Red Velvet Cake Balls

I am not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day, not because it is a hallmark holiday or anything, but because lately, I am not really a huge fan of holidays in general. However, Valentine’s Day gave me an excuse to try making Red Velvet Cake Balls.  My mom directed me to Bakerella where I read a post about these cake balls. To say the least, I was intrigued. Turns out, they are a brilliant idea, fairly easy to make, and quite tasty. One of my coworkers described them as “sexy;” I am not sure what that means, but I think that it is a good thing. 

To make the cake balls you need the following things:

1 box red velvet cake mix

1 can frosting (the recipe called for cream cheese frosting, but I used whipped vanilla)

1 package chocolate candy melts

1 package white chocolate candy melts*

*the original recipe calls for 1 package chocolate bark (regular or white chocolate) but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I settled on the candy melts that you can get at an arts and crafts store for making candy. I got both dark and white chocolate for added contrast on the actual cake balls.

Ok, to start, you need to make the cake based on the package directions. This was an exciting opportunity to use my new Rachael Ray cake pan. 

Turns out, I love it. This is no surprise as I adore her pots; she seems to know exactly what I want in cookware. 

All cooked, and resting and cooling. Patience here, patience.

 Once, the cake is all done and baked, you have to let it cool. ALL the way. I am impatient when it comes to things cooling, but you have to just wait it out. Once the cake is completely cooled, you are going to crumple it up into a bowl. This was seriously fun, but kind of messy. Your fingers may get a little red from the cake, so if you are really concerned about it, you can wear gloves (do this alone so no one with judge you). I used a combination of my hands and a rubber spatula. You will get the hang of it quick. 

Crumbled all in the bowl. It should fit if your bowl is large enough.

 Add in the entire can of frosting into the cake crumble. Don’t be concerned about the frosting changing the color of the cake, it will be absorbed into the cake. 

Integrate the cake and the frosting so it makes on cohesive whole. You are now ready to start balling the cakes, or caking the ball. Either one. 

To get the right amount of cake I used about ¾ of a tablespoon and rolled it into a ball using my hands. This can get pretty messy, but where is the fun in making if you can’t make a mess? 

Once rolled, place the ball onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. You should have about 2 cookie sheets chock full of balls. You should have about 4 dozen or so.

After reading the comments on the blog, I decided to experiment a bit. One commenter suggested freezing the balls over night. Whereas another commenter stated that the fridge is satisfactory. I put one sheet in the freezer and one sheet in the fridge. The directions are ambiguous with timing so I decided to leave them overnight. I am sure a few hours would suffice if you are scrapped for time. 

When the cake balls are cooled, you can start dipping them in chocolate. Melt the chocolate based on the directions on the package. I melted the chocolate in microwave, which I never do, but thought since the directions suggest using the microwave, they probably know better than me. So, melt the chocolate, stir, and you are ready to start dipping. 

The dipping process proved to be slightly more challenging than I suspected (unlike Buckeyes which are pretty easy). I trying using chopsticks and they just kind of fell apart in the chocolate. I was unsure how to proceed, but I remember seeing a tool in the candy aisle at JoAnn’s and decided to fabricate my own similar tool. I used an old fork (I think this fork actually walked away from my college dining hall and into my silverware drawer!) and bent in the middle two prongs to make kind of a resting place for the cake ball. This actually worked really well! 

This made me feel kind of brilliant.

 

I started with the dark chocolate melts and it actually went pretty quickly. I could only dip 1 sheet in the dark chocolate. The white chocolate melts were surprisingly low drama (I have had issues with white chocolate in the past, probably because white chocolate is not really white chocolate but cocoa butter. America’s Test Kitchen can lend some good insight into the whole white chocolate debacle). 

I made sure to save some white and dark chocolate to decorate the tops of the balls. These end up looking pretty fancy and are quite tasty. Enjoy!