chocolate peanut butter cake pops AND heath bar cake pops!

Dan's birthday was this week, so I figured it was a perfect excuse to make more cake pops!  Dan is a big fan of chocolate and peanut butter, so I really wanted to make him some cake pops that tasted kind of like Reese's Pieces, but since I am not a peanut butter fan, I made some for myself which were chocolate with crumbled heath bar bits!  As if cake pops weren't amazing enough, these were just mindblowing.  Obviously I didn't care much for the peanut butter chocolate ones, but everyone who was a PB fan loved them!  And, for me, the heath bar ones were so great.  I loved the little crunch that the toffee had.  Regular cake pops are fun, but I liked making ones with a little twist.  I think these would be perfect for a kid's birthday, or even easter!
I love cake pops because it's like the perfect amount of cake and sweetness, all wrapped up into one little delicious bite sized treat.  I'm not a huge fan of eating a big slice of cake, but these are so much more dense and rich than a regular old cake.  Plus, it's kind of like portion control!  They can also be fun party favors or easy to transport treats to bring to a party or potluck.  

What you'll need: Chocolate Cake (appx 9x13 in baked cake. I used Pillsbury's dark chocolate cake mix) Peanut butter, creamy 2 Heath bars, crumbled Cream cheese frosting (I just used a store-bought 16 oz cream cheese frosting) Candy melts (I got mine from Michaels, 4 bags) Lollipop sticks (also from Michaels) Styrofoam blog, for drying
If you want to make both recipes, like I did, from one cake, just split the cake in half when you go to add the extras (PB/Heath bar) and put half the frosting in each bowl.  The rest of the recipe will be the same!
1. Bake a 9 x 13 cake.  If you want fewer cake pops you could bake a 9x9 cake instead.  My 9 x 13 cake made about 35 cake pops.
2.  Once the cake is done, let it cool for a bit and then put it into a bowl.  Dump 1.5 cups of frosting into the bowl with the cake.  If you're making Peanut Butter cake pops, put a cup of peanut butter in with the frosting at this point.  If you're making Heath Bar cake pops, take your crumbled up heath bars and mix them in to the cake with 2 cups of frosting.  Mush everything together so the frosting and peanut butter/heath bar is mixed with the cake evenly.
3.  Form the cake into little balls.  This gets messy, as you really have to do it with your hands.  Place the balls on a tray/plate and let them cool in the fridge for 1-2 hours or in the freezer for about a half hour. 
4. While the cake balls are cooling down, get your candy melts ready!  Melt the candy melts like you would chocolate chips, either in the microwave, over the stove, etc.  I don't have a microwave so I just do it over low heat on the stovetop.  This only takes a couple minutes, so don't do it too early, wait until your cake balls are ready to go.

5. Take your cake balls out of the fridge/freezer.  If your melted chocolate is too shallow in the container you used to melt it, pour some into a smaller container in order to dip the cake pops.  I usually use a small glass.
6. Dip your lollipop stick into the melted chocolate and then insert it into a cake ball, about 2/3 of the way into it.  You can do this with multiple cake balls at a time.  Then, submerge the whole cake ball into the chocolate and then knock off the excess chocolate by tapping the stick on the side of the glass, before inserting in the styrofoam to let it dry.  Since the cake balls are cold and the chocolate is warm it usually doesn't take long for the cake pop to harden, so if you run out of room in your styrofoam, you can move the ones that are done to a jar or something as they harden.  If you want to put sprinkles on the top, make sure to do that before the chocolate hardens, so the sprinkles have something to stick to.  I like to take a contrasting color of chocolate and drizzle it over them.  You can do this later, once all your cake pops are done hardening.  
Voila!  Now take these somewhere to be consumed so you don't have them sitting in your fridge to tempt you.