Love Bird Cake Pops Tutorial

SHAPING THE POPS

Use a cake pop stick to shape the bird’s body. With the stick, push down into the dough and roll away from you at the same time to achieve the shape in the image.

Pinch with your fingers to form a more defined point for the bird’s tail.

Flatten a cake ball down on 6 sides, aiming to form a cube. Using a fondant smoother will help to get the sides to be perfectly flat. Don’t worry about making each house identical. Play around with different sizes and shapes – some square, some rectangular, etc. I made one tall and skinny and one square.

Once you have a nice cube shape, use 2 fondant smoothers to shape the top. Slowly press the top into a triangle shape until your fondant smoothers are touching together like a peak.

DIPPING THE POPS

Dip the tip of a cake pop stick into the candy melts, and immediately insert that end into your molded cake dough to create your cake pop. Let the candy melts adhere to the dough for a couple minutes. Once adhered, dip the pop into the candy melt. Gently tap off any excess melts by holding the pop in one hand while gently and rapidly tapping that wrist with your other hand. Use a scribe or toothpick to pop any bubbles in the coating. Set dipped pop aside in a cake pop stand to dry. Repeat for any house or bird pops you would like in this color. Repeat this procedure to make other colors of candy melts and dip your remaining pops.

MAKING GUMPASTE ACCENTS

Measure the top of your cake pop houses to determine how large the gumpaste roofs need to be. Roll out a thin sheet of gumpaste, large enough to make as many roofs as needed, with a little extra for the beaks. Perform the next steps quickly, as gumpaste can dry rather fast.

Use the small square punch to cut out squares which will later be cut into your bird beaks. Cut 1 square for each bird pop you are making. Set aside and cover with plastic wrap to reduce drying.

Cut the gumpaste roof pieces. Using a square or rectangular cookie cutter can be useful to get the square edges. I used a rectangular cookie cutter to cut the width, then cut the length with a penblade using my cutting board to measure each piece evenly.

When the roof pieces are cut, use a scalloped cookie cutter to give each piece a single scalloped edge.

Roll a long gumpaste worm using your fingers. Use a penblade to cut small segments that will be used as a perch on the birdhouses.

Retrieve the small gumpaste squares that were set aside earlier. Turn these squares into beaks by cutting them diagonally to form two identical triangles.

ATTACHING THE ACCENTS AND ADDING FINAL TOUCHES

Apply your beaks and roof tops using candy melts, or an edible glue if preferred – I prefer candy melts. Apply the adhesive to the cake pops using a toothpick, then attach the pieces one at a time and hold in place until dry. (This won’t take very long for candy melts to adhere).

(NOTE: I like to create a “prep box” for when I do projects like this. Since the fondant and gumpaste will harden and not spoil, we can make them ahead of time. As you can see, I made several roof tops, bows, hearts, etc. This way, I am not overwhelmed when it comes time to assemble it all. I just have to “glue” the pieces together.)

Now that all the painting is done, we can attach the last few details.

Attach the perches in the same way as you did your beaks and roof tops. Then, attach your bows on either the top or bottom of your houses.

Attach the wafer paper hearts wherever you’d like. I chose to use edible glue to attach the wafer paper hearts – edible glue doesn’t dry as fast as candy melts, so it makes it easier to adjust the hearts as needed.

Lastly, remember the roof top that I cut the heart shaped hole in? I ended up painting Peach directly on the candy coated house on both sides before attaching the roof top; then, I finished it with a thin coat of Poppy Paint Super Shine. I just thought it was a fun and different look for this birdhouse.