I’m letting you in on a few secrets today, and one of them is my super-easy, cheater’s way to make Cake Pops Recipe! You’ll wonder why you never did this before. And why so many people hassle with other variations when this one is so easy. I’m also sharing a few of my own party planning secrets and an inside scoop on a Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party we recently threw!
This past Fall we threw hog caterpillar-heaven!
Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party
The artist in me (the teeny, tiny wanna-be artist) went a little crazy with the décor. I spent weeks making GIANT cardboard cut-outs of all of the foods featured in the book. Yep, all 15 of them! I took great care to shape, shade, & design them as closely as possible to the images in the book. I then took & hung them in book-order around our hallway & living room.
What would be the point of all that food without the star of the party to eat it all?! I made giant tissue paper pom-poms & hung them from our kitchen ceiling to look like a GIANT Hungry Caterpillar. He was so cool!
I also hand-made all the favors: Butterfly face-masks for the girls, Caterpillar face masks for the boys, and Hungry Caterpillar finger puppets & leaves for everyone! We included a game where the kids hunted in the backyard for rubber insects – and sent everyone home with a small container of “Caterpillar Food” (M&Ms). The snacks, of course, were all book-themed: Apples, Pears, Plumbs, Strawberries, Oranges, Cheese, Pickles, Sausages, Salami, & Watermelon. Not wanting to leave attendants hanging, we needed a butterfly to end it all … and so we had a rainbow butterfly cake that took … well, the cake! The kids had a blast … and the adults surely didn’t have a terrible time, either!
Very Hungry Caterpillar School Day
I’m sure that all of you fellow Mamas (& Dadas) can sympathize with the sadness that set in a week later when I (finally) took down all of the decorations that I had spent hours & hours & hours meticulously
Cake Pops Recipe
Since I’m so much more than just a stay-at-home party planner (well, at least 3x a year), I also volunteered to make Hungry Caterpillar Cake Pops! They turned out amazingly awesome, and I just had to share them with you all! I cheated a little and didn’t actually make the “cake” part. In short, I used donut holes!! Because I’m just smart like that. Honestly, this cake pops recipe was so easy to make and even more fun to hand out to the wide-eyed kids! I mean, seriously?! Whoever thought to put a hunk of chocolate-covered cake on a pop stick should get an award!! A big, edible award … and a gym membership.
Check out my Hungry Caterpillar Pinterest Board to see everything that inspired me! Not just the cake pops recipe. I found some great ideas & made use of so much more than I’m telling here (a girl has to have a few secrets … although I guess they’re not true secrets if they’re on Pinterest!). I hope it won’t leave you “still hungry.”
“The Very Hungry Caterpillar” Cake Pops
Ingredients
- 40 small Donut Holes
- 40 8" Cookie Sticks
- 40 thin Pretzel Sticks, broken in half
- 1 bag of Red Melting Chocolate Discs (i.e. Wilton Candy Melts)
- 40 yellow Mini Marshmallows, each cut in half to form 80 circles
- 2 tbsp. Green Icing
- 2 tbsp. Dark Purple Icing
- 2 small Sandwich Bags or icing piping bags
- Floral Foam or cardboard box (i.e. cereal box with 40 holes punched – to allow the finished product to stand up in)
Instructions
- Melt 1/4 bag of melting chocolate per instructions. Working one at a time, use a cookie stick to puncture a hole 3/4th way through a donut hole, dip the tip of the cookie stick in melted chocolate & then reinsert into the hole of the donut. Lay on a cookie sheet or pan. Repeat with all 40 cookie sticks & donut holes.
- Refrigerate prepared donut holes on sticks for 1 hr or until chocolate is firm.
- Melt remaining chocolate per instructions. Working one at a time, dip donut hole into melted chocolate, rotating to coat evenly. Gently tap the stick against the edge of your bowl to remove any excess chocolate. Working quickly, affix 2 marshmallow discs to the front of your chocolate covered donut hole (to look like eyes). Gently press 2 pretzel halves into the top of your donut hole to look like antae. Push stick into floral foam or prepared cardboard box so the cake pop can stand upright & harden.
- Repeat with remaining donut holes on sticks, marshmallow discs, & pretzel sticks until all 40 cake pops are prepped.
- Place icing into bottom corner of each sandwich bag (green in one bag, purple in another bag) & twist the empty tops to form a tight seal around the icing. Snip off a tiny bit of the corner edge of each bag where the icing is nestled (start VERY small & test a bit of the icing – you can always cut off more).
- Carefully pipe a small line of green icing in the center of each marshmallow eye, to make the pupil.
- Pipe a medium sized dot of purple icing below the eyes of each cake pop, to form a nose.
- Allow your cake pops to harden in the refrigerator for at least 1 hr, or overnight.
- Serve as desired!
Notes
Nutrition
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Looks so fantastic! I did the same theme when my boy turned one. you can definably go crazy with kids parties but I love it!
@Bethany – Thanks!!! I love party-planning, so while I don’t think it’s wise to shell out hundreds of dollars (or thousands?!) for a kid’s birthday party, it is fun to put some personal touches & energy into any event! 🙂