I'm making a carrot cake for a baby shower and have been asked to bring cake pops as well. My particular carrot cake recipe is chock-full of stuff...carrots, raisins, pineapple, coconut, walnuts. It's quite a chunky cake because of all the bits of stuff. I'm wondering if that will be a problem for making cake pops. It would seem like I might have trouble getting the cake formed into nice round balls, especially with the raisins. Does anyone have any experience doing cake pops out of carrot cake? Should I use a different flavor instead? Thanks!
I haven't. But I would make a batch of the regular carrot cake with all the stuff you are used to having in there, and I would make another batch of a carrot cake without it.
I would make balls out of the regular carrot cake, and on the outside, I would add the softer cake crumbs with frosting from the no-stuff batch.
Don't know if it will work, but it's an idea.
Kind of like the "spackling" technique from Toba Garrett's book.
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Or, make your carrot cake with really minced raisins, pineapple, etc. not as chunky as you would make a regular one.
I actually just made carrot cake pops a few days ago, and they turned out great! My recipe doesn't use quite as many add-ins as yours, though. I did have the shredded carrots and crushed pineapple, and it worked fine.
To be on the safe side, I think it's a smart idea to make a little extra batter and separate that out before adding the chunky stuff.
Also, I don't know the recipe you use for cake pops, but for the 24 cake pops I made I only used 1 or 2 Tbsp. of frosting in the mixture. Carrot cake is very moist and you don't want to end up with a soggy mess.
I just made some few days ago, just with walnuts, carrot, and raisins though. The raisins were a bit annoying but after pulling a few out they held up perfectly.
Thanks for all the input guys. I really take a lot of pride in having so much "stuff" in my carrot cake since I think it could qualify as a pretty healthy breakfast food! 
But I tried a carrot cake someplace recently and was really surprised at how good it was even though it didn't have all the add-ins. I think I will omit the big raisin chunks for the cake pop batch since they're the ones I'm most concerned about. Thanks!
I'm making a carrot cake for a baby shower and have been asked to bring cake pops as well. My particular carrot cake recipe is chock-full of stuff...carrots, raisins, pineapple, coconut, walnuts. It's quite a chunky cake because of all the bits of stuff. I'm wondering if that will be a problem for making cake pops. It would seem like I might have trouble getting the cake formed into nice round balls, especially with the raisins. Does anyone have any experience doing cake pops out of carrot cake? Should I use a different flavor instead? Thanks!
At the bakery I used to work for, we used to make cakeballs out of carrot cake that had the chunky stuff like you described . We never mixed our cake balls with any icing...just squished up cake. Makes it less sweet and carrot is so moist anyway, you won't have a problem with it compressing.
We would portion each ball with a meatballer, roll it a bit and then freeze them. Then we would take the frozen ball and roll again until smooth. If there were any chunky bits that could not be pressed back into the ball we took it out and rolled it again until smooth.
You might also mince the nuts and raisins and such so as to fit in the ball easier and more smoothly. That way, you'll have small bits of those items in each ball instead of one big chunk of raisin or pineapple.
At the bakery I used to work for, we used to make cakeballs out of carrot cake that had the chunky stuff like you described . We never mixed our cake balls with any icing...just squished up cake.
Carmijok, do you find that cake pops made this way are as popular as when they're made with frosting or do people expect a different taste/texture? I learned to make them the same way you do--with the cake all squished up until it's a fudgey consistency. Is this a different texture than a typical cake pop? I've just gotten an order for 260 pops for wedding favors to be done next August but the bride lives out if town and won't be able to do a tasting. Am I going to be giving her something she doesn't expect if I make them my usual way? I'm just not sure if it's a significant difference in final product.
At the bakery I used to work for, we used to make cakeballs out of carrot cake that had the chunky stuff like you described . We never mixed our cake balls with any icing...just squished up cake.
Carmijok, do you find that cake pops made this way are as popular as when they're made with frosting or do people expect a different taste/texture? I learned to make them the same way you do--with the cake all squished up until it's a fudgey consistency. Is this a different texture than a typical cake pop? I've just gotten an order for 260 pops for wedding favors to be done next August but the bride lives out if town and won't be able to do a tasting. Am I going to be giving her something she doesn't expect if I make them my usual way? I'm just not sure if it's a significant difference in final product.
I can only speak from the experience I had at the bakery...and that was our cake balls were named the best 'Cult Dessert' by our local alternative newspaper's 'Best Of' issue. Of course this was way before cake balls were the phenomena they are now. We just kept hearing that people liked ours more because they weren't as sweet and were more cakey than others. Personally I am not a cake ball fan...of any kind! 
I find them all too dense. But they were our biggest selling item and I even developed a waiting list for those who would buy orders that were not picked up for whatever reason...or if we had some extra on hand. So, even if it's not what people 'expect', it will be good.
We always dipped our carrot cake ones in white chocolate BTW.
Also, the bakery is no longer in existence...the owner was so busy she wasn't enjoying it any more and she did not want to spend the money to expand...AND she refused to consider selling. Too much success...who knew? 
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