A hit at any party, these delicious strawberry and vanilla flavoured lollipop cakes take a while to make, but the reward is well worth the bake.

Ingredients

• 1 x 500 g box vanilla cake mix
• 65 g butter
• 200 g icing sugar
• 65 ml Rhodes Quality Strawberry Jam
• 400 g white candy melts or moulding chocolate
• lollipop sticks
• to decorate: multi-coloured sprinkles

Method

1. Prepare the vanilla cake as per the instructions on the package.
2. Allow to cool completely.
3. Cut off and discard the hard crusts and then crumble the cake into a bowl.
4. Use a fork to break up any larger pieces of cake so that the texture of the crumbs is even and fine.
5. Beat the butter until pale and creamy.
6. Add the icing sugar and Rhodes Quality Strawberry Jam and beat until well blended.
7. Add the icing in thirds to the cake crumbs, mixing well after each addition with a wooden spoon.
8. Add as much of the icing as is needed for the mixture to resemble a stiff cookie dough.
9. Roll the mixture into 24 even balls.
10. Melt 45 ml (3 T) of the chocolate.
11. Dip the tip of 1 lollipop stick into the melted chocolate and insert the stick halfway into 1 cake ball. Repeat with remaining.
12. Place the balls onto a baking sheet that has been lined with baking paper and refrigerate for 2 hours.
13. Melt the remainder of the chocolate and dip each cake ball into the chocolate to coat with a thin layer of chocolate.
14. Use a teaspoon to pour the chocolate over the ball rather than swirling the ball through the chocolate to avoid crumbs coming off.
15. Tap off any excess and leave to set.
16. Dip just the bottom of the cake pop in a second layer of chocolate, then dip the bottom of the ball into the sprinkles and leave the cake pops to set.