July 4th Cake Pops!

I really love how these turned out...however, after making these I can't even begin to tell you how glad I am that I purchased Bakerella's Cake Pop book awhile back!  My original plan was to do simple round cake pops dipped in red, white and blue.  Then I got this genius idea to do them in the shape of stars, much more fun and festive right?!?  I proceeded to punch out stars from the cake balls that I had already formed...still going smoothly!  Onto the lollipop sticks they went and then into the red candy melts, looking good...you see I thought I could use the Pirate Pop method (Bakerella pg 95)...um wrong!  After the red had hardened I started to dip half of each star into the white, here is where everything started to go completely wrong...the red melted into the white candy, so I decided to let them chill in the fridge.  Not sure what I was thinking at this point - maybe just a slight state of panic - but I put them in a glass pan before I put them in the fridge.  FYI, hot candy melts stick to glass when chilled and do not release!!!  I tried to pull them off the pan and ended up pulling out the sticks from each of the stars :( !!!

24hrs later...decided to try again!  Turns out I needed to dip them the Cupcake Pop method (Bakerella pg 19) not sure why, but this ended up working great!
The instructions are at the bottom of this post, sorry for the lack of pictures ( I sometimes forget to take pictures when I find myself doing multiple attempts).  Hopefully these directions will be clear, if you should try these and have questions I would be happy to help you!

Directions:
1. Roll out your cake balls prior to cutting them, I really think that this helps with consistency.
2. I flattened the ball into more of a disc shape and then pushed it through the cookie cutter.
3. Chill the cut outs in the fridge for a little while (I think I did about 1/2 hr or so).  This is really crucial so that it is sturdy enough to stay on the stick, otherwise they have a tendency to fall off in the candy melts.
4. Since I was doing 1/2 red and the other 1/2 blue I took each star and dipped it halfway into the melted red candy coating, I immediately put the lollipop stick into this side of the star, twisted it slightly to let any excess coating fall off and put the stick to stand in a piece of styrofoam.
5.  After are all dipped with the red bottoms and have sat for awhile it is time to dip the tops in the blue (depending on how many you make and the length of time you may want to put them back in the fridge for a bit to let the exposed cake harden again...my cake started to get to soft and it was a little difficult to work with. Once I chilled it it worked great!)
6.  Dip the top half of each star into the blue, making sure that it at least meets the red coating or goes a little past, twist again to remove excess coating, cover with sprinkles, non-pariels or just leave plan!

These are so cute and would look great in a variety of shapes and colors!

Hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday weekend!  Thanks for stopping by, if you try these I would love to see what you come up with!!

Christine