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St Patrick’s Day Chocolate Mint Liqueur Cake Pops

Yesterday while playing on StumbleUpon I ran across this awesome recipe for Mini Chocolate Cake Donuts that just totally flung a craving on me.  I have been wanting something chocolatey for a few days, so this seemed perfect.  I planned on making them in the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker of course – making donut “holes” but with the same recipe.  The only ingredient I was missing was the Cocoa, so I headed up to Winn Dixie and planned to make them for dessert.

Then, Mike came home with a box of crack Thin Mints.   My chocolate craving went from just chocolate to a chocolate-mint craving… but the only “mint” I had was Peppermint Schnapps in the liquor cabinet and I was not about to go to the store a second time for just one ingredient… SO – the result?   Quite possibly the BEST tasting Cake Pops I have ever made.

St Patrick’s Day Chocolate Mint Liqueur Cake Pops

Ingredients:

  • 1 stick of butter
  • 1/4 c cocoa powder
  • 2 c all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 brown sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 c Peppermint Schnapps
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 c milk

It is probably best to mix all dry ingredients in one bowl and all wet ingredients in the other and then mix together – but I didnt do that.  I just threw everything in together which made for about 20 minutes worth of stirring to try to beat the lumps out of the batter.   I didnt get them all – which turned out to be ok – but just sayin.

Once your batter is mixed spoon one teaspoon into each cup in your Babycakes Cake Pop Maker and cook for four minutes.  I was highly impressed at how well these puffed up and made perfect little balls – much like how well Pillsbury Funfetti (my favorite cake pop batter) does.  Pop your little yummy bites out onto a cookie sheet and let cool.   You can choose then whether to stick them on sticks or just have “cake balls” – we actually did both.

This recipe yields SIXTY cake pops…

St Patrick’s Day Chocolate Mint Liqueur Cake Pops Icing

Ingredients:

  • 3 c powdered sugar
  • 1/2 stick butter
  • 1/4 c milk
  • 1/2 c Peppermint Schnapps

 

 

The icing takes some time and patience – and sometimes adjusting – to get just right.  The measurements above are very close to what we used, however to get the desired consistency you can add as much powdered sugar as you want.   Obviously the less powdered sugar the thinner the icing is – and the more you taste the Schnapps.   Using a piping bag you can pipe stripes on to your St Patrick’s Cake Cake Pops or use a spoon to drizzle it on.  Either way they taste absolutely beyond fantastic.


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St Patrick’s Day Swirled Cupcake Pops

Last week I did a review on the new Equal Sucralose – an alternative to sugar that measures like sugar and is comparable to Splenda. (but with much better packaging)   I wanted to really give it a thorough “sweetness” test so I decided to replace the sugar in some vanilla cupcakes as well.  Since I had the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker already heated up I decided to use it to make St Patrick’s Day Swirled Cupcake Pops!  They were great!

St Patrick’s Day Vanilla Swirl Cupcake Pops

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • a pinch of salt
  • 1/3 c butter softened
  • 3/4 c sugar (or Equal Sucralose)
  • 1/4 c sour cream
  • 3 egg whites
  • 1/3 c milk
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • green food coloring

Mix all ingredients together except for the food coloring.  After batter is mixed well with no lumps, add food coloring and gently mix in letting the color “swirl” – do not over mix.

Spoon swirled mix into your Babycakes Cake Pop Maker and let cook three and a half to four minutes or until cooked all the way through. The batter will be “swirled” both inside and out making for a pretty little pop!

The great part about these is that they taste fantastic without any icing or anything!   They are sweet like cupcakes and are the perfect “poppable” size for snacking!   These did not last long before they were gobbled up.  The flavor was great – I was impressed.  I have never made cupcakes “from scratch” but we really enjoyed these!

I will be making more of these for the girls to take to school, and also going to make the Pancake Pops on St Patrick’s Day morning – just adding some green food coloring to the mix.

Do you make a “green” breakfast on St Patrick’s Day?