Cake Balls

This is courtesy of Bakerella... who has the prettiest and most creative treats I've ever seen! I highly suggest visiting her site and drooling over all her delicious ideas. This was the third time I've made them. First was Christmas, and it was the most heavenly thing... I had to eat them all so you know, they wouldn't go to waste. The second time they were a disappointment, which is too bad because they were for a baby shower... I learned from my mistakes though (too little frosting and too much chocolate on the outside... and not enough crunchy sugar sprinkles) and this time they were delicious once again.

Here is the how-to on her site, but this one on the Martha Stewart site was a little more helpful. I just used half of the recipe, since I didn't make them into little cupcakes. Watch the video how-to as a helper... I didn't make these ones but the first half of the video was really helpful.


This is how I do it, edited 7/9 after I've had a few more trial and errors:

Supplies list:

-about a pound and a half of white chocolate (the GOOD kind... the kind you can buy at cake/candy supply stores (or our chocolate store has them too). They sell them by the pound and they are little white circles. If not-Walmart has a kind that is called Plymouth Pantry Almond Bark that will do. If you are able to get the circles-the safest is to get plain white or milk chocolate. The colors are pretty but because of the oil in them they drip oil sometimes and I have BAD luck with it setting, ruining some of the balls, etc. I've also NEVER burned a batch of chocolate and did so last week with some blue chocolate and there was a pound in the garbage.

-Sprinkles if you want-I get the big jar of clear Wilton ones at Walmart, the one with the huge grains-I think it gives it a tasty little crunch! You can, however, decorate them however (I mean look at Bakerella's site... I'm just not that brave yet)

-Cake and buttercream icing: if you want to go with chocolate, which is our faaavorite, get Devil's Food cake and a jar of chocolate buttercream icing. If you want red, get Red Velvet cake and vanilla buttercream, I've never tried white but I'm sure you could use an angel food mix and white buttercream.

-Sucker sticks and, if you need, baggies to go over them, and ribbon

-Styrofoam floral block to stick them in (4 or 5 long blocks should do), and wrapping paper to put over it and make it prettier than the green

That's all for one batch, makes around 30-40... so it'll depend on how many you need to make!

How to:

-Bake the cake the day before you need to make the cake pops. Cool it overnight.

-Cut about 1/2 inch off the edges of the cake (where it's a little dry) and bit by bit, put the cake in a food processor to crumble. ONLY do it long enough to crumble it-too long and you'll turn it into a glob (I know this).

-Mix the crumbs with 1/2-3/4 of the can (NO more) of icing (mashing it with clean hands is easiest) until at a nice moist consistency.

-Line a cookie sheet with foil, clear out a big spot in your refrigerator, and roll the cake mixture into balls that are about 1/2 inch big. Place those on the cookie sheet-doesn't need to be in a nice order or anything-and refrigerate them for a couple of hours (if you are in a time crunch you CAN freeze them for about 10 minutes-but I've found that the refrigerator method greatly reduces the risk of the shells cracking later on!)

-When you are ready to start and have all of your supplies out-glass bowl to melt chocolate in, sprinkles in a bowl, styrofoam blocks prepared, sucker sticks out-start melting the chocolate at 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until melted. Too much and you will burn it and it's not save-able.

-Take your tray of cake balls out-dip the end of a sucker stick in the chocolate and push it in the cake pop. When you are finished put them back in the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes, just for the chocolate to harden.

-Now it's time to dip. I used to bring the whole tray out but now I go one by one to reduce cracking. Take one of the cake pops out, dip it, and then holding it over the bowl, twist it and tap it until the excess chocolate has dripped off, or as much as you can get anyway. Be careful-the balls can fall in the chocolate! Immediately dip in the sprinkles and then stick in the styrofoam block (which should be in the refrigerator as well if you can). Repeat repeat repeat!

-They dry and set relatively quick. Cracks happen, but I don't really pay attention because they are so good I don't care. You CAN put a little more chocolate on with a paintbrush or something I'm sure if you are concerned about it though. Carefully put plastic bags over them if you want to.

Once they have set for awhile-I like to make them set overnight-they can be gently stored on their side in a container in the refrigerator. If I'm taking them somewhere I just keep them in the styrofoam though.

Good luck!