Troubleshooting CAKE POPS! Why they CRACK and FALL OFF STICK Explained! Your Questions Answered!

welcome to It's a piece of cake .

I'm Lima and in this tutorial , I'm going to go through all the questions that I get asked about the difficulties with cake pops , and I'm going to try and answer most of those questions .

So , firstly , I'm just going to use a store bought mud cake .

I like using store bought cakes because they're quite moist and fresh and they taste great and you don't have to worry about baking a cake .

But of course , you can bake a cake if you wanted to .

I've just removed a slice for myself to have later .

And then I'm just going to cut away the gnash from the top and then once you've kind of removed all the frosting or gnash whatever your cake , um has , then you can separate a little slice , which I'll explain what you're gonna do with that later .

But we're gonna continue taking away all the gnash , and then we're going to break it up into a bowl so this mud cake is very rich .

It's moist .

I love it , and I get it from my supermarket , and I always use different flavours , but it's caramel chocolate mud cake uh , red velvet .

I always like to , um , use the store bought cakes , and then I just crumble it .

And I think with the store bought cakes , they , um , use simple syrup on the actual cake .

And that's what gives it that really moist , uh , flavour .

But it also gives you that , um , very like , if you bake a cake and it's a bit dry , it's very hard to get it to kind of stick together .

And I think this simple syrup in most of the store bought cakes is what kind of makes the cake really glued together .

So then I'm just going to break up the cake , and then it's really up to you .

Like I know a lot of people prefer to use gnash , uh , butter cream , but I like to use gnash whenever I'm making , um , my cake pops .

So gnash is just some white chocolate with some heavy cream , which I'll put the measurements in the description box below how much you will need .

And then you basically pop it in the microwave and melt it together .

So once that cream is heated , the chocolate is melted .

You just stir it together , and then you've got this kind of , UM sauce , which is gnash and gnash , is just a lot more sturdier and stronger than butter cream is .

And that's why I never use butter cream When I make cake pops .

I use gnash as technically my glue because this is going to kind of really work with the cake and make it all stick together .

So once you've got your gnash all nice and smooth and there's no lumps of chocolate in there , we're going to use the gnash .

When it's quite runny like this , I find that it's easier to work with it when it's a bit runny .

You can pop it in the fridge and let it chill for a little bit if you want to be a bit firmer .

But while it's just really smooth and runny like this , I'm going to pour this onto my crumbled cake , so I'm going to pour it in .

And remember , I see this as our glue , so I'm going to pop it in there and just mix it in .

Now the more you put in there , obviously , the more sweeter your cake pops are going to be .

So this is going to be quite sweet and look , I like the cake pops to be quite sweet rather than like a dry , cakey taste .

Um , but it's up to you .

You don't have to add too much .

What you can do is once you've added your gnash , like at this stage here , you can put some in your hand and crumble it together and see if it holds its shape .

And if it holds its shape , that's enough .

But like I said , I , I make mine quite sweet .

So I put a fair bit of in there .

If you put too much and you find it that it looks a bit mushy .

That's why I always put a separate piece of cake that you saw earlier that I cut because then I can break that and put that into there just to help make it a bit more cayer rather than a truffle taste .

So with that , um , piece that I have now , I can see that this is quite soft .

I'm going to use that and break it in there and then just stir it in , Um , because you get the two types of cake pops , you get the ones that have like a truffle taste and you get some that have a really cakey taste less will give you a cakey cake .

Pop more , we'll give you a truffle .

I like mine to be more like a truffle .

So it's really sweet because it's a small bite and you want it to have that really well , you know , factor in there .

I'm obviously showing us how to make the ganache , But what you could also do is when we trimmed away that gnash earlier from the top of the cake , you can just place that in the micro for about 10 seconds , and that would melt that gnash .

And then instead of making your gnash , you can use that that the cake came with .

I normally do that because that little bit of GNA that the cake has on top is plenty to be able to put in this cake and , um , to roll out the balls with it because the cake is so moist that it really needs that little bit .

