Tuesday, January 24, 2012

My attempt at cake balls

For Ethan's birthday I wanted to do something a little different. I normally order a cake from the grocery store bakery, and have been pretty happy with this particular store's cake. Until Dylan's birthday in October. It just wasn't great. So I was either going to bake my own cake, which didn't sound great, or try these cake balls. I'm usually up for trying different ways of doing things, so cake balls it was. I looked online for ways to do it and hopefully get some tips on how to do it better. I looked at a 'recipe' from Bakerella and one from a blog called Kelly's Korner.
I bought chocolate cake mix and vanilla icing. I also got candy coating from Kroger. I baked the cake and then used my food processor to pulse it and crumble it.












After it was crumbled, I mixed in the icing. I noticed while searching around for the recipe, that there was a bit of variation on how much of the icing to use. So I started with half of the container. I only ended up using about 3/4 of it. I just kept mixing it and trying to form it until it came together just right.












Then formed it into small-ish balls and placed them on a cookie sheet to go into the fridge to cool for a while before the whole candy coating part. I don't remember how long I let them chill. A few hours. Then came the coating. I had an awful time with this. I only melted a little bit at a time in hopes of preventing it from hardening before I got them all dipped. Well it still happened. It was a lot thicker than I imagined it would be. I don't know if I did something wrong or not. I followed the directions on the package and it was quite thick. I did manage to get them all dipped but due to the chocolate being sooooo thick, they weren't the prettiest things in the world.












You notice I tried to add color to them by adding colored sugar. After doing 2 of them, I realized that it wasn't going to work well, so I stopped. They don't look pretty do they? But you know what? They tasted great! Interesting too. The hard candy shell on the outside, and the soft, fluffy cake/icing in the middle.
When I served them at Ethan's birthday party, I served 2 per person along a scoop of vanilla ice cream. That was a fantastic combo, let me tell you! YUM. I had taken 2 of the cake balls and stuck candles in them for Ethan to blow out. I will mention his party a little more in another post. It was a small get together, but I didn't have it in me to go big.
I would like to try these again. I just don't know how to get the chocolate to be thinner. That is the problem.

7 comments:

  1. funny, I was just playing an online game with my daughter last night where you make cake balls & my son's bday is next month & thought I should make cake balls instead of ordering a cake lol! I think they look delicious :)

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  2. LOL! They are so good! Especially with ice cream.

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  3. If you ever have time, try them with home made icing. You won't believe the difference. And to help with the thick coating, add a little vegetable oil to thin it out.

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    1. I bet they would be fantastic with home made!!!! I will try that next time.
      Oil huh? Like a drop or 2 at a time? Thank you for the tip!!! I have to try something next time...and there will be a next time!

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  4. the only time i've made cake balls they looked identical to yours. the candy coating was so much harder to do than it sounds!
    I'm glad E had a good party!

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  5. Well Im glad that I am not he only one who had issues with that stupid candy coating!

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  6. Yes, it may looked not perfect, but i think kids didn't notice it at all?it looks like it taste good...I wish I cloud it also.thanks.

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