Sweet gluten-free chocolate pound cake and low carb salted caramel in a delicious Starbucks copycat recipe. These Low Carb Salted Caramel Cake Pops will satisfy any sweet tooth.

When I first encountered cake pops, I was quite dumbfounded by them. I was already well set in my low carb ways at that point, so I wasn’t drawn to them so much for their promise of a sweet treat, but more because they struck me as simply brilliant. I am quite sure that the idea of crumbling a cake, mixing in a little frosting, rolling it into little balls, sticking lollipops into them and dipping them in chocolate would never have occurred to me in a million years. I have a lot of great ideas but that one was best left to someone else to invent. And some people get wildly creative with their cake pops. I’ve seen snowmen and Christmas ornaments and a veritable menagerie of animal-shaped cake pops and I marvel at them. That sort of thing is simply beyond my ken and I’m okay with that. But I can certainly admire them from afar.

When cake pops started showing up in my local Starbucks, I had to smirk a little. I don’t blame them one bit for jumping on that train, because kids and adults alike love cake pops. They’re cute, they’re sweet and they can be very eye-catching in their pretty pastels or bright colours. But the ones that always catch my eye are the dark chocolate cake pops. It’s the chocoholic in me, I suppose. I’d happily by-pass all the pretty pinks and greens and blues for the intense dark brown. Add a little salted caramel on top and now you’ve really got my attention.

I’ve long eyed those Salted Caramel Cake Pops at Starbucks, thinking it wouldn’t be all that hard to  make my own healthier, low carb version. And then providence gave me the little push I needed in the form of some cake that didn’t come out of the pan in one piece. I was trying to make muffin tops out of my Low Carb Chocolate Pound Cake and I apparently didn’t grease the pan very well because they stuck like mad. Not one to waste good food, I took all the bits and pieces and popped them into a bag and stuck them in the freezer for a time when I wanted to give my low carb cake pops a go.

I will tell you that I wasn’t all that well prepared when I did decide to make my cake pops, as I discovered I only had 10 lollipop sticks in the house. So I made those and turned the rest into cake balls or cake truffles, whichever you prefer. Although it’s always fun eating things from a stick, it doesn’t make a bit of difference to how they taste!

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Salted Caramel Cake Pops – Low Carb and Gluten-Free

Sweet gluten-free chocolate pound cake and low carb salted caramel in a delicious Starbucks copycat recipe. These Low Carb Salted Caramel Cake Pops will satisfy any sweet tooth.

Ingredients

Salted Caramel Sauce:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 6 tbsp Swerve Sweetener
• 2 tbsp coconut sugar or two additional tbsp Swerve
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tbsp water

Cake Pops:

• 1 recipe Low Carb Chocolate Pound Cake baked and cooled
• 1/2 tsp caramel flavour optional
• 4 ounces high cacao or Sugar-Free Dark Chocolate such as Lily's chopped
• 30 to 40 lollipop sticks
• Large piece of styrofoam for keeping cake pops upright
• 1 tbsp powdered Swerve Sweetener
• Coarsely ground sea salt for sprinkling

Instructions

Salted Caramel:

1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine butter, Swerve, and coconut sugar. Bring to a boil and cook 3 to 5 minutes (be careful not to burn it).
2. Remove from heat and add cream. Mixture will bubble vigorously.
3. Sprinkle with xanthan gum and whisk vigorously to combine. Add kosher salt.
4. Return mixture to heat and boil 1 more minute. Let cool to lukewarm and stir in water until well combined.

Cake Pops:

1. Line a large baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper.
2. In a large bowl, break up cooled chocolate pound cake with your hands into crumbs.
3. Reserve about 2 tbsp of caramel sauce for garnishing cake pops and set aside. Stir remaining caramel sauce and caramel flavour to crumbled cake. Combine well.
4. Use your hands to squeeze dough together and roll into 1-inch balls. Your dough should be moist enough to hold together very well when squeezed. If not, add a few tbsp of water, one at a time, to the mixture and stir to combine. You should get about 36 balls.
5. Place balls on prepared baking sheet and freeze at least one hour.
6. When cake balls are frozen, melt chocolate in a bowl set above barely simmering water (bottom of bowl should not touch water), stirring until smooth.
7. Dip the tip of a lollipop stick into chocolate and press into the centre of a frozen cake ball, then dip the cake pop into the chocolate, turning to coat.
8. Tap lollipop stick gently against side of bowl to remove excess chocolate. Turn pop a few times above bowl of chocolate to catch any stray drips.
9. Push tip of lollipop stick into styrofoam and let set. Repeat with remaining cake balls and sticks.
10. If cake balls start to soften too much, return them to the freezer (they are easier to work with and chocolate coating adheres better and hardens faster when they are frozen).
11. When pops are all set, combine reserved caramel sauce and powdered Swerve in a small bowl until smooth (if your caramel has hardened, warm it gently in the microwave).
12. Cut the very tiniest tip off the corner of a ziploc bag. Spoon caramel mixture into ziploc and pipe over cake pops.
13. Sprinkle each with a few grains of sea salt.
14. To make cake truffles instead of pops, simply dip frozen balls in chocolate with a fork, tapping off excess. Return to parchment or waxed lined baking sheet and let set, then continue with remaining directions.

Recipe Notes

Serves 18. Each serving has 10 g of carbs and 4 g of fiber. Total NET CARBS = 6 g.

238 Calories; 20g Fat (72.8% calories from fat); 7g Protein; 10g Carbohydrate; 4g Dietary Fiber; 77mg Cholesterol; 310mg Sodium

Nutrition Facts

Salted Caramel Cake Pops – Low Carb and Gluten-Free

Amount Per Serving (2 g)

Calories 0

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.