Dinosaur Train Wreck

This post is a picture parade of my attempt to make cake pops (instead of a larger birthday cake) for  my son's birthday.  He loves the show "Dinosaur Train" and I think cake pops are very tasty so I decided to combine the two if I could.  I found a few blogs with ideas of how to make them look good, so I got the supplies and made the cake pops.  I told my husband I wanted to post these on my blog, to share my attempts at being a creative mom and he said I should make sure to label it a dinosaur trainwreck.  Some of them may not look so great, but they all tasted delicious!!

These are the tools and decorations I started with...minus the cake mix and frosting.

 




 The cake pops are to be refrigerated for a few hours after they are formed to help them keep a firm shape while they are dipped in the chocolate coating.  I guess I made them too big because the first few I dipped began to break away from the stick.  The cake ball literally began breaking and it didn't dip as nicely or completely as I thought they would.  As you can see in the photo below, I tried one suggestion I read to dip the stick in the melted chocolate, then stick it in the cake ball and let it cool to help hold the stick in place and to discourage the ball from sliding down or off the stick.  Instead of the stick staying nicely in place, once I dipped the cake balls they got so heavy that the stick and chunk of orange chocolate just broke the ball apart. 

As you can see, I also had to make sure they tasted okay (notice the broken ball with some missing) since they weren't beginning to look all that great.

After only a few failed attempts I decided I needed to do something different before they all were ruined beyond repair.  So I removed all the sticks, held them on a fork and poured/spooned melted orange chocolate over them.  Luckily with this method I only had a few fall off the fork into the melted chocolate, but once I scooped them back out they still had the chocolate coating.

After I set them on the waxed paper to cool, I quickly added the diamond and eye decorations so they would at least be stuck to the chocolate and not just later fall off the hardened orange chocolate surface.

Finished dipping and adding little decorations

I added the black gel and Voila! Don't they look great?



A closeup of one of the better looking ones



Buddy with one that somehow lost an eye



I think this one got a tongue...it was one of the first failed attempts so I wanted to give it a little humor



One of the weirder-looking dinosaurs, but still delicious to eat!



I did make one cupcake so the birthday boy could have a little cake to stick the candles in to blow out.  I included the Buddy character so you could see what it's supposed to resemble.

And here is Buddy with a cake pop with teeth...

And one with a smile...

In the end, my son was completely happy with all of them and he recognized them as the much desired Buddy cakes for his birthday.

My husband may have thought it was a train wreck for not working out as originally planned and because they turned out a little rough around the edges, but I thought instead of a wreck it was more of a detour...I mean just look at that smile! He loved them and only wanted more.