So once I've got it all blended in , I'm going to pop it in the fridge and let that chill for about half an hour .

And what that does is that sets that gnash because gnash firms up in the fridge , and once it has firmed up , it , really , it's easy to roll them out into balls now .

Ideally , if you have time , do this the night before , so you can have this chilling in the fridge overnight , and then it's even better to roll up .

But I don't have time , so I've just let it chill for about half an hour .

But like I said , do it the day before and just leave it in the fridge .

Let it chill , and then when it comes to rolling up , it's almost like a cookie batter .

Then you know when you leave the cookie batter in the fridge and it firms up the butter firms up , then it's easy to cut out your shapes .

Cake pops is a bit similar to that .

Once you have rolled them all out , you can pop it now in the fridge for another half an hour .

Let them chill again , and that obviously makes the a bit more firmer .

And then you can reroll any of them that you're not happy with the shape , so this is your opportunity to kind of go through them and R roll them when you pop it in the fridge .

You can leave it for about half an hour .

One hour ?

It doesn't matter .

But obviously , the longer you leave gnash in the fridge , the firmer it becomes and then just go through them and just reroll any of that .

You know , you need a bit more work onto them , and then we're going to do the most important part .

This is where a lot of people have this struggle because I get asked all the time .

Why does my cake pot fall off its stick or it just comes off ?

Or when I dip it , it comes , You know , it just falls apart .

One it could be because you use butter cream and not a and the butter cream is not strong enough to hold the cake together .

The second reason is because you probably use normal chocolate rather than a compound chocolate .

You must use a compound chocolate when you're working with cake pops .

So here I've got some compound chocolate and I've melted it in the microwave , and I'm going to use this compound chocolate to insert my sticks into the cake balls .

Now the reason why you must use compound chocolate is because compound chocolate sets a lot more firmer and a lot more quicker than normal .

Chocolate does normal chocolate regular chocolate You must temper it , so if you don't temper it , what happens is you insert the chocolate onto the stick and you put it into your cake balls and then you pop it in the fridge .

But the minute it goes in normal room temperature , that stick and the chocolate will come apart from the cake ball .

If you want to learn more about compound chocolates , I do have a full video , um , on my channel .

And I also have a full video on tempering chocolate if you that if all that is confusing to you , all you must know is that when you are buying your chocolate to dip in your sticks and to dip in your cake pops later , it must be a compound chocolate .

So when you look at the back of the ingredients of your chocolate , it should have vegetable fat instead of cocoa butter , and then we're just going to keep inserting them till you've got all the cake pops done .

Now that's number one , so make sure it's a compound chocolate .

Number two is .

Make sure you're putting a generous amount of chocolate because this chocolate is basically your cement to hold that stick .

And if you're going to put just a little bit of chocolate , well , that is not going to be strong enough to hold that big , solid fat piece of cake .

So be generous and dip that chocolate really into the stick and dip it at least halfway into your cake ball and just kind of you've got that little bubble bit on top .

Just use your fingers to smooth that out .

So what I've done is intentionally I've dipped some of them very lightly , and I've dipped some of them properly .

The ones that are lightly , I'm going to show you is how easy they're going to come off when I dip them into chocolate .

Because , like I said , that little bit of chocolate is not going to give you enough support to hold that solid cake ball .

So we're going to dip that in .

Uh , once you have done this , make sure once you've put the sticks in , make sure this goes in the fridge for a good 20 minutes so that chocolate can really firm and hold into your cake bowl .

And that , again is why we use compound chocolate , because compound chocolate is very strong and it sets up in the fridge extremely fast .

So you just need about 15 20 minutes in the fridge and that chocolate will be solid rock hard into your cake balls .

So off they go in the fridge .

And then I've separated the ones that I've dipped lightly , and they're the ones that are here .

So I haven't put much chocolate in these .

I've dipped them very lightly .

I've I have placed them in the fridge to let them firm up .

They've been in the fridge for about a good 20 minutes .

