Cake Balls

Haha, balls.

A former coworker of mine used to make cake balls for special occasions and every time she brought them in, it was like Christmas came early. They were so good, I even hired her to make a bunch for my sister's baby shower because the world had to know about the cake balls!

Every Christmas I make a gift basket for my in-laws that includes tasty treats and usually an ornament or two. [Here's a shameless plug for my craft blog where I show how to make my ornaments. Go to it!] Two years ago or so, my mother-in-law got me one of those cake pop pans you see on infomercials that are supposed to bake the cake in the ball shape to make cake pops super quick and easy. I thought I'd include some cake pops in their basket that year as a thank you. Well, those pans don't work. Even after following the suggested recipe changes to make denser cake pops, they're nearly impossible to dip in the candy coating, and you get a lot of melted candy with cake pieces in it, but very few cake pops. Even some that survived the dipping process didn't survive the hardening and fell off their sticks onto my counter. However, after starting with about 48 cake pops, I managed to salvage about 8 and included them in the gift basket. I never should have done that. They really enjoyed the cake pops that had survived, and were devastated to hear what a hassle it had been and that I would never bother with it again.

My mother-in-law even lent the pans to a friend who wanted to try (and I guess just assumed I was doing it wrong), and she had the same result. So, unfortunately for anyone who wanted really easy cake pops, those don't work, but the good news is I'm not as incompetent as people seem to think.

Since the cake pops were so popular, I decided this year to finally attempt to tackle the delicious cake balls that my coworker had made. I'd discussed it with her several times and had gotten a pretty good idea of the process, I just hadn't done it yet. So after much mental preparation, I finally dove in and made them this year. And they worked! I was so excited! Using one cake and one tub of frosting, I got about 63 cake balls, and I managed to dip and coat every single one! They were all keepers! I don't know if I've yet fully expressed my excitement. Seriously, it was like a Christmas miracle.

I would definitely recommend trying to bring out as few cake balls as possible at a time and not letting them sit too long before dipping, because there was an obvious difference in difficulty for coating cake balls that were still chilled versus cake balls that had begun to really thaw. Also, you can make these in just about every cake and frosting combination you can think of. I did double chocolate because those were always my favorite from my coworker and I knew it would be agreeable for the people I was giving them to, but she's also done strawberry cake and frosting, and even spice cake and cream cheese frosting; the possibilities are endless. I think next I'd like to do a combination of chocolate peanut butter, because that is delicious 100% of the time.

Recipe:
Ingredients:
1 box cake mix of choice (I did Pillsbury chocolate)
Ingredients required by cake mix
1 tub frosting of choice (I used Pillsbury milk chocolate)
2 bags candy melts in color of choice (I used "Bright White)
Sprinkles or embellishments of choice

Directions:
-Bake the cake according to the box instructions in a 9x13" pan (or however. You just need cake and the shape doesn't matter). Let the cake cool completely.
-In a large bowl, combine the cake and the entire tub of frosting. Mix together until well combined. I used my hand mixer and it worked well.
-Take small scoops of the cake/frosting mixture and roll it into small balls, about 1" around, maybe a smidge bigger. Place these on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Possibly multiple cookies sheets (again, I ended up with about 63 of them)
-Chill the cake balls in the freezer for at least an hour.
-Melt the two bags of candy melts according to package directions. Mine felt like they were taking forever to melt, but don't be tempted to turn the heat too high because if you overheat the candy melts, they'll lose their coating consistency and you can't get it back. I really can't stress how much better this process works with a double boiler than by the microwave method. I bought a double boiler just for the occasion.
-Sticking a toothpick into a cake ball, dip it into the coating and swirl it around to cover it completely. I also used a wooden spoon to help spread the coating, and to help remove excess so I didn't run out of coating.
-Quickly transfer your coated cake ball back to a cookie sheet covered in wax paper and add any sprinkles or embellishments before the coating cools too much for it to stick. I tended to use my wooden spoon to cover the hole left in the top from where the toothpick had been. I also sometimes used a plastic fork with the center two tines removed to help get cake balls off of the toothpick.
-Let the coating harden completely (only a few minutes). It compresses when it hardens, so some of them cracked, but not so much that they were unpresentable, and some of mine started compressing cake out of little holes in the coating, which looked weird. I just removed the squirted cake and they were fine.