Lunch Pail: CAKE BALLS!

The holiday season is fast approaching, and we are always on the look-out for amazing recipes that will be good treats to bring to holiday get-togethers. Cake balls and pops are a really hot treat this year, so our good friend Jen Ell came by to show us how to make them!!

 

Cake balls are the in thing right now. How could you not love them….oooey gooey cake and frosting, rolled into a ball, covered in some sort of chocolate or candy coating. Some people are scared to try making them, or think they’re really hard but they’re not. The actual process and steps are easy, It’s just a bit time consuming. The cake balls I made while doing this tutorial just happened to be Halloween themed, but you can easily adjust the colors/flavors for whatever holiday, event or theme necessary.

Ingredients

- 1 cake mix & required ingredients
- 1 can of frosting (store bought or homemade)
- Candy Melts or Chocolate bark (1-2 packages)
- Pan(s)
- Bowl
- Mixer
- Spoon
- Oven
- Plastic wrap
Directions
1. Prepare the cake according to instructions, just follow the box. Bake it in whatever pan you have on hand. The size and shape does not matter. You can also choose to be an over achiever and make the cake totally from scratch. (Optional: To make it more Halloweeny I added a few drops of green food coloring to the cake prior to baking.)
2. When the cake is ready take it out of the oven, quickly cut it into squares and dump them all in a large mixing bowl.

3. Add the frosting and stir until everything is combined. (Optional: to make them more festive for Halloween I added a small container of Halloween colored sprinkles)

4. After everything is good and mixed up spread out some plastic wrap on the counter, then dump the contents of the bowl out on the plastic wrap. Using the plastic wrap form this into a log, wrap it up tight and put it in the fridge for a couple of hours.

5. Once it’s cooled down in the fridge and firmed up take it out. It should look something like this.

6. Take butter knife and chop it into squares. I do this to try and keep the size of the balls somewhat uniform. This can also help you decide just how many cake balls you’re going to make. I’ve found I can generally get between 40 and 50 out of one batch. If you know you need more cut smaller squares, and larger squares for fewer cake balls.

7. Lay some wax paper on a cookie sheet, and start rolling the squares into balls. Venture back to your childhood and pretend you’re playing with Playdoh. If they try to stick to your hands then spray some cooking spray on them. If this doesn’t work then it probably needs to go back in the fridge for a bit. Once you’ve rolled all the cake balls, place them back in the fridge for a couple of hours.

8. Now we get to the dipping, follow the directions on your dipping substance for the melting. It most likely says place in the microwave for 30 second intervals stirring in between until melted, or something along those lines. Spread some wax paper out on another cookie sheet and then start dipping the balls one at a time into the candy coating/chocolate. For this I use a fork. You could try stabbing and dipping them with a tooth pick, but in my experience they just fall off. If you use a spoon or tongs then you wind up with more melty goodness on them than the cake. (Optional: I find that the candy melts/chocolate are still a bit thick when completely melted. In order to thin them down just add about 1 tablespoon or so of shortening, melt and stir. This should be better a consistency to work with. The only down side is that you can see the cake through the thinner coating, to solve this you can dip them twice, but I typically don’t. If you thin down the coating you should only need one 14-16 oz. package, if you leave it thick then you need two)

9. Place the dipped cake balls in the fridge for about 30 minute to an hour until the coating is hard then enjoy! If you are dipping them twice then you take them out, dip again, re-refrigerate, then enjoy.

Tips:
- If you are making multiple batches at one time you can easily spread this process out in to a couple of days.
o Day 1 - Bake all the cakes, create the cake frosting mixture and pop in fridge over night
o Day 2 - Roll all of the cake balls and pop in the fridge
o Day 3 – Dip all of the cakeballs.
- Use only shortening to thin the chocolate/candy melts. Milk, water, etc will not work!
- Have fun with it! Experiment with different cake and frosting flavors.

Jen Ell is the owner and designer of the apparel and accessories company Jen Ell's Revenge, and also the mastermind behind all of the cute kid's clothing at Ankle Biter Apparel.  Jen Ell lives in Georgia with her new husband, and her fur babies!!!!