They have firmed up , but there's not much chocolate supporting these cake balls .

So now when it comes to dipping it into my chocolate and again , make sure you dipping chocolate is also compound chocolate .

Must be compound chocolate .

Otherwise , it won't set your normal room temperature so your chocolate will still be running .

And as I dip it in , it just comes apart because that little bit of chocolate could not hold that cake ball into place and again the next one is just going to fall apart because I didn't put enough chocolate .

So that happens .

Only there's three reasons .

One .

You didn't put enough chocolate on your stick .

Two .

Your butter cream did not hold your cake together , so it kind of just breaks apart and falls apart .

The three is that you used regular chocolate when you dip your stick in there and regular chocolate when you take it out of room temperature .

If you take it out of the fridge and normal room temperature , it just melts by itself , so you can't obviously hold the stick into your chocolate .

They are the three main reasons why your cake balls are falling apart .

They're falling out regular chocolate .

When you take it out of the fridge , it melts in normal room temperature .

Unless it's been tempered , not enough chocolate can't hold that heavy weight of the cake ball .

And number three , which is why I always use gnash , is because gnash is so sturdy and strong it really holds the cake together , and then that way you're not .

Your cake isn't gonna just crumble and go into pieces , and sometimes you might get lucky with a few of them like this one .

It just it did work out , Um , even though there wasn't enough chocolate in there .

So sometimes you get lucky with some of them .

They work out , but some of them no .

And they they are the reasons why they don't , um they're the reasons that I know of .

There could be other reasons , but I've made hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cake pops , and I've kind of really went into depth with them .

So they are the reasons that I have found that they fall off the stick .

Now , if your cake balls do fall off the stick and you scoop them out , just drizzle them with some more chocolate on top , and you can just use them as trifle truffle bites .

That's what I do with them .

So you can just , you know , just drizzle some milk or white chocolate on top .

Or Sprinkle some Oreo crushed Oreos , some crushed cookies on top and just kind of decorate them and then just put them on a platter and just serve them as , uh , little truffle bites .

Now , the next one I'm going to do , which is probably the most actually asked question , is Why do my cake pops crack ?

I'm not going to go too much into , um , depth with this one , because I do have a full tutorial on why my cake pops crack crack on my channel so you can watch that full video .

But just to kind of quickly break it down .

It's because your cake ball or cake pop has been in the fridge for so long that it is so cold that when you dip it into your chocolate like I said , Compound chocolate , um , sets really fast .

So if your cake ball is so cold and you dip it into that nice warmish chocolate , that sudden temperature change in the chocolate , it causes it to crack .

So here I've got a super cold cake pop that's been in the fridge for about four hours , and it's very cold , and I've dipped it into that warm , um , chocolate .

And as you can see , while I was trying to really move that chocolate to come off the stick , uh , to get a smooth cake ball , I couldn't because the chocolate was already setting .

So as it was setting , it's not gonna drip away .

I don't have control over the chocolate because it's setting up already , and it only takes a few minutes to see that crack kind of emerge .

Now , if your cake pop does crack , I also do have a tutorial on how to fix the cracks .

There's a way you can double dip them .

Um , there's a link on that as well .

So I do have the full video of why my cake pops crack and how to repair cracked cake pops so you can watch that tutorial .

Next one we're going to do is how to colour my chocolate .

So I've melted my compound chocolate in the microwave , and then I'm going to use some oil based food colour powder now oil based food colour powder is made for colouring chocolate , so it's a very fine light .

Powder has no flavour to it , and you just stir it or whisk it into your chocolate till there is no powder .

So you've got a nice , smooth chocolate .

That's the way I colour my chocolate .

It's my preferred way .

Now I know you can get oil based food colour gels .

I don't like to use that .

I find that it does change the , um , texture of your chocolate uh , it makes it a bit more firmer , a bit more harder .

I don't like it .

So I prefer to use oil based food colour powder .

And in saying that I don't like to use pre colour chocolate .

