Firstly I need to apologise to my sister, Kim, who requested that I put up a recipe for my Pop Cakes but I forgot..... sorry.... 

Over the Christmas period I made some Snowmen Pop Cakes with my Niece, we had such fun, so here is my recipe for making the Pop Cakes.  Remember to just let your imagination run wild, you can decorate these little cakes as you want......... and have fun!!! 

 

Ingredients:

1 Day Old Sponge Cake**
250g Cream Cheese

100g Chocolate (for 12 pop cakes) ~ white or brown chocolate
Decorations as required

(** For the Snowmen, I used a plain vanilla cake I had baked the day before / for the Choc Mint Pop Cakes I used a chocolate cake).

1 packet Lollipop sticks (I bought mine off eBay, dirt cheap)
Some old newspapers
1 Colander

Method:

1. Cut your cake into smaller pieces so that it fits into a blender.  Blend the cake till it resembles fine breadcrumbs.  Place all the breadcrumbs in a large bowl. 
2. Mix the cream cheese to soften it a bit (makes mixing easier).  You can add a little vanilla essences if you would like.  (For the Choc Mint Pop Cakes, I added 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder to the cream cheese).*
3. Now mix the cream cheese into the breadcrumbs, mix till completed combined.
4. Line one to two baking trays with greaseproof paper.  Mold the cake mixture between your hands, about the size of a golf ball and place on the baking tray.  To make the Snowmen, I made a row of golf ball size and then another row of smaller cakes (for the heads).  Freeze these till completely frozen, about 2 hours. 
5. Place the old newspaper down over  your counter, near your hob / stove.  Turn the colander over so it is standing on it's head.
6. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or a small bowl placed over a pot of hot, not boiling water).  Take care not to get any water into the melted chocolate as this ruins the chocolate and you will have to start again. 
7. Take the tip of the stick and dip it into the melted chocolate then quickly push it to the frozen cake balls (the heat from the chocolate helps the stick to slide easier).  For the Snowmen, remember to push the head on first and then the body (I pushed the stick all the way through to the end of the body.  This also helped to keep the Snowmen standing upright). 
8. Once you have all your cake balls on sticks, you can now roll each ball into the chocolate till well covered.  Gentle tap the stick on the edge of your bowl (or tap your wrist) to get rid of the excess chocolate.  Give it a few seconds for the excess chocolate to drip off.
9. Using the back end of the stick, balance your pop cake in the colander to dry completely.  However if you are going to use sprinkles / candy hearts / stars etc. you need to decorate the balls immediately so that the decorations will stick.   For the Snowmen, I waited till the white chocolate had dried completely before we decorated them using icing pens.

 * Note ~ a lot recipes say to use frosting to combined the cake (i.e. cake frosting) but this makes your pop cakes very rich, which is why I use Cream Cheese.

For the Choc Mint Pop Cakes, I made up the following icing and piped it onto the dried chocolate covered balls.

100g Icing Sugar
A few drops green colouring
A few drops Peppermint flavouring
Water

Sift your icing sugar, add the colouring (till you get the colour you want) and the flavouring.  You need to obtain a smooth icing which you can pipe so it cannot be too runny.  Using a little water (if required) mix everything so it is a smooth paste.  Spoon into a piping bag and snip off the end ~ now pipe the Peppermint icing onto your chocolate balls.  Leave to dry.

Additional Ideas ~ using white chocolate, cover your cake balls and then make up a Strawberry Pink icing using Strawberry flavouring and pink colouring to decorate your cake balls.  You can also use a combination of Lemon and Yellow colouring.   For Valentine you can cover your cake balls with milk chocolate and then sprinkle some candy hearts on.   Here are some other ideas too........

Hope you have fun making these.......