No Sticks For Cake Pops? Make Cups Instead

Cake pops are a fun and delicious way to level up the dessert table at your next party. However, while there's a solid chance that you might have a box of cake mix and a jar of frosting sitting in your pantry — or perhaps even all of the ingredients needed to make the whimsical treat entirely from scratch — we're willing to bet the chances of anybody having a random package of lollipop sticks on hand are slim to none. Still, this doesn't necessarily mean you should rush out to the grocery store or ditch your cake pop plans for a traditional cake. Next time you find yourself stickless, you can easily make cake cups to fill the void.

As demonstrated by Instagrammer @designeatrepeat, the process of making cake cups begins with the same steps as making cake pops. Like with the trendy treat, start by making the dough by baking a cake, crumbling it up, and mixing in frosting. After that, the process begins to look different.

A small amount of melted chocolate goes into the bottom of a lined muffin tin and, once hardened, is topped with the icing-infused cake dough. Here's an important tip: Leave a bit of space at the top for a second layer of melted chocolate. Then, you can decorate your finished cake cups with sprinkles, candies, or more colorful icing — whatever you prefer! Finally, after everything has set, your cake cups are ready to enjoy.

Cake balls may seem like an obvious cake pop alternative when you find yourself craving mouthwatering, icing-infused cake morsels — but don't have any sticks around to make the real deal. However, cake cups may be an even better workaround to that pesky no-stick issue and might even be preferable to cake pops. Why, you ask? As @designeatrepeat pointed out in their December 2023 post about the unique treat, this method eliminates the annoying dipping step that the cake pop and cake ball-making process requires. Somehow, this step always seems like a hassle despite plenty of clever cake pop icing tricks floating around the internet.

Additionally, cake cups don't necessitate scrambling around your kitchen searching for something to use as a DIY cake pop stand for the treats to dry on. Everything goes directly into a muffin tin until it's time to chow down. No wonder @designeatrepeat declared in their Instagram post that "cake bites are out, cake *CUPS* are in!"