I only recently discovered cake balls, and quickly became obsessed with these baked goodies. I am a self-professed cupcake addict, and I love pretty much any dessert, so it was only fitting that I try out this new take on cake. You can find the recipe and instructions on Bakerella, the blog I found these on, and that’s a blog you should follow! Uunless of course you need to stay away from the temptation of tantalizing treats constantly on display. Her current post is about pillow cookies, which is another baked goody I just have to make soon! Quick take on pillow cookies: chocolate chip cookies with a brownie inside, um hello, sign me up!
I attempted to make the cake balls on Sunday evening. It’s super simple, you use a box cake mix and follow the directions to make a 13×9 inch cake in whatever flavor you desire. I’m sure you can make the cake and frosting from scratch, but it’s just more work, so I stuck with the easy route. I made a chocolate cake and a white cake which I added lemon zest and flavoring to. Once the cakes have cooled, you destroy them! I had a major problem crumbling up a perfectly good cake, but it was for the cake balls, so I relented.
Once the cakes have been crumbled up into large bowls, you add an entire can of frosting to them! I used chocolate and butter-cream for the chocolate and lemon cakes respectively. I also added more lemon zest to the lemon cake at this point, I wanted really lemony cake balls!
You then go to town mushing the frosting and cake together. You can use a spoon, or get down and dirty and do it with your hands. It was a little weird, but totally took me back to childhood, and memories of playing with my food. When the cake and frosting is combined, you make quarter sized balls and place them on a covered baking sheet. I used my amazing Pampered Chef medium-sized scoop, which made it super easy to keep uniform sized balls. I love using this scoop when I am baking! It creates the perfect sized and shaped cookies, and it allows me to fill my cupcake pans just right by using two scoops of batter to each cup. I will be hosting a Pampered Chef catalog party during July, so if you want to order any products, let me know!
After all of the cake balls are made, you chill them for a few hours, or stick them in the freezer to speed up the process. Melt chocolate and dip and cover each ball and set aside to harden. I found this to be the most tedious part of the whole process, and had really bad luck melting chocolate. I only dipped 16 balls, I had made over 40 balls total, and called it a night after burning my chocolate and getting crumbs everywhere. I used milk chocolate chips for the chocolate balls, and white chocolate chips for the lemon balls.You then chill the balls again, and after they have hardened, you get to enjoy them! I brought them out for dessert after my meatless Monday dinner, and it was a huge success because they were cool and refreshing on a hot evening. I will definitely be dipping the rest of the cake balls because they were just so yummy, I can put up with the task!
I am completely in love with cake balls, even with the tedious steps and burning the chocolate chips! Both flavors turned out superb. The chocolate was decadent, and the lemon refreshing. I will definitely be making these again, but hopefully not soon, my diet took enough hits as it is!
Hair by Adrian 