I like to colour my own chocolate because I find that the pre coloured chocolate the consistency is different to when you colour your own chocolate .

Maybe it's the way they've dyed it .

I'm not sure , but I find that they're not as runny and smooth .

They they seem a bit more harder and firmer , and you can't really control those , um , coloured chocolates .

So you should learn to be able to colour your own chocolate , the compound chocolate that I buy this Nestle melt that you've been looking at that's available in CA in supermarkets so you can get it from , um , for example , if you're from Australia , you can get it from Coles or Safeway .

That's my favourite .

It tastes great .

It's easy to work with you .

Just melt it in the microwave very easily .

It's got the instructions on the back , and then you can colour it .

You can colour it with your own , um , powdered colours .

The powdered colours .

You can get online , you can get in .

If you're from Australia , you can even get it from spotlight .

Uh , cake decorating shops all have them , and you can get any colour that you want .

So I'm going to just show you that when you colour your chocolate very easy to dip it into your cake .

Um , cake pops .

Just like that .

Very easy .

And if you get excess chocolate that runs down the sides of your cake pop stick , let that chocolate first set , and once it has set , then use a knife to scrape it off .

Don't scrape it off while your chocolate is still running .

You're just going to get messy and it's just going to go everywhere .

Let it set , get a knife and just scrape it off and it'll come off , um , very easily .

So as you can see , when you colour your chocolate , you've got control over your chocolate .

Uh , very easy to colour with , uh , oil based food colour powders .

And then I've got these very simple , um , pink coloured cake pops .

So that's how I colour my chocolate .

And then we're going to go on uh , and then I just leave it in normal room temperature .

And , as you can see , the chocolate has set does not need to go in the fridge .

I don't Once I've dipped my chocolate , I don't bother putting them in the fridge .

I just leave them .

You can pop them in an airtight container .

You could just leave them .

I don't if you put the cake , pops back in the fridge after you have dipped them into chocolate and you leave it a while .

They sweat , so they get this kind of wet surface on it , so there's no point to put them in the fridge .

Your cake , uh , inside is not going to dry out because that chocolate that you've dipped it in , it's air tight , so there's no way your cake's gonna dry out with that dip of , um , that coating of chocolate that you've got .

Just leave it in normal room temperature .

Put it in a cake , um , cupcake box or a cake box , and you'll be fine .

And I always make my cake pops 23 days in advance , And the reason why I'm making it in advance is because the cake is so moist because you've got the in there it's not going to be .

It's not gonna dry out .

It's just impossible .

But if you do it two or three days before the event , at least you're not going to have that stress that you have to do it , you know , in time .

And then on the bottom of them , you could just tie it like a little ribbon if you wanted to .

So here all I'm doing is just showing you is , um , once you have made your cake balls and let them kind of cool down as the normal room temperature .

So take them out of the fridge .

Let them just cool down in normal room temperature for about an hour .

Let the so the cake pop is not so hard .

And then when you dip it in the chocolate , you it'll be nice and easy to kind of dip it in .

Because if your cake balls are cold , the other problem that you will have is each time that you dip it into that chocolate cup that you've got your chocolate in .

It kind of makes your chocolate cold as well , so it's setting up , and then you can't dip so many like I can do about 20 cake pops without having to reheat my chocolate Because But if my cake pops were cold , not only do I risk the fact that they'll crack , but also they're going to make my chocolate so cold that it's not going to be nice and runny and smooth .

And then I can't really , um , dip so many at once without having to re warm the chocolate .

Um , but if you did learn or if you did understand a the cake pops , I've tried to kind of explain it as much as I can .

But if you want to learn more , the easiest way is watch cake pop videos .

I've got several cake pop videos in my tutorial so you can watch those to learn more about them .

But once you do get the hang of them , they're very , very , very easy to make .

It's just understanding that the few little basics of it and then they they become so incredibly easy to make .

So I hope you guys did enjoy this long tutorial , and if you did give me a thumbs up , thanks so much .

Watch for watching , and I hope I've answered some of your questions .