Tips from a Dip

The idea was to try and have cake pops perfected quickly. After which, I'd bring them by a couple of coffee shops in my neighborhood that also sell locally-made sweets.
I thought it was a pretty good plan. It should have worked. Here's what happened instead:
I made several trips to the Baker's Rack, a locally owned baking supply shop that is--as fortune would have it--just a short block away. Several trips were necessary because I kept having new problems with the chocolate dyeing, dipping and writing.
Because you see, there are apparently an infinite number of small details that can cause problems with cake pops.
Firstly, the design. Check Google "Images" for cake pops and most of the shapes you see are spherical. My Valentine design, though, is flat--like those Conversation Hearts your kids give out in their Valentine boxes.
The problem with flat is that the cake/frosting innards of the cake pop are not evenly distributed around the lollipop stick. Hence, sometimes half the heart will break off under the weight and heat of the chocolate dip.
So to the drawing board. My first pops were made with cake mix and canned butter cream frosting. For the second go-around, I did a from-scratch cake and homemade cream cheese frosting, in hopes that the cream cheese would be a little more solid.
But that wasn't all. I also froze the pops, to give them a better chance against the heat. That worked pretty well, I thought, until I noticed that the chocolate coating cracked on several after they dried.
Then I decided that the chocolate dip needed to be thinner. Thinning chocolate is tricky. Everyone knows water would make the chocolate seize up, but cooking oil is also problematic, because it doesn't mix in as well. So back to the store, where I was told lecithin flakes are the best and easiest way to thin.
Now I needed a good color. Conversation hearts are generally pastel, but despite a big selection of darker colors, pastels were a rarity. I didn't even consider grocery store food coloring, whose main ingredients are water and propylene glycol (alcohol). They don't give enough color anyway. I had some cake decorating gel, but it was ancient.
So back to the store again. for some dye especially made for chocolate.
I now had the dipping down. But Conversation Hearts need written witticisms. Food grade markers would be easiest but are hard to find here. The big craft stores sell one brand, but it gets uniformly nasty reviews online. And there was no time to wait for a mail order.
I would have to pipe on the comments with a pastry bag.
Now here's the thing I found out about piping chocolate: As you work, it hardens in the tip until you can't squeeze anything out. I had a little plastic tube of chocolate for this purpose (bought, once again, at the Baker's Rack). I thought at first I'd been ripped off and that the tube was mostly empty. Until I cut it open and found it still full of usable chocolate. It's just that the tip was completely hardened.
So I went back to my own pastry bag, worked quickly and put the whole thing--metal tip included--into the microwave on low every so often to keep it moving. (Yes, I put a paper towel over the metal tip.)
And voila! Success at last.
Then one more trip to the baking supply store for little plastic hoods.
I nerved myself up and dropped off my free samples and my phone number at the two coffee shops (neither owner was in when I came by). But I didn't have too much hope because by that time, Valentine's Day was less than a week away.
A good salesman would have been back and followed up with the owners. I know this. But by this time, I was in a crunch to get ready to be a presenter at a garden show (to sell and promote our gardening book) to practice for an accompanying job, to prepare an audition for a job I didn't get and to help our son move. And oh, yeah, to get my own piano students ready for their upcoming events.
I figured if I'd gotten a dollar apiece for the cake pops (after the stores' cut) I would have made about $28.
So what, ladies and gentlemen, have we learned today?
When the big career job stops paying, you have to fill in with a bunch of little jobs. On Planet Conservative, this character-building, nose to the grindstone workout rewards you with enough to live on. And if it doesn't, well you're just stupid I guess.
In real life, though, all the little jobs take way more time than anyone on Planet Conservative can even imagine. And they usually pay about $28.
Unless you own the Baker's Rack.