That’s CAKE... not CALF, just to be clear. Mmmm... cake balls. Have you heard of these little delights? They’re fun to make, ridiculously easy, and can be adapted in so many fun ways, one of which I’ll show you today in honor of All Hallow’s Eve, which is upon us tomorrow. I’d been making them for a little while but wound up adapting the basic recipe last year: I added RUM to the cake, and made a tipsy version... and proceeded to eat eleventy-hundred of them. Hiccup! We’ll make those together next month in preparation for the upcoming Thanksgiving/ Christmas season, if you think you can HANDLE the rum.
I decided to make straight-up cake balls with the kids yesterday, inspired by a delicious site called Bakerella—and let me just tell you, if you’re more of a meticulous cake/cupcake decorating type, if you’re artistically inclined and precise, or if you just enjoy admiring the work of those who are, you must check out her Halloween Cake Pops. They're absolutely puh-recious.
If, however, you’re not meticulous…if your kids insist on helping you whenever you attempt to bake anything remotely decorative... if you’re lucky to make it out of the kitchen in one piece on any given day and consider yourself a lucky woman if your Basset Hound hasn’t hoisted himself up on your countertop and absconded with whatever you’ve just spent two hours cooking (hypothetically speaking, of course) you might feel better after reading this post. I’m more the slop-things-together type. And I’m okay with that. I am.
At least I will be, with intensive therapy.
Seriously, CAKE BALLS in any form are a real treat. They can be made into “cakecicles” for kids, pass as truffles at a baby or wedding shower, or be arranged on a tiered cake plate for a really awesome presentation at Eastertime. They can be spiked with booze or adorned with sprinkles, swirls, and nuts... and are just plain fun to make.
So let’s do that! Call me crazy, but I think it’s only a matter of time before cake balls sweep the nation.
Or not.
Begin with this:
I used Red Velvet because that’s what I had on hand... plus, I thought it would make a nice “bloody” interior for the Halloween treats. But you can use any flavor of cake mix you want. (Yellow is one of my favorites, and the one I use for my Rum Cake Balls.)
Just prepare the cake according to the package directions, and bake it in a 9-by-13-inch pan. Cover the cake with a dish towel and allow to cool completely. Usually, I’ll bake the cake the night before and leave it covered on the counter ’til I need it.
When you’re ready to make the CAKE BALLS, begin gently crumbling the cake. I place sections of the cake into a large bowl, 1/4 of the cake at a time.
I use two forks and just gradually pull the cake apart.
And when 1/4 of the cake is finely crumbled…
Add in another section and crumble away.
When you’re finished, you should have a bunch of very fine cake crumbs.
And NOW…for the highly gourmet binding ingredient:
Prepared, store-bought icing!
I know, I know…try not to faint. I knew you’d be impressed.
The standard recipe calls for a whole container of icing, but I almost always use about 3/4 of the container. It’s entirely up to you—if you use the whole container, the CAKE BALLS will be extremely moist and sometimes slightly on the mushy side. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I tend to like the cake balls just slightly less moist.
Either way, you really can’t go wrong. We’re talking about CAKE here, people.
Use two forks to work the icing into the cake (or the cake into the icing; it’s all how you look at it.)
Keep at it, gently working the mixture together…
Until the icing is not longer visible. Even if you use white icing with devil’s food, the white will eventually blend in entirely.
This looks a little gross, doesn’t it? Kinda like hamburger? Or guts? Remember when Marlboro Man told me he saw my guts during my c-section?
I realize this is a very untimely moment to bring that up. I apologize with every ounce of my being. And my guts.
The next thing you want to do is roll the mixture into balls—I usually make them about walnut size. HINT: If you have a small cookie dough scoop, it makes it really nice. I just scoop the mixture, dispense it into my hand, then hand roll it from there.
And NOTE: you’ll need to rinse your hands every seven balls or so—things start to get messy, and you’ll need to refresh your canvas.
Look! CAKE BALLS!
Now, this is important: pop ’em in the freezer, uncovered, for at least an hour. You’ll want the cake balls to be very firm before coating them.
When the cake balls are nice and firm, go ahead and prepare your double boiler.
This is my double boiler—a glass bowl over simmering water.
I can’t be bothered with those OFFICIAL DOUBLE BOILER things. Too many pieces to keep track of.
Next, grab whatever color of melting chocolate you want. They sell these bags at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby for two bucks, and they come in lots of different colors.
