Fake cake pops can be used for a lot of things, including photo props, kitchen decor (yes, really,) or as a display at a wedding show.
You can use real cake pops if you want to, but if you want to be able to use them multiple times, making faux pops is a lot faster than making them every time you need some.
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Materials you’ll need for the faux cake pops.
To make the fake cake pops, all you need is some candy coating, lollipop sticks, and one and a half inch styrofoam balls.
I use the styrofoam that’s bumpy, and it took a couple of coats to get it to look smoother. You might want to use the balls that are smooth to begin with, because they only take one coat.
How to make the faux cake pops.
Put some of the candy coating in a small measuring cup that can go into the microwave.
Stick the lollipop sticks into the Styrofoam ball so that it’s about an inch inside the ball. If you really want it to stick permanently, you can use some hot glue on the stick before you insert it into the ball.
Once you dip these into the chocolate, the chocolate will attach to the stick and keep the ball on the stick.
If you see any obvious places on the styrofoam that are sticking up and are obviously going to stand out and not make the cake pop look round, press it down to get rid of it.
Melt the candy coating in the microwave for about a minute to a minute and a half. Stir It and heat it again on 10 second increments if you need to in order to melt it completely.
Carefully dip the ball on the stick into the candy coating and twirl it around to completely coat the ball.
You might have to twist the ball around and tilt the measuring cup to make sure that the whole ball is coated.
Once the entire ball is coated, pull the ball out of the candy coating and let some of the candy coating drip off of the ball back into the measuring cup.
You’re probably going to have a lot more chocolate on the ball than what you need, so you’ll need to remove some by tapping the stick on the measuring cup.
Gently tap the stick on the measuring cup to get rid of some of the excess candy coating.
You might need to do two coats!
As you tap the stick and the candy coating comes off, you’re going to start seeing the texture of the ball. If you use the styrofoam that’s bumpy, that texture will show through, and you’re going to have to let it set up before you can do another coat.
This is what the ones that I did look like after the first coat when I left them to dry. You can see the bumpy texture, so you see why you’ll need to do a second coat to cover that up more.
Use a styrofoam cake dummy to insert the sticks into so that the fake cake pops can cool off and the candy coating can set up.
When the candy coating has set up completely, you can dip the pop a second time in order to smooth it out a little bit.
When you dip it the second time, make sure that the candy coating isn’t really super hot. If it’s too hot, the first coating of the candy coating will come off and you’re going to end up being able to see the styrofoam anyway.
When you melt candy coating, it takes a long time to set back up. You can leave it to cool off a little bit so that it’s not hot enough to melt the first layer off the fake cake pop.
Use smooth Styrofoam for the best result!
This is a picture of a smooth Styrofoam ball that I dipped once. You can see the difference in the texture, because there really is no texture on this type of ball.
There might be a seam, and you can see a little bit of that right around the center of the ball on the right side. But you do get a much smoother surface with this kind of polystyrene ball.
The downside of this, though, is that it actually makes the fake cake pops look a little more fake. Sometimes the bumpier texture makes them look like it really is a real cake pop that has cake inside it.
Here’s the styrofoam cake dummy with the smooth fake cake pop in the front on the left. In the back are five cake pops that have been dipped twice and then have the bumpier surface. The one in the front on the right is bumpier and his only been dipped once.
You can see the difference in texture in all three, and you can see how the ones in the back that have been dipped twice almost look more realistic than the super smooth one on the front left.
Here they are after they all cooled off and they have all been dipped twice at this point. The smooth one is on the left side behind the front left one.
All the other ones are the bumpier texture that have been dipped into the candy coating twice.
I actually like those better than the super smooth one as far as realism goes.
Since these are covered with candy coating you can decorate them like a normal cake pop and the decorations will actually behave the right way.
If you make these with paint, you’re not going to be able to decorate them to make them look the way that a real cake pop will after it’s been decorated.
If you do use these as a display somewhere, make sure to glue the lollipop sticks into whatever base you stick them in so that people can’t grab them and try to eat them. Because they will do that… People grab things and try to eat them all the time, I’m not kidding.
