Once you’ve popped, can you stop?! Easy Tim Tam Cake Pop Recipe

First it was the cupcake faze that had us all donning our aprons in a baking frenzy. Then it was the macaroon craze that saw us tearing our hair out trying to perfect these difficult French delicacies, and now it seems that the cake pop is the baking fad of the year – or was that last year?! I spent 2011 in a pregnancy nauseated state so excuse me if I am a year late on this one…..

I have wanted to try my hand at these teeny treats for quite some time and a cold Wintery day provided the perfect excuse for a lazy day inside baking today.

Now I thought being my first attempt that I would try the much reveled Tim Tam Cake Pop recipe that was featured on the Not Quite Nigella website. This recipe only requires 3 simple ingredients, so I thought it had to be the easiest for a cake pop virgin like myself.

You’ll need:

1 Packet of Tim Tams (200g pack is perfect or you could be like me and purchase the 365g value pack, use 200g and eat the rest!!)
100g Cream Cheese at room temperature (or softened)
Melted Chocolate to cover the balls (your choice – white, dark or milk)

Yes really only 3 ingredients!

Method:

Crush Tim Tims in a blender/food processor/Thermomix. If you have a good set of biceps and no blender, you might want to flex your muscles crush these by hand
Add your cream cheese and pulse until the mixed is combined and starts to come together (or stir with those muscled arms of yours!)

Refrigerate mix until set (approx 30-40 minutes)
Roll in to balls and place in fridge to set for a further 10 minutes (try and be patient and resist popping a few in your mouth - the wait will be worth it, trust me!)
Start preparing your ‘pops’! Melt a small quantity of your chocolate (either by stove or microwave) and dip the end of the lollipop stick in to the melted chocolate and push in to the cake ball which should be firm at this stage

Return pops to the fridge for a further 15 minutes
Prepare your chocolate to coat the pops by melting on stove top or microwave. Chocolate should be smooth and silky, so consider adding a little bit of copha or vegetable oil to achieve this ‘glossiness’
Place cake pop in the melted chocolate (hold the stick), shake off the excess chocolate and allow to set
Now for the fun part – decoration!! Consider chocolate swirls, hundreds and thousands, cachous or anything else you can stick on!!
Enjoy and don’t blame me when you eat the entire lot.

The finished product! Not as pretty as I'd hoped, but oh so yum!

My Cake Pop Tips:

Don’t do this on a day where you are not feeling particularly patient, the process of applying the chocolate is much more difficult than I anticipated (hint: try and do when the little ones are tucked up in to bed and out of earshot of your frustrated swearing when the chocolate seizes/sets too quickly/goes lumpy/doesn’t look like the pros - or all of the above)
The chocolate definitely needs to be runny and smooth, mine wasn’t as ‘liquid’ as I would have liked (still tasted delicious!)
Next time I will be adding copha as the vegetable oil tends to give the chocolate that ‘oily taste’ and so I didn’t add too much to get the desired consistency
The pops definitely need to be ‘firm and set’ for the chocolate to set, consider a short period in the freezer. Just not too long, otherwise when you try to apply the chocolate on, it might crack as I experienced
I used 4 inch lollipop sticks, I think for parties and special occasions the longer 6 inch sticks look better
If you don’t have a stand, consider placing your pops face down and presenting on a beautiful platter or plate, or place in styrofoam covered with gorgeous paper for parties