Cake Pops 101: Troubleshooting Guide

If your cake pops are not round enough, you either used not enough frosting (cake ball won’t stick together) or way too much!

Remember to keep the consistency like play dough, so definitely not too dry, or too thin.

What a bummer, your cake pops fall apart because it seems that you are not using enough frosting.
It has to be sticky in order to form a nice round shape. So add a little more frosting, bit by bit.

There are several reasons why cake pops fall off the lollipop stick:

– Mostly that happens when you dip your cake pops right away and you have not let them rest in the refrigerator or freezer to firm up. This is really important! – If your cake pops are too big, this can be a reason as well. I usually weigh my pops, 20g and you are good. Or keep them around 1.3 inches in diameter.

– You might used too much frosting, so the cake ball is way too soft. Add more cake, form them again and let them rest in the refrigerator to firm up! – If you’ve dipped the stick in your candy melts and stuck it in the cake ball, it can still fall off, because the chocolate inside the cake ball has not set yet. I usually wait a couple of minutes before I dip my cake pops in the candy melts and let the chocolate inside the pop dry first.

– When your candy melts are way too thick, the cake ball can fall off too!

Of course it is important to have smooth and even chocolate for dipping your cake pops.

– If your candy melts are too thick, which they usually are to me, I add vegetable oil, bit by bit though, until you reach your desired consistency. If you are adding too much oil, you need to add more candy melts.

– It can be the temperature also: If you heated the candy melts up too hot, the candy melts will get all lumpy. Just wait a little until they are cooled down. – Are you sure no water etc. accidentally got into your candy melts? Water makes them all lumpy.

– To thin your candy melts, use either vegetable oil like I said before, or buy Paramount Crystals online.

If your candy melts crack after they’ve dried, I am pretty sure your cake balls were way too cold before you dipped them. Of course you need to let your cake balls firm up in the refrigerator or freezer, but if you placed them in the freezer, make sure to take them out and let them rest on your counter for at least 15 minutes to warm up and expand a little. If your cake balls are too cold when you coat them, they expand while warming up and this is why they cause cracks.

That happens quite often; after coating your cake pops little air bubbles pop up. That’s why oils or butter from the cake try to get out. When you see airbubbles approaching, take a toothpick and pop the air bubbles. You won’t see a thing after the coating has dried. But do that while the coating is still wet!

Your cake pops have white streaks once the candy coating has dried?
This problem is called “blooming” – just like in photography. The candy melts still taste wonderful, so tastewise those streaks do nothing to the candy melts, but it just does not look all even anymore. That happens when you heated up your candy melts way too hot. I heat my candy melts in a mircowave, and with a microwave blooming can occur so easily because you do not have control over the heat.

Once you see blooming happening, just add a couple of candy melts drops (dry) to your bowl with the already (way too hot) melted candy melts.
Stir dry candy melts in there until everything is combined, smooth and melted. Do not put it back in the microwave though. Best is to check the temperature! Get a candy thermometer, you will need it a lot so it’s great to have one at hand. Make sure the temperature is around 30 degrees Celsius, that is around 90 degrees Fahrenheidt.
So after your candy melts are all smooth, dip another cake pop in there and see what happens if the coating dries. Blooming should be all gone now =) When reheating the candy melts (if you need to), do that in 15-20 seconds intervals and stir for a while and see if it is necessary to put them back in the microwave.

Most people recommend 30 seconds but I find it too much when your candy melts were already melted.
Of course it varies since all microwaves are different.

You probably thinned out the candy melts too much.
O you just have to be patient and shake off the excess of the candy melts until it does not look runny anymore.

People who start with cake pops are having a hard time achieving good results with food pens and I am sure that is extremely frustrating. There are quite a few brands out there but honestly, only one brand works for me OK, not perfect, but OK. This can be really disappointing since those pens are not cheap at all and mostly you have to buy them online. There are a few brands, such as Wilton, Kopykake and others.

For me though, Americolor is a good brand and works for me the best. You can shop the edible food pens here. I use those all the time and those come in various colors.

Once received your long awaited food pens, you are happy and ready to get started but: Certain pens won’t write on your cake pops! WHY? Even a good pen like Americolor won’t write perfectly on your cake pop when you used too much vegetable oil to thin out your coating.
It is a good and cheap method to thin your coating but it does cause problems when you want to paint on your cake pops afterwards. If your candy melts are too thick, try to rather use Paramount Crystals instead of oil.
Paramount Crystals make it so easy to paint on your cake pops – and then it is lots of fun!

There are times where your food pen has dried out. What to do?? You can use food gel coloring! Use the tip of your food pen and dip it in a little bit of food gel coloring (black for example) and gently paint on your cake pops, it works! To me that’s not a way of doing that for many many cake pops but it is a last minute helper indeed in case your pen dried out!

Benjamin Franklin once said: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

This is basically it: Prepare everything and get everything out you need for your cake pops:
sprinkles, tools, etc.

As soon as you dipped your cake pops, you have to decorate them right away, before the chocolate sets and dries.

When you use too much frosting to the cake ball mixture, the fat of the frosting seeps into the lollipop sticks and that turns them yellow.
Try to use a little less frosting / cream cheese, just the amount of frosting that is necessary.