7 Christmas Cake Pops & 3 Tips for Making the Best Ones

Diana Barkley (Senior Editor)

You’ve seen Christmas cookies, cakes, and even cupcakes, but when it comes to festive gifts and cute homemade surprises, nothing quite beats a festive cake pop. If you’re thinking of making some sweet treats for presents or as treats for guests this festive season, read on.

So why would you want to make cake pops for Christmas? First off, because they’re easy to make. Second, because you can experiment with a variety of flavors and don’t even need to stick to just one kind of cake pop, allowing for plenty of variety.

And lastly, because they look super cute when decorated. In this article we’ll explore some of the best ways you can make gorgeous Christmas cake pops, including our basic chocolate recipe to make them scrumptious, too.

Best Christmas Cake Pops

Best Christmas Cake Pops

If you’ve ever made Christmas cookies, you’ll know how many options there are for decorating them.

The more creative, the more fun, though simple designs are often easier and may turn out better (see our sprout cake pops, for one example that’s super easy but looks great.)

Below are some of the best cake pop designs you can easily make at home.

Christmas Tree Cake Pops

Christmas Tree Cake Pops

Christmas tree cake pops are amongst the classics to make for Christmas. All you need is our basic recipe below, plus some green buttercream frosting or green candy melts.

We recommend you make the pops into conical shapes as you mold the dough. This way, you can frost or coat them evenly all over without having to add any height using buttercream.

Finally, just add some colorful candies (plain gold or silver ones look great too) and little candy or wafer stars.

Reindeer Cake Pops

Reindeer Cake Pops

Reindeer cake pops look very cute and effective, yet are one of the easiest designs to make.

You’ll want to start with our basic chocolate cake pop recipe, then coat each pop in brown candy melts (alternatively, use milk or semisweet chocolate).

Add a red M&M or smartie ‘nose’ to the front of each reindeer, plus candy eyes. Finish with pretzel antlers. These are especially fun to make with kids, too.

Christmas Pudding Cake Pops

Christmas Pudding Cake Pops

These are ideal if you’re using a favorite Christmas pudding recipe along with some chocolate frosting to make the pop dough.

Coat each mini pudding with chocolate or brown candy melts. Once your cake pops have set on their lollipop sticks, pour a little bit of white candy melt mixture over the top of each one.

Finish with green candy leaves and little red candy ‘berries’.

Simple Red, White, and Green Cake Pops

Simple Red, White, and Green Cake Pops

This is a great festive design if you’re after something simple yet fun. You can find lots of different variations of this particular idea. We like a sort of ‘truffle’ effect.

To make these, start with either chocolate or vanilla cake and frosting. Coat each cake pop with alternating red, white, and green candy melts.

Next, add edible colored glitter in each of the three colors to their respective pops. Decorate some with added white snowflake-shaped candies. These look quite elegant and pretty, and make for a lovely Christmas party treat.

Snowflake Cake Pops in Sparkling White and Blue

Snowflake Cake Pops in Sparkling White and Blue

Snowflake cake pops may be perfect for Christmas, but they also work supremely well for Frozen-themed parties. We like to make ours using vanilla cake pop batter.

Dip your finished pop balls into alternating white and pale blue candy melt coating.

Decorate with white candy snowflakes (you can buy these or draw them on using white icing.) Finish with a gentle spray of silver or soft gold edible glitter, for that extra wintery sparkle.

Snowman Cake Pops

Snowman Cake Pops

These are super cute and easy to make. You can get creative by making double-layered snowmen (just ‘glue’ two pop balls together using candy melt mixture).

Alternatively, just make little snowman heads. For the latter, we like to dip our cake pop balls into white candy melts, before decorating them with ‘hats’ made from regular oreos and mini oreos.

Add little faces using black icing, and little noses made of mini smarties in red or orange.

Sprout Cake Pops

Sprout Cake Pops

These are so fun and easy to make, and you can even create a silly game if you like. You’ll want to coat each cake pop in green candy melt mixture.

