Saturday, November 21, 2009

Perfect Party Treat - Cake Balls


Last year, I discovered Bakerella's blog and cake balls.  Now I see them everywhere!  I have visions of dessert buffets with cute little candies filled with cake of various colors and flavors.  Chocolate Peanut Butter, Chocolate Mint, Red Velvet, Oreo, Pumpkin Caramel, Apple Caramel (okay you get the picture).   Cake Balls can be made with cake scraps but since I tend to not level my cakes before icing, I never have scraps.  But when I decided to make the extra tall Strawberry cake last week, I saved a tier to try them out.  I am so glad I did.


I crumbled the cake in a bowl and mixed in about 3/4 cup of cream cheese frosting.  Mix the frosting a little at a time.  You don't want it to be too wet, just enough frosting to bind the cake crumbs together.  Then I formed little cake balls. 

I put the cake balls in the fridge for a couple of hours to set.  Otherwise, the balls will come apart when dipping in the chocolate.

For chocolate, I recommend candy melts or chocolate bark.  I made a couple of cake balls with regular chocolate chips and not only was the chocolate a little too thick, but it also took over an hour to set.  The candy melts set in less than 10 minutes.  I purchased my candy melts at Michaels and they come in a wide variety of colors. 


The cake balls were WONDERFUL.  The strawberry cake enrobed in white chocolate was just like biting into a fruit flavored chocolate truffle.  This is definitely something you should add to your holiday buffet table. 

Have you made cake balls?  What's your favorite flavor combination?

3 comments:

  1. I was taught to make these in pastry school as a great way to recycle any old scrap (well - cake, cookie, jam, buttercream, crumbs), and we called them rum balls. As long as you can get the texture of the scraps consistent, you can put practically anything in there, douse it with liqueur or simple syrup, and dip them in chocolate. I find it easiest to mash them all up, freeze them until they're hard, and then dip them in melted chocolate while they're hard. They go immediately back into the freezer and they are wonderful. I get compliments about them all the time, and it's just scrap!

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  2. Thanks! That's great to know! I'm making chocolate peanut butter ones for Thanksgiving (they were a BIG hit at my house).

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  3. I made german chocolate with the coconut pecan icing dipped in chocolate almond bark. Also Red velvet with cream cheese icing. They were delicious and lots easier than I thought they would be to dip! We made these for a farmer's market and sold them in groups of 5 for a dollar.

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