The Cake Pop Chronicles, Part II: Canned Doughs

After my experiment with blueberry muffins, I decided to put a different spin on things and see what resulted when I used canned crescent roll dough and pizza crust in the cake pop maker. I tried both savory and sweet fillings here, to see which worked better.

First up was the crescent roll dough– I cut it into 24 pieces, making my squares about 1.5″ on a side. For the savory, I filled half of the squares with shredded chicken and buffalo sauce. For the sweet, I filled them with either chocolate chips or a dab of Nutella. Then I pinched up the edges and rolled them into rough ball shapes.

I put the balls into the pre-heated cake pop maker and cooked them for 4 minutes.

Results:

It was immediately apparent that my dough balls were too small. There just wasn’t enough volume to expand into the full sphere, so they came out lopsided. Next time I’d either roll my dough squares out a bit thinner so I could fit more filling in, or just cut larger squares. I think I’ll do the former, since the dough-to-filling ratio wasn’t quite ideal for these.

On the other hand, the crescent roll dough (while maintaining that unique “canned dough” flavor that’s present in all crescent roll recipes) tasted good, browned nicely, and released easily from the pan without the use of cooking spray. I’d definitely make these again, especially the Nutella ones.

Next I broke open (literally– I love banging these on the counter waiting for them to explode) a can of pizza dough, which I divided into two– the first section I cut into long strips, which I spread with a combination of melted butter, crushed garlic, grated Parmesan cheese, and Italian seasoning and rolled up into little rolls about 1″ high. The second section I cut into 9 squares and filled with sliced pepperoni and shredded cheese.

I cooked up the garlic rolls but unlike the crescent roll balls these were clearly too large– they expanded up so high that the lid of the pop maker started lifting up, and I ended up with a band of unbrowned dough around the equators of the resulting balls.

After 6 minutes I removed them from the machine and they actually tasted very good. The browned outsides gave them a really nice crunch, and I’d definitely make these for a party or as a side for tomato soup or spaghetti.

Once I saw how big the garlic rolls were turning out, I pinched off about 1/3 of the dough from each of my pepperoni pizza balls to make them smaller, hoping to avoid the massive expansion I’d gotten before. They still turned out a bit big, but they were a much more manageable size and they also tasted great.

Tips:

1. It’s definitely important to keep your outside dough as thin as you can, or the filling will be overpowered by breadiness.

This might not be an issue if your dough is homemade and really tasty, but let’s face it, canned crescent roll or pizza dough isn’t exactly gourmet. Next time I’ll roll my dough thin and cram in more filling.

2. Both the garlic rolls and the pizza balls left a small puddle of grease behind in the pop maker– I think the garlic rolls oozed butter while the pizza balls left grease from the pepperoni and melted cheese. Resign yourself to this happening, and just be sure to wipe things out well before you cook anything sweet in the machine.

3. If you’re big on aesthetics and aren’t sure about whether you have enough dough in each hole, put the pinched side of your dough ball on the bottom when you put the ball into the pop maker. This will ensure that both sides of your ball end up smooth, at least, even if it doesn’t turn out perfectly spherical.

4. Don’t be afraid to turn your ball over if it doesn’t expand enough and isn’t browning on top. Just flip it over in the hole and re-close the lid to cook for another minute or two.