Try to swirl a little extra on top of each to give them a sprout leaf-like texture. Add little faces using black icing for the eyes and mouth, and a touch of red for rosy cheeks.

Now for the fun part: why not make one cake pop an actual sprout, but decorate it the exact same way? You could hand out a prize for the person who gets the sprouty sprout at your Christmas party.

Delicious and Perfect Christmas Cake Pop Flavors

Delicious and Perfect Christmas Cake Pop Flavors

All cake flavors work nicely for Christmas cake pops, we just think some are better than others: think of festive flavors such as chocolate, gingerbread, or even red velvet to start with.

Pumpkin spice, while being more common in Fall time, is also always a big winner and tastes great with a dollop of cream cheese frosting mixed into the batter.

The key to the perfect Christmas cake pop flavors is to have fun with them and choose ones you already enjoy. Vanilla with a touch of spice is excellent, as is a very basic birthday cake mix decorated to look festive.

How to Make Christmas Cake Pops: A Simple Guide

How to Make Christmas Cake Pops: A Simple Guide

There are many different cake pop recipes out there, from basic ‘yellow’ cake mix concoctions to elaborate Christmas pudding-flavored works of art.

We think Christmas cake pops should be filled with chocolate, and decorated whatever way you see fit. Therefore, our recipe is super simple and just includes plenty of rich cocoa flavors.

For the cake batter:

• 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1 cup of granulated sugar (light brown sugar is fine too)
• ⅓ cup of cocoa powder (unsweetened)
• ½ tsp of baking soda
• ½ cup of canola or vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs (at room temperature)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ½ cup of hot water
• a pinch of salt

For the frosting:

• 6 tbsps of salted butter (unsalted, if you prefer)
• ¾ cup of icing sugar
• ½ cup of cocoa powder (unsweetened)
• 2-3 tsps of heavy cream
• ½ tsp of vanilla extract

For the coating:

• 24 oz of candy melts of your choice
• sprinkles (optional)

Additional:

• lollipop sticks
• an upside-down box or styrofoam for ‘drying’

Recipe Step By Step

Recipe Step By Step

Here’s how you do it.

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F. While it’s warming up, grease a 9” baking tin.

2. Mix the dry ingredients together, including the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Next, whisk the wet ingredients in a separate bowl, mixing up the eggs, oil, and vanilla extract.

3. Mix the two bowls together and add in the hot water. Whisk until everything is thoroughly combined and lump-free.

4. Pour your batter into the prepared tin and bake for around 25-28 minutes. You’ll want a toothpick or fork to come out clean when inserted into the center of the cake. Let the cake cool to room temperature before moving on to the next step.

5. Make your frosting by whisking the butter until creamy. Next, whisk in the sugar, cocoa powder, heavy cream, and your vanilla extract. You want the frosting to be well-mixed and creamy.

6. Crumble up the cooled cake and mix it into the frosting until you have a lovely cake pop batter without any bigger lumps.

7. Take away 1 tablespoon at a time and roll it into a ball. Set all of the cake pop balls on a lined baking sheet. Once done, refrigerate the balls for around 2 hours or freeze them for about 1 hour.

8. Melt the candy melts per package ingredients. Dip the lollipop sticks into the mixture and very quickly insert them into the balls.

Allow them to set briefly before dipping each cake pop ball in the candy melt mixture. Place each ball’s stick into the upside down box or the styrofoam. Allow the cake pops to set, which will take around an hour.

9. If you want to decorate the cake pops with sprinkles, do so while they’re setting, so they can stick to the candy melt coating. For any other decorations, follow our ideas and suggestions above.

Tips for Making Christmas Cake Pops

Tips for Making Christmas Cake Pops

As you might have noticed by now, making cake pops is a lot easier than it might initially look.

With a few simple tips and hacks, you’ll soon be making cake pops for every Christmas event you attend this season.

