Weekend fun with a two-fer recipe!

Happy Tuesday!  Whew!  What a weekend!   
My sweet baby girl turned 6 on Friday, and she had her birthday party Saturday. One of the great things about her birthday being in June is we can almost always have a party outside. This year, we had a backyard birthday party...complete with TONS of kids from the neighborhood.  We created a 50 ft. slide and slide going down the hill, and had a large assortment of water toys to play with.
She had a BLAST!
Now moving on to the cake....some times you win, and sometimes you lose.
I spent the Friday night and Saturday morning making and decorating this cake, definite win in my opinion!

The bottom layer was a white cake with a Strawberry Cheesecake Mousse filling.  It was scrumptious!
Now, in my head, I was going to decorate the top with assorted pink cake pops to carry on the polka-dot theme.  Friday night, I baked the cake and prepared the cake balls, stuck a stick in them, and placed them in the freezer.  Now, FOR THE RECORD, the recipe did state to chill them for a couple hours in the fridge or speed it along in the freezer, and I had them in the freezer overnight.  Anyway, Saturday morning, I melted some pink vanilla candy melts (maybe this was my problem, is there a difference between candy melts and candy bark?) and proceeded to try to coat the now frozen cake pops.  UGH!  Disaster!  I am pretty sure I stuck the sticks too far down, because, well, they we pushed all the way down.  So, the annoying little suckers slid down the sticks and I could not get them dipped in the coating.  So, I tried using a spatula to coat them, but since the candy melts were seizing against the FROZEN cake pops, it was a MESS!!!  I got 6 of them that stayed on the stick. 

Now, let me say, they were SCRUMPTIOUS!!!  But if any of you have ventured into the cake ball/cake pop realm....if you have any thoughts on what I did wrong, PLEASE let me know because as ticked off as I was, they were so stinking good, I would definitely try them again!
So, for the two-fer...here is the recipe for the Strawberry Cheesecake Mousse, which works great as a cake filling or as a pie filling (think graham cracker crust) and the cake balls.

Strawberry Cheesecake Mousse Pie

• 1 block cream cheese (8 ounces) at room temperature
• 1 box strawberry jello, divided
• 2/3 cup plus 2 TBSP sugar, divided
• 5 LARGE strawberries
• 4 - 8 ounces Cool Whip, depending on taste and consistency you like

Start by slicing 5 strawberries in a bowl and sprinkle 2 TBSP sugar and 1 tsp strawberry jello powder over top. Stir to coat. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, cream together cream cheese, 1 TBSP strawberry jello, 2/3 cup sugar. Beat until fluffy.
With a fork, mash the five strawberries that were macerating. Pour into cream cheese mixture. Beat with mixer until well combined. Gently fold in Cool Whip.

Cake Balls - Cake Pops via Bakerella

• 1 box cake mix, cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake.  I used Devil's Food cake mix.
• 1 can frosting (16 oz.).  I used cream cheese frosting.
• 1 package chocolate bark, regular or white chocolate.  I used candy melts....maybe that is what I did wrong
• wax paper

1. After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.
2. Mix thoroughly with 1 can frosting. (It may be easier to use fingers to mix together, but be warned it will get messy.)
3. Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50. You can get even more if you use a mini ice cream scooper, but I like to hand roll them.)
4. Chill for several hours. You can speed this up by putting in the freezer.  Again perhaps this is what I did wrong?
5. Melt chocolate in microwave per directions on package.
6. Roll balls in chocolate and lay on wax paper until firm. (Use a spoon to dip and roll in chocolate and then tap off extra.)