Scotty Dog and Bones Cake Pops - How to make them.

PREFACE/VERY IMPORTANT: Before we even begin to talk Scotties and Milk Bones, you need to perform steps 1-5 of my tutorial on making cake ball pops which are listed HERE. Once you have completed my steps or your own method to make cake ball dough and your dough has set in the fridge or freezer so it is easy to shape, proceed to my instructions for creating Scotty dog and bone cake pops.

Ingredients/Materials: 

• Basic ingredients to make cake ball pops (can be found in my tutorial on making cake ball pops HERE)
• White almond bark or candy melts

• Icing dye or food coloring in black and brown
• Confetti style (flat, circular) sprinkles (specifically white ones if you want your Scotties to have eyes) 
• Yellow sprinkles (the ones that are long not round)
• Icing for writing gel in white and brown

• Black Foodwriter edible marker (Optional for eyes...Can use dyed coating from Scotties instead)
• Red icing for writing (not gel)
• Scotty dog and bone small cookie cutters (I got cutters used for this project at Hobby Lobby. They are called "mini cutters" and are made by Sunny Side Up Baking Essentials. You can purchase my Scotty dog and bone ones in a pack of 6 online HERE). 

A. Make Dough into Dogs and Bones
Prepare your station with a cutting board or pan covered with wax paper or foil. You should scoop out a handful of cold dough and squeeze the dough between your hands rolling it from one hand to the other so the dough is tightly packed and doesn't separate or crack when you use the cutters to shape it. Place the mound of dough on your foil or wax paper and pound it like a patty with the palm of your hand only a few times so the inside of your Patty is about 3/4 - 1 inch in thickness. Use your cookie cutters to create the dog and bone shapes one shape at a time or as many as you want from each Patty. Put each shape into the freezer after it's cut out so the cake can set more while you are cutting the others. It also doesn't hurt to roll some of your dough into cake balls instead of shapes. I think they nicely break up the design when in presentation.

STEP 1: PREPARE CAKE POP COATING

• Arrange Your Work Space so it is Functional - Before you continue working with your cake shapes, take a minute to make sure you are READY to proceed...IMPORTANT: IMMEDIATELY after you've prepared your dipping chocolate so it is the right color and temperature, you will be working with it to make the pops and coat the cake so you will need to make sure your work space is clean and efficient. Keep your foam board close to your dipping station or in your freezer. It is best to put your foam board in the freezer and put your pops in it, one-by-one, after you've coated each. You will be dipping, decorating and setting one pop at a time, all in the matter of about fifteen seconds so the "flow" of your space is vital to your result. I have my foam board in the freezer, my dough shapes on a pan covered with aluminum foil next to my microwave, and aluminum foil covering my counter where I may sprinkle/deco the pops after I dip them. 
• Melt Chocolate - Grab a few squares of your white almond bark or if you are using candy melts, a couple handfuls and put into a microwave safe container. I use an old Duncan Hines icing jar. It's plastic and deep like a mug which is perfect for dipping...OR use a large coffee mug. Put your chocolate in the microwave and start heating checking periodically and stirring until consistency is smooth. I have to set my microwave at power 6 or 7, otherwise, burn baby burn! It is easy to overheat the chocolate and then it is not salvageable. You must check and stir every 15-30 seconds. You may need to STIR in a little water, condensed milk or Crisco (not oil but the spread that comes in a can) in between heatings, to make the chocolate thin enough to enclave the balls easily...Careful here though. If you feel you DO need to thin the chocolate, add your choice of thinner little by little, stirring and heating in increments. Your mixture will reach it's temperature perfect for dipping and if you are under or over by a few seconds, it won't be easy to work with or you won't be able to work with it at all. If you are a first timer, hang in there. I've thrown lots of burnt or runny or clumpy chocolate. 
• Add Icing Dye/Food Color to Chocolate - Adding your color can be tricky as well. You have to wait until the chocolate is melted so you can smoothly integrate the coloring and achieve an even shade, then you have to heat the chocolate some more to make up for the liquid coloring which more than likely made your chocolate cool a bit. I used icing dye in black, dropping pea size servings into the chocolate and stirring until my coating was black, not grey. 
• PROMPTLY Move Forward to Step 2.