Below are some of the best ways you can make your cake pop crafting a breeze, for show-stopping cake pops that look great and taste delicious.

Get a Cake Pop Roller

Get a Cake Pop Roller

If you only make the occasional small number of cake pops, you may not need this.

However, if you’re planning on gifting everyone from school to distant relatives some cake pops this Christmas, you may wish to invest in a cake pop roller.

This nifty tool is designed to roll a large number of even-sized cake pop balls at the same time. Think, 20+ cake pops, simply made by popping your dough into the roller, and they all look exactly the same and have the same weight.

This one is so useful if you’re ever thinking of going into business making cake pops, too.

Use Candy Melts Instead of Chocolate

Use Candy Melts Instead of Chocolate

Candy melts contain vegetable fats rather than real cocoa butter, which may not sound exciting at first. The big positive is that this means they don’t need to be tempered.

What is tempering? It’s a process of very slowly heating up and then cooling your chocolate, so it gets a shiny, crumb-free finish as it sets. It’s not the easiest process, which is where candy melts come in.

Candy melts are simple to heat up and use for coating your cake pops. They also come in near unlimited colors. This means you can easily go for whatever Christmas colors you fancy and make your pops look professional with limited effort.

Refrigerate Your Cake Pop Batter

Refrigerate Your Cake Pop Batter

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s a vital step in cake pop production.

You’ll want to refrigerate your cake pops for around 2 hours (less, depending on the type of dough you’re making — some vegan batters don’t require as much time in the fridge).

Refrigerating them helps solidify any fats, making them easier to roll. They’ll also retain their shape much better if the batter isn’t too soft.

Ideally, you’ll want to chill the dough a little before rolling out your cake pop balls, and then re-refrigerate the balls before dipping them.

If you’re very impatient or short on time, you may also freeze the balls for a shorter amount of time, until they have a solid enough consistency for dipping.

Alternatives to Christmas Cake Pops

Alternatives to Christmas Cake Pops

Perhaps you don’t have lollipop sticks at hand, think cake pops a little too labor-intensive, or want to provide a whole spread of Christmas cookies.

Whatever your reason, here are some great alternatives to Christmas cake pops. Top tip: you can use any of our ideas above as inspiration to decorate these, too.

Christmas Cupcakes

Christmas Cupcakes

Christmas cupcakes are especially lovely as a little project to bake with kids. All you need is your favorite cupcake recipe or a box mix (we won’t judge) for chocolate cupcakes.

Once they’ve been baked and have cooled to room temperature, decorate each with liberal swirls of green buttercream frosting.

Have your little ones add sugar ‘baubles’ and wafer stars for the top of each tree. Don’t worry if they’re not totally perfect, these will be well-loved regardless.

Top tip: if you’re gifting Christmas cupcakes, one super easy way to wrap them is by using disposable clear cups. Place a cupcake in each cup, then add each cup to a clear cellophane bag. Tie with a colorful bow, and you’re done.

Christmas Cookies

Christmas Cookies

Who doesn’t like Christmas cookies? We think the best kinds are made using old-fashioned recipes your grandparents already loved. Simple sugar cookies or gingerbread men are ideal for decorating with lots of colorful icing.

Top tip: pick a select few favorite Christmas cookie recipes and take your time. We’ve probably all done it before, and have taken on too many things to bake at once, all at the last minute.

Taking your time and only doing a few things well will ensure nicer cookies that are actually fun to make, especially if you’re crafting them with kids.

Christmas Brownies

Christmas Brownies

Christmas brownies are ideal for those of us who don’t want to spend ages in the kitchen, but would still like to turn out something scrumptious.

You have two main options here, though either starts with your favorite brownie recipe. Once cooled, cut your brownies into triangles for little horizontal Christmas trees, or keep them rectangular.

Decorate with plenty of colorful icing and/or buttercream. Red, white, and green shades are ideal. Little brownie trees can additionally be decorated with M&M or smartie ‘baubles’ and snowflake-shaped sprinkles.

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