When in Doubt, Bake.: Peanut Butter S'mores Cake Pops

Peanut Butter S'mores Cake Pops

Cake pops are perhaps one of the best things ever created. They provide an excuse to eat cake (as if you actually needed one) without feeling like you're overindulging. After all, they're so small and bite sized, how could one (or two, or three, or ten) hurt? :) It couldn't. Trust me, I'm pre-med.

My friend Rachel gave me a cake pop maker for my birthday last week (finally 21!!!!) and naturally I couldn't wait to test it out. My first experiment involved strawberry angel food cake pops, but it turns out whisking egg whites by hand doesn't work unless your name is Hulk. They turned out tasty, but unfortunately the texture did not translate into beautiful cake pops, but rather awkward half-tortoise shells that I covered in white chocolate. Delicious? Sure. Pretty? Not so much.

I realized that I needed to use a thicker batter in order to achieve the desired texture. So for the next batch, which Dena and I baked together in my new apartment kitchen (!!!!), we decided to use a blondie as the basis for our cake pops. We figured that this would create a dense but delicious center that would hold up to any necessary manhandling. We also decided to go with a s'mores theme, so we filled each cake pop with a marshmallow, covered it in chocolate, and rolled it in crushed graham crackers. Oh, and we added peanut butter to the blondie because, well, why not? The result: Huge success! The brown sugar creates a caramelized outer shell that locks in the moist richness of the peanut butter blondie, and the chocolate and graham cracker shell works perfectly with the flavors and the texture. Not to mention the gooey marshmallow center that oozes out when you bite into the pop. Sooooo goooooood. They literally disappeared faster than anything that we've made before (and trust me, that's saying something). Seriously, make these right now. Go.

Ingredients:

Peanut butter blondie base:

1 Cup All-Purpose Flour

1/2 tsp. Baking Powder

1/4 tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 tsp. Salt

2 Tbsp. Unsalted Butter

4 Tbsp. Peanut Butter (smooth kind)

1 Cup Brown Sugar, Packed

1 Egg

2 tsp Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey (or you could use vanilla extract like a normal person)

21-24 Miniature Marshmallows (one per cake pop)

1.Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in mixing bowl. .

2. Melt butter in small saucepan on low heat. Add brown sugar and mix well.

3. Add egg to wet ingredients and mix well. Add Jack Daniels (or vanilla extract) and stir until well-blended.

4.. Add wet ingredients to flour mixture and mix until completely blended.

5. Scoop out batter by the scant tablespoon. Place marshmallow in center and seal dough around top so that marshmallow is inside of the ball of dough. Place into well-oiled and preheated cake pop maker.

6. Bake cake pops according to directions of your cake pop maker. (I baked mine for about 5 minutes each, with a minute of cooking with the lid open at the end).

7. Once cake pops are done baking and golden brown, remove and let cool before next step.

Chocolate and Graham Cracker Coating:

1.5 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Several large graham crackers

1. Melt chocolate chips in saucepan over low heat.

2. Using a large spoon, roll cooled cake balls in melted chocolate until evenly coated.

3. Crush graham crackers until crumb-sized (some larger chunks are okay). Roll chocolate-covered cake balls in graham cracker crumbs until evenly coated, crushing more graham crackers as necessary. Place on baking sheet and let cool in refrigerator until hardened.

4. Once chocolate has hardened, your cake pops are ready! Enjoy them either as cake balls, or carefully stick onto toothpicks or dowels in order to create fun cake pops!

5. Eat, eat more, and watch them disappear.