Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Cake Balls



I love these. I make them every Christmas because my Husbands coworkers always bug him until I do. Actually this happens on other holidays like Easter also.

I used to think these were too hard, they never came out right and took forever and made a mess and were a big hassle. After awhile though, I pretty much perfected my method and I can now crank them out pretty quickly and they always turn out pretty cute but better than that, delicious!

You will need:
Boxed Cake Mix (and whatever additional ingredients it takes to bake the cake)
Canned Icing
Almond Bark-Chocolate or White- is Chocolate called Chocolate Bark or still Almond Bark? I have no idea? Why is it even called Almond Bark anyway?
Sprinkles (optional-but yes you need them)
Wax Paper

*You can use whatever combination of Cake mix and icing your heart desires. My most recent batch included Yellow cake with Strawberry frosting, and Devils Food Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese icing. The chocolate were by far the yummiest!




1. Bake your cake according to the package directions.

2. After removing the cake from the oven transfer it to a bowl, be careful-its hot!

3. Cut/Crumble your cake in the bowl- yes its still hot, so be careful! I like to grab a butter knife and cut it up.

4. Add your icing to your still hot, but now crumbled, cake. Stir Stir Stir it up! It should resemble a big mess after you are done, ha. It almost looks like batter again, but is much thicker.

5. Stick your concoction in the freezer to cool. Or if you have more time than I ever do I guess you could set it out and allow it to cool, but I have never tried that because I am most definitly too impatient for that.

6. After its cooled some-it can still be warm (remember I'm impatient!), but you dont want it to be to hot to handle-pull your bowl out of the freezer and roll some balls yall. Take some of the mixture and roll in your hands until you get a ball about the size of, or slightly smaller than, a cherry cordial (you know those- chocolate covered cherry thingies that your Grandma probably loves?! at least my Grandma does...) if you have no idea what those are, then I would say they should be the same size of a small bouncy ball. This is probably the part where someone tells you how many inches to roll your balls, but I have NO idea how many inches it would be, and I never understood how you measure a ball in inches anyway. You should know that my cake balls are considerably smaller than most, I do this because its the method that produces the best cake balls in my experience. Also because I do not have a big sweet tooth and these things are SWEET and RICH and smaller is better when it comes to these- in my opinion.

7. I usually put my completed balls on paper plates and stick in the freezer in batches. As soon as I have a plate full I pop the plate in the freezer and start on the next plate. Roll all of your balls and pop them all into the freezer to let them firm up a bit.

8. Line a cookie sheet or tray with Wax Paper and set aside for a minute.

9. At this point you should get your bark and break off about four squares and place into a glass bowl. Microwave your chocolate to get it ooey, gooey and melty. I love the word melty. I start by microwaving for 45 seconds, I then stir and microwave additional 30 second increments until its smooth.

10. After you have four bars melted, grab one of your paper plates from the freezer. Preferably the very first one you put in there as it has had the most time to chill. Grab a spoon and roll the ball around the chocolate until its coated and then transfer to your wax paper lined tray.

11. Immediately shake some sprinkles on the melty chocolatey ball.

12. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. If you run out of chocolate, heat up four bars again and keep going. After you fill your tray, set it aside to allow the balls to harden. No need to refridgerate or freeze unless you have an unusually warm home, which I do not.

13. After its hardened completely (within an hour) package them up! I found small Holiday themed ziplock baggies at Big Lots (30 for $1.20-yes!) that I used to package them for coworkers. They also had larger ones (probably 2 quart size?, they didnt say how big they were so I am guessing here) that I used to package some up for my husband to take to work to share with all of his colleagues.




14. Enjoy and do not think about how many calories you are consuming :)

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