Cake Ball Recipe
1 cake (made from a mix makes it super easy!)
1 can of frosting
candy melts
While searching the Internet for some cute ideas for Valentine cupcakes, I found the recipe for cake balls. It is so easy, not to mention they taste great!!
I used a dark chocolate cake mix and cooked it the night before (hint from another blogger.) The next day, I cut the cake into large pieces. Instead of crumbing it up by hand, I chopped it up in the food processor. It took a couple of batches, but it was quick and easy. In a big bowl I put the cake crumbs and about 3/4 of the can of frosting (I used fudge frosting.) Then just mix with a spoon until well blended.
Put some wax paper or parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Then, using a scoop, start making the balls. Using a scoop helps keep them uniform in size and reduces the mess on your hands. Roll the balls in your hand and set on cookie sheet. At this point, you can put cookie sticks in them to make "cake pops." The sticks make dipping them in the candy way easier! Just be sure to put the stick in before you pop them in the freezer. Once you have them all on the cookie sheet, put them in the freezer. Some blogs I saw said to put them in the freezer for 15 minutes or the fridge for a couple of hours. I tried putting them in the freezer for 15 minutes because I couldn't wait to start dipping them. This worked fine, but leaving them in longer was better. I didn't have time to finish dipping them all at the same time, so I had to leave some in the freezer for an hour or two. This made dipping in the candy much easier.
To make the balls I tried a couple of different ways to dip them, but finally found a way that worked best for me. First I dipped the bottom half of the ball (the flat part of the ball where it was sitting on the cookie sheet) in the melted candy. I try to dip it in as far as I can without getting it on my fingers. I hold it out of the candy for a while, then place back on cookies sheet. By the time I get through with all of the balls, the first ones have hardened. Then I dip the other half into the melted candy, holding on to the already dipped part. I set it back down on the already hardened bottom half. They are smooth and perfect looking!
Wait to decorate until they have all hardened. Just melt the color candy melts you want, put in zip top sandwich bag and snip off a small part of the corner. For the pink cake balls, after I dipped them them in the pink candy melts, I dipped the tops in white chocolate, put a candy heart in the middle and topped with nonpareils. Thought those were particularly cute.
Once I started making these, I haven't been able to stop! I made more with red velvet cake, cream cheese frosting and white candy melts. Crazy good!! Also, I added a little Nutella to some chocolate ones...just enough to make it a little more interesting (reduce icing by amount of Nutella.)
You should definitely try these scrumptious treats...you'll get lots of raves!! Good luck!!