You can also add food coloring to plain, white almond bark from the grocery store…but gel or powdered food coloring works better than the liquid stuff.
Dump the pieces into the bowl of the double boiler.
Stir occasionally…
Until the candy is totally melted and smooth.
Note: If you want the candy to coat the cake balls more uniformly (i.e. less gloppy) you can thin the chocolate with a little Crisco (vegetable shortening). I like to just jump in and go for it, though, and maintain my messy approach to life. But you have that option if you want it!
Now it’s time to coat the CAKE BALLS!
Here’s where it really helps for the balls to be very frozen and firm; decreases the likelihood of crumbs falling into the melted candy.
Here’s one way to do it. Gently drop the ball into the bowl to coat the underside…
Then gently (I’m gonna be saying “gently” a lot today, so please don’t be hatin’) lift the cake ball out of the candy with a fork.
Then, with a spoon, drip candy all over the top, thoroughly coating the ball. The fork allows the candy to drip back into the bowl.
Then, very GENTLY, transfer the coated cake ball onto parchment or waxed paper. These will make delightful little “truffles”, and you can pipe a contrasting color of candy over the top for a pretty, artistic presentation if that makes your skirt fly up.
But here’s a different method. I like this method a lot. Much more “fun” factor.
You can get these at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby. And they’re $1.99, okay?
Insert a stick sideways into each ball.
You’ll notice there’s a flattened area that resulted from the cake balls cooling on the pan. Don’t forget that’s there.
Now, you can either roll the ball in the candy, or spoon it over the top—whatever’s easier for you.
Whichever method you use, be sure to thoroughly coat the bottom of the ball where it meets the stick.
Lay them back down onto waxed or parchment paper, paying attention to the flat part (get it against the parchment again.)
Next, to decorate, put a small dollup of melted white candy on each purple ball. (You can buy small squeeze bottles in which you can actually melt the candy pieces in the microwave, but I’ve just used a small spoon before. No need to take it too seriously.)
At Eastertime, I squeeze dots of yellow and green melted candy on the purple cake balls to resemble decorated Easter eggs. The sky’s the limit.
Next, I love to use this:
It’s a very glossy icing gel, and it’s really, really groovy.
And again, $1.27 at Hobby Lobby or Michaels. And each tube takes you surprisingly far!
The black is my favorite—I have five in my pantry. It’s perfect for the pupils of one-eyed flying purple people eaters. (Bakerella’s PPE’s are very, very cute—see hers for more ideas.)
You can also make white “eyeball” cake balls, piping red gel icing all over the white part to resemble bloodshot eyes. Wouldn’t that be a great item at a party celebrating someone’s graduation from Optometry school?
“Well I saw the thing comin’ out of the sky—it had one long horn, and one big eye…”
Sorry. I just love Dr. Demento. I guess it’s an L.A. thing.
And look! You can use white candy, too. And I can’t decide whether this is a skeleton, an alien, or a ghost.
Anyone? Anyone? Well, it’s scary. That’s all that matters.
Purple…White…I think I’ll try some GREEN now.
If you work quickly (but GENTLY, of course), you can sometimes swirl the stick around and get it out without leaving crumbs behind.
Though sometimes, you have to spoon some candy over the base.
Green is fun. The black gel icing looks neato on it.
I didn’t have any orange candy, so we had to opt for green jack-o-lanterns.
And unfortunately, whenever you have girls in the room, you invariably wind up with a flower. Or two.
And my boys are responsible for the Ninja Turtle.
Flowers. Ninja Turtles. My kids are playing out gender stereotypes like there’s no tomorrow.
I probably could’ve used a little orange and red in the mix…but for my house, for my kids, I think they turned out just fine.
“Take me to your leader.”
Hey, I think green Jack-o-Lanterns should be given a chance in this world.
Oh, about the black icing gel: If you leave it alone long enough, it’ll set and become somewhat firm. But it’ll always stay glossy. It’s really fun stuff.
These are exceedingly fun to eat.
Just ask Massive Headwound Harry.
(Anyone remember that SNL skit?)
Sorry, Harry. But you’re just so darn delicious.
Ewww. That’s really gross, man.
The purple people eater needs to have a closer look.
He majored in pre-med.
It’s Thursday. Have you made cake balls today?
If not, well…get after it! It’s really a lot of fun.
Love,
Pioneer Woman
