Lemon Cake Pops

Lemon cake pops are the cutest cake pops to make for Easter, but you can make them around of course. Depending on how you decorate them lemon cake pops can be perfect for almost any occasion.

If you like, making your own cakes, you can make your own lemon cake and use this recipe’s main steps to make the cake pops. But, if you’re short on time, why make lemon cake pops from scratch when this lemon cake pops recipe with cake mix is way easier and just as tasty?

The key to lemon cake pops using box mix is to make your own buttercream. It only takes a couple minutes and the difference between that and the store-bought icing is very huge. It’s well worth making your own buttercream. 

With this lemon cake pop recipe, we will be using some fresh lemon juice in the buttercream, as well as some yellow food coloring in both the buttercream and the candy coating.

Looking for a unique cake pop recipe that’s sure to be a crowd-pleaser? Try chocolatey Guinness Cake Pops!

Tips for Making Cake Pops

If you’ve never made cake pops before, it might feel a bit, clumsy your first time. But just go slow and follow the steps step-by-step. Make sure you read through everything before you start making the cake pops so everything will go more smoothly.

In a nutshell, you’re going to be making the cake making icing and making candy coating. Those are the three main steps.

We make this lemon cake pops recipe much easier by using box mix. We use Duncan Hines moist lemon cake for this recipe, but you can use any lemon box mix that you prefer.

When you make the cake pops, you’re basically going to crumble the cake into small crumbles and then slowly add the icing until it makes a good consistency. If you don’t use enough icing, your cake pops will fall apart. If you use too much icing, they will be too wet and slide off the stick.

That’s why it’s important to just go slow with adding the icing and then test to see whether the cake pop mix makes a ball that sticks together. Once your cake crumbs don’t crumble, don’t add anymore icing.

Another tip is to cool your cake balls before you dip them into the melted coating. You can take that opportunity to kind of reshape them into perfect balls.

Finally, another common tip is to dip the lollipop stick into the melted coating before you inserted it into the cake bowl. This will help keep it secure in the cake ball.

Let’s take a more detailed look at what you need to make lemon cake, pops, and just how to do it.

What You Need to Make Lemon Cake Pops Using Box Mix

The basic equipment you’ll need is:

• A hand-mixer or blender
• A baking Sheet
• 12 lollipop sticks

For the lemon cake:

• 1 box lemon cake mix (and it’s required ingredients such as eggs or vegetable oil)

For Lemon Butter Cream:

• 1 stick unsalted butter (softened to room temperature)
• 3 Tablespoons lemon juice, freshly squeezed
• 4½ cups Confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar)
• 1½ Tablespoons whole milk or heavy cream
• lemon zest of two lemons
• salt (to season)
• yellow food coloring

For Candy Coating:

• 12 ounces white chocolate chips
• yellow food coloring

Try more of our incredibly easy and tasty dessert recipes like Coconut Chocolate Strawberries or Coconut and Lime Cookies.

How to Make Lemon Cake Pops

Lemon Cake

• Bake lemon cake according to instructions. Allow the cake to cool and remove the stiff caramelized edges using a sharp knife.

Lemon Buttercream

To make a lemon version of classic buttercream, use a hand-mixer or butter to cream the butter at medium speed for about two minutes. Add confectioner’s sugar, milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Then add a pinch of salt to taste. Add the yellow food coloring and stir.

Lemon Cake pops

Place the baked cake into a bowl and use your hands or a mixture to crumble it into small crumbs. Make sure you remove the large clumps.

Add about ¼ cup of lemon buttercream the stir to coat all the crumbs. Add another ¼ cup of lemon buttercream and stir again, continuing to add buttercream ¼ cup at a time until you get a slightly doughy mixture. Stop when the crumbs stay together when they’re rolled into a ball.

Roll about 2 tablespoons of lemon cake pop mixture into a ball to create about 12 balls. Place the balls on a baking sheet. Refrigerate about 2 hours so they firm up.

Melt the white chocolate chips according to instructions. Generally, you can melt the chips in a small bowl at 50% power for 1 minute and then stir. Continue heating in 30 second increments until the chips are just melted. Add food coloring until you get the shade you like.

Dip a lollipop stick in the melted white chocolate and stick it into a cake ball about half way. Repeat for all the cake balls.

Finally, carefully dip the lemon cake pop into the melted chocolate and gently shake off excess coating. Decorate with an garnished such as sprinkles or edible glitter.

Place in Styrofoam or punctuated cardboard to cool.

Keep the in the refrigerator up to four days until you’re ready to serve. Avoid freezing the cake pops, or the candy coating may crack!