STEP 2: MAKE CAKE SHAPES INTO POPS AND COAT
You are about to realize the importance of your work station set-up. Your chocolate is warm and creamy and ready for it's first dip...but the first dip comes from dipping your skewer/lolli stick, not your cake shape.

•  Use Skewers/Lolli Sticks to Make Dough Shapes into Cake Pops - Grab a stick and dip it about 1/4 inch into the melted chocolate. Take a cake shape and while nestling it in one hand, carefully/slowly slide your skewer/lolli stick into it being cautious of pushing the stick too far where the cake risks sliding DOWN the stick after coated in chocolate, and also being leery of not pushing it in far enough where your cake could fall OFF the stick after coated. I don't mean to speak like it's a crap-chute and you definitely get the hang of it with practice. 
• Coat Cake Pops with Melted Chocolate - Immediately after you've made a shape into a pop, dip the cake end of the pop into the coating so the chocolate enclaves the shape right up until where it meets the stick. You'll find yourself tipping the container of chocolate at somewhat of a 45% angle while maneuvering the cake shape around slowly and carefully so it gets covered evenly. Do not double dip. If you've made your coating correctly, one dip should cover the entire cake shape and the excess should drip off easily as you hold the pop upside down or on its side over the container. You may cautiously tap the stick on the end of the container to ensure all excess coating drips off. 
• Add Deco if Needed - If you've decided to make your Scotties have eyes like the photo, now is the time to place one white confetti sprinkle where the eye would be while the chocolate is soft on the cake pop. 
• Freeze Coated Cake Pops to Set - Back in the freezer boys...place each coated, eyed, Scotties in foam board in freezer to set while you work on the rest but you don't want to leave them freezing after you've finished coating and eyeing the dogs. Transfer them to the refrigerator to avoid bubbles or cracks in the coating. 

STEP 3: REPEAT STEPS 1 AND 2 for BONE SHAPED DOUGH
The only adjustments you will be making when you repeat B and C for your bones, will occur at B3 where you will replace black dye for icing with brown, adding smaller amounts at a time so you can achieve the beige Milk Bone shade, and C3 which you will skip entirely.

STEP 4: EMBELLISH SCOTTY DOG SHAPED CAKE POPS
Your dog shaped cake pops should be nice and cool after setting in the fridge so let's get a pretty plaid sweater on them.

• Draw Sweater onto Scotty Dog's Body - Use your red icing writer to outline a sweater onto the dog's body. Then, with the same writer, color in the sweater but be conservative because the icing has to stay put, not slide off. It helped me to squeeze some icing in the middle of the sweater and use a toothpick to spread it out thinly.
• Place Yellow Sprinkles onto Scotty Dog's Sweater in a Plaid Pattern - Using tweezers, yes TWEEZERS, gently grab one yellow sprinkle at a time and place it onto the red icing of the sweater.  (This part is the most time consuming, although as with almost every other step of making/decorating cake pops, it begins to be a piece of "cake" after you've decorated your 3rd or so pop.) The plaid pattern is easiest accomplished by placing the sprinkles in 3 rows of Vs, with the Vs of alternating rows upside down...like so:
  /\/\/\/\\/\/\/\/
  /\/\/\/\
  You will be placing the rows right on top of each other so there will be no spaces like the figure above and the Vs from one row will connect with the Vs on the next row so the 3 rows of connected Vs will look just like plaid print.
• Add Black Dot to Eye of Scotty - If you chose to give your Scotties a white confetti sprinkle for an eye, complete it by making a black dot on the sprinkle with your Foodwriter edible marker or dot the white sprinkle a toothpick dipped in your batch of melted, black, chocolate coating.
• Freeze to Set Completed Cake Pops - After deco is complete, always set pops in the freezer, then transfer to refrigerator.

STEP 5: EMBELLISH BONE SHAPED CAKE POPS
No bullets necessary for this. Simply use your white and/or brown gel icing writers to outline the bones and squeeze out 3 linear dots in the middle of the bones. Freeze to set. Then refrigerate.

FINALLY, ENJOY!

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