally write a recipe that has been waiting for its moment of glory for several years: the chocolate cake pops made by my daughter, one of the many recipes Flavia made with her own hands back then, several years ago, when she discovered she liked to cook.

It was a prolific period of recipes, some of which are already on this blog in the Flavia’s Recipes category. 😊 Other recipes are still stuck in the photo archive, “blocked for technical reasons”: sometimes because of problems with the photos, being badly done and unusable, or because we hadn’t weighed the ingredients (as is the case with this recipe I’m about to write!). Weighing and writing everything while cooking — I have to say this — is the most boring (a real drag 🤭) part of cooking for a blog! And when you cook with children — or if the child in question is a determined Flavia who wants to cook by herself 😅 — you really don’t want to ruin the magic of the moment to weigh and photograph every step.

But today I’m writing the recipe anyway. It’s a no-bake recipe, and it’s doable even if the ingredient amounts aren’t precise. I studied the photos and inferred the weights of the ingredients; I’d say they are approximate but plausible. 😀💪

After all, to make chocolate cake pops you just need to crumble a sponge cake, or a bundt cake, or muffins, and add melted chocolate and other soft ingredients (in our case ricotta) just enough to moisten the mixture: they’re basically the pinnacle of “feel-your-way” recipes, how wonderful! 😃

Brief history of cake pops: you probably already know this, but I like to remind you that cake pops were invented by an American blogger (Bakerella) about fifteen years ago, give or take. Her brilliant idea of putting simple truffles on a stick was really simple but quickly became a global phenomenon spread online by word of mouth and then turned into a recipe known by everyone. And to think it was born as a recycling idea!

How lovely simple recipes are! They are perfect to make with children. 😊

〰〰〰

Now, after reading Flavia’s cake pop recipe, if you need more ideas for cake pops… here are some useful recipes! 👇 Get some sticks and chocolate, make these little truffles, and you’re done!

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Budget-friendly
Preparation time: 30 Minutes
Portions: 29Pieces
Cooking methods: No-bake
Cuisine: International
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients

👉 As I mentioned in the introduction, the weights are indicative. When we have other muffins to recycle we’ll remake the recipe and see if I estimated the weights correctly by looking at the photos! 😉

3 1/3 cups (about 14 oz) muffins or bundt cake (leftovers)
2/3 cup (about 5.3 oz) ricotta
3.5 oz (about 2/3 cup) chocolate (dark or milk, as preferred)
orange zest (grated or dried)
dark chocolate (+ a knob of butter)
dried orange peel powder (dried)
colored sprinkles
sparkling sugars
chopped hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios
grated coconut (desiccated)

Tools

Kit sticks + holder
Food processor

Steps

Crumble the leftover muffins or a bundt cake or sponge cake: Flavia used muffins left over from the day before (I don’t remember well but I think they were one of my failed experiments 🤪).
Blend everything in the food processor to obtain crumbs.
Melt the chocolate by heating it in the microwave for a few seconds.
Add to the crumbs the chocolate, the ricotta and a teaspoon of grated orange zest, or dried orange peel powder.
Run the food processor again to mix everything together.
Take small portions of the mixture and roll them between your hands to form little balls.
Melt some chocolate in the microwave (or if you prefer, in a bain-marie), adding a knob of butter to make it shinier.
👉 For younger children you can use milk chocolate or white chocolate.
Insert each ball onto a stick then dip the balls into the chocolate, fully or halfway, as you like.
👉 Usually special cake pop sticks are used, which are sold in various lengths, from about 4 to 6 in.
The chocolate cake pops are ready and can be left plain, smooth, without decorations. But decorated ones are more liked by children, I’m sure! 😊
So I suggest decorating each ball by rolling it or just pressing it (while the chocolate is still wet) into whatever you like: colored sprinkles, the most used, but also chopped hazelnuts or almonds or pistachios, or coconut, or the dried orange powder as Flavia did.
Finally insert the chocolate cake pops into the special stand, or alternatively into a piece of styrofoam or simply into a cup.
They look beautiful and always make a great impression on birthday party buffets. 😊
From our photo archive this photo 😊 also emerged of a later production of chocolate cake pops (and various pastries visible in the background) where Flavia tried decorating with a blue glaze… an experiment we should repeat!