Pink Coconut Sno Ball Cake Pops

A sno-ball:
-chocolate cake filled with fluffy vanilla frosting and covered in marshmallow and pink coconut

There was a package of these in my cupboard about a month ago. They quickly ended up in my belly. Nom nom nom. I def went to the gym that night - 800 calories, eliptical machine. It made me realize that I HAD TO learn how to bake them in giant cake form. Note to self: next time, only eat one.

I had to be savvy and come up with my own solution since the recipes I found used a marshamallow cream frosting instead of real marshmallow. This worked fine as a filling. I adapted a version from Sprinkle Bakes. It ended up being too gloopy and I added heavy cream to fluff it up.

As for the marshmallow. This was the trickiest part. I could deal with crumbly cakes, cutting wells for marshmallow cream, and tinting coconut. But melted marshmallow is outrageously hard to work with. It's something like wet tar. Sticky, viscous, and worst of all it dries in no time flat. There's really no short cuts to a real marshmallow, but I think I found one. I melted mini marshmallows in the mirowave and quickly poured it over the cake and spread as fast as my arm could work. Success! After tinting and covering with pink coconut it looked beautiful.

There was one huge problem with this cake. It was just plain horrible when all was said and done. The heavy cream sunk into the cake making it totally soggy and collapse in the middle. The marshmallow when melted and dried lost all its air and became a thin layer of very hard and untasty marshmallow that required a sharp knife sprayed with non-stick spray to cut. All-in-all the ratios and textures were off and I was not happy, but I was not ready to give up. I hate to waste food, especially when it can be salvaged. After ripping off the marshmallow top and discarding the middle I was left with a decent amount of unscathed devil's food cake. Now, let's talk cake.

This devil's food cake recipe came out of a Northeast Flavor magazine I picked up last Christmas. It caught my eye while browsing old magazines last week and I had to try it. Seldom does a plain 'ol chocolate cake catch my eye, but this recipe sounded truly spectacular. It has mayonnaise, one whole cup of sour cream, one whole cup of coffee, and a heaping amount of dark chocolate cocoa in the batter. If this doesn't sell you from a standpoint of boring chocolate cake recipes I don't know what would. It really is an amazing chocolate cake. It makes nice full flat-topped cakes than are dense, moist, and chocolatey. This is my new go-to. I was ecstatic to salvage the remains for yummy cake pops (after eating a couple bites or so...).

Basically the cake gets food processed with some frosting, rolled into balls, chilled, dipped in more marshmallow frosting, and dipped in coconut. Now I can finally say that I made an awesome homemade sno-ball in one form or another. Instead of giant it's mini. I love it!! I kind of wish I were going to a bake sale so I could put these in pretty flower pots and sell them. I would have loved to use real marshmallow for the covering but I was totally put off with my prior experience. Instead I subjected to a marshmallow frosting and guess what? It's amazing. After being chilled, the frosting, which is butter based, hardens up and couldn't be any better.

Devil's Food Cake

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tbl mayonnaise
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter at room temp
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup coffee

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter an 8-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Butter the parchment paper and flour the entire pan (you may also use cocoa powder for this), tapping out any excess.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cocoa powder in a large bowl and set aside. In a small bowl combine the vanilla, mayonnaise, and sour cream and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until fluffy. Add the egg and beat until just incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Alternately add the flour mixture and sour cream mixture, beating until just incorporated, and being sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Slowly add the coffee until incorporated.

Pour the entire mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 15-20 minutes before carefully removing the cake onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Marshmallow Frosting

1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter at room temp
8 ounces marshmallow cream
1 cup powdered sugar
2 cups coconut
few drops pink food coloring
splash water

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream together the butter and marshmallow cream on medium-high speed until fluffy. Slowly add in the powdered sugar on low speed until incorporated. Mix on medium-high speed until fluffy.

Next, in a large resealable bag add the coconut. In a small bowl mix together the food coloring and water. Add to the coconut, seal bag, and shake until all of the coconut is coated and pink. Empty out into a bowl.

Take 6 tbl of the frosting and add it to a food processor with 2 cups of the crumbled cake. Pulse until combined. Remove the top and check consistency by rolling a bite size ball of the mixture. It should stay together as a ball without being too wet. Adjust consistency if needed by adding more cake or frosting.

Roll all of the cake mixture into small bite size balls and put on a platter to harden up in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. Once hardened insert a lollipop stick into each ball and dunk into the remaining frosting to coat. This doesn't have to be perfect. Next, roll the cake pop in the coconut and use fingers to press the coconut in evenly and distribute the frosting to all parts of the pop. Put the cake pop ball side down into a mini-cupcake wrapper and place in the fridge to set up before serving. Repeat. Every 2 cups of cake makes about 24 cake pops.

Cake adapted from Northeast Flavor magazine, Frosting adapted from Sprinkle Bakes