Cake Balls...

What an elegant name. I mean the term 'cake balls' just sounds super classy.

Okay, so I'll admit it. The past few weeks I might have been a bit lazy with my baking. I'll admit to thinking to the years of my childhood and remembering what I made then so that I could make it now very easily. Rice Krispies. Check. Break and Bake cookies. Check. I decided this week I would step it up and make something a bit more complicated. You know, something with more than one step. I'll let you know when I finish this last step...

I started making the cake balls on Thursday night. It was my only night at home with a lot of nights being spent doing things for my sorority philanthropy. Lindsey and I decided to go to the store for the first time in who knows how long. We came home and she once again cooked dinner while I started dessert.

The concept of cake balls is pretty easy. You buy a box of cake, a tub of icing, and then baker's chocolate. Lindsey liked the concept of yellow cake, chocolate icing and then baker's chocolate. I had never done this combination although it did sound delicious. In the past, I had always done red velvet.

The first thing you do is bake the cake. You can bake it in whatever size pan you want, including as cupcakes. Once the cake is baked and cooled, you crumble the cake up into a bowl. You then add the entire tub of icing you have to the bowl of crumbled cake. Stir it until the cake is completely mixed in with the icing.

The next part is the fun part. Use your hands and begin making the mixture into balls. I usually do golf ball sized cake balls. The balls won't look perfect since they are at room temperature but just as long as you separate them it should be fine. Put all of them on a tray covered with foil and once done with the whole mixture you can put them in the fridge. To be honest, I usually put them in the freezer just to speed up the process. After being in the fridge/freezer for a while, you re-roll the balls into more smoother circles. Having them chilled makes the consistency easier to do that. After you are done, you can begin melting the baker's chocolate either by microwave or stove. Either way, only do a few pieces of the baker's chocolate at a time because once it is cooled, it is harder to work with. You melt the chocolate and then cover the cake balls with the melted chocolate. Put them back on a piece of foil or wax paper and let them cool and harden. Ta da! You are done.

I would say that cake balls are easy and don't take a lot of time but it is currently Sunday and I am still working on mine. But we can blame that on my microwave that likes to stop working completely after 2 minutes. I guess this could be a good thing because only a few cake balls get covered with chocolate at a time leaving less for me to eat at one time.

Cake balls are typically a big hit. They look more complicated than a real cake but only involve one more ingredient. People love the hardened chocolate element too and then biting into it to have a gooey cake mixture inside.