Cake Balls

Cake pops, cake balls, cake truffles whatever you call them it's the same idea:  crumbled cake, mixed with frosting, chilled, then covered in chocolate.  They are extremely easy to make, just time consuming.  Some people decorate them with a lot of detail (a la Bakerella) but I went the simple route with sprinkles on top.

For Valentine's Day, I sent out these treats for a few friends and family members.  I knew I wanted to have chocolate, and I decided on strawberry for the second flavor, a sort of chocolate covered strawberry.  I made the cake and frosting from scratch because I ended up having time, but feel free to use a box mix and canned frosting.

The chocolate balls came out great, but I was disappointed in the strawberry balls.  Since I made the cake from scratch, there were actually strawberries in the cake which kept it moist.  If we were eating a piece of cake, it would have been fine.  Since I was adding moist frosting to moist cake crumbles, the strawberry filling turned out wetter than the chocolate filling.  They rolled into balls just fine, it wasn't until after sampling the finished cake balls that I realized they were mushy.

The treats were well received from everyone (even though there were issues with the post office).  Everything was sent from the same post office on the same day.  Packages sent to Dayton, WNY, Central NY and VA all arrived on Valentine's Day as expected.  It took 6 days to get to the other side of Cleveland, and over a week to get to NYC and CA.  What?!  I don't usually use this post office location to send packages, and I will not be using it ever again.

I will definitely make cake balls again, but not using strawberries.  The chocolate balls were a hit, and I'd try a yellow cake or carrot cake version.  I'm not a fan of red velvet, but that's a popular flavor as well.

Cake Balls

Inspired by Bakerella

Yield: about 100 1" balls from each cake

Chocolate Cake* (I used this recipe from Coconut & Lime)

1 1/2 - 2 cups Chocolate Frosting (I used Hershey's recipe on the cocoa container)

Strawberry Cake (I adjusted the servings for this AllRecipe to 36, then baked in 9x13 pan)

1 1/2 - 2 cups Buttercream Frosting (I made Wilton's using all butter, no shortening)

*UPDATE: Chocolate and yellow are my favorite cake flavors to use. These are the recipes I like to use, tastes great and no extra egg yolks or anything crazy: Chocolate Cake and Yellow Cake

Chocolate Bark/Chocolate Melts for dipping

Assorted Sprinkles or other decorations (optional)

• Bake cakes according to instructions, then allow to cool completely (a couple of hours).  Once the cakes are cooled, make the frosting according to directions.
• Using your fingers or two forks, work the cake until they are small crumbs and transfer to a large bowl.  Repeat the crumbling with the second cake and transfer to another large bowl.
• Combine about 1 1/2 cups chocolate frosting to the chocolate cake crumbs.  Stir until there are no more dry crumbs or globs of frosting.  Add more frosting if needed.  Repeat with strawberry cake.
• Roll the cake mixture into 1 tablespoon balls (about the size of a walnut) and place them on wax paper lined trays/cookie sheets.  
• Chill for a few hours in the fridge or in your cold garage if it's winter.
• Melt the chocolate according to instructions, then dip the chilled balls one at a time using two forks (clean off chocolate buildup from forks as needed).
• Place the chocolate coated cake balls on a piece of wax paper. The chocolate dries fast since the cake balls are cold so top with sprinkles immediately.  Repeat until all the balls have been dipped.  

Tip:  If you make multiple kinds of cake balls, you'll want to decorate them differently in order to distinguish each flavor.