Cake Pop Shortcut

The cake pop craze doesn't seem to by dying out anytime soon. That's good news to me because I think they look so cute displayed on dessert tables and let's face it, they are so yummy.  But the "traditional" cake pops can be so time consuming to make.  So while on another browsing (and shopping) outing at Michael's with my daughter, I spotted the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker on sale and decided to give it a try.
"Traditional" cake pops are a cake and icing mixture rolled into balls, chilled, and dipped in chocolate or candy melts.  The Babycakes basically makes a cake ball on a stick.  I gave it a whirl using the vanilla cake recipe that came with it.

I added the recommended amount of about a tablespoon of batter to each well...which turned out to be too much! And they came out like this-

Not good! They also seemed a little overcooked even though I did the recommended 4 minute bake time.

So they came out lopsided and looked awful!  Next batch I used less batter, and baked for 3 minutes and 40 seconds.  (I know sounds crazy but it did make a difference!)  The next batches came out so much better!  I let them cool and transferred  to an airtight container to decorate the next day.

Decorating- I melted some pink candy melts and dipped a pop-stick and stuck them into each cake ball.  I stuck each pop into styrofoam so they would stand straight up and put them into the refrigerator to set for about 10 minutes.  Then it was dipping and decorating time.

Broke out my new Valentine's sprinkles I bought at Home Goods for $3.99!

The cake pops looked really pretty but did they taste as good?  I thought they were pretty good...I like the traditional pops a little better.  I left it up to my expert taster (my husband) and he approved!