Cake Balls for the Wedding

I told you that it was gonna be a while before I could get back here.  I trust that you all had a blessed CHRISTmas and have headed into the New Year running at full speed.  I know that several in our family has been hit with the crud, but for the most part we are ok now.

Cake Balls...When my son and his fiance asked if I would be willing to make cake balls for their upcoming wedding, I said "yes".  It is a ton of work and we had dozens left over, but it was all so worth it!  My kids don't ask for much, so I like to do what I can when they do.  Now though, I digress...back to cake balls.

There are lots of recipes for these online, but I am going to do a lot of pictures.  You should know by now that I am a visual person, and so that is how I teach too.  Let's get started...

Let's talk about cake and icing flavors.  I put white cake with white frosting, chocolate with chocolate, lemon with lemon, strawberry with strawberry, German chocolate cake mix with the coconut frosting,...you get the idea.

I mix it just like the box mix says, pop it into the oven, and set the timer.  Take this time to clean up the kitchen or toss in a load of laundry.  Multitasking will allow you to get so much more accomplished.  I don't know about you, but life is short and I have lots to do... or that I want to do anyway!  lol

There really isn't anything difficult about this next part.  Take the cake out and start scooping it into something that can take the heat and be put in the refrigerator.  Yes, start tearing up that cake as soon as you take it out of the oven!  Put it all in the bowl and just break it all up.  

This is where you are going to have to judge it for yourself as to how much frosting to put in.  Some days it seems to need more, and there are other days that it just seems different...maybe the weather outside and humidity has something to do with it?  I really don't know.  I do know that it takes between 3/4 to a full container of the frosting per cake mix.  I used full cans this time and it worked out fine.  Start mixing it...

Keep mixing...

There ya go, it is starting to look like cookie dough.  Now, cover it and put it into the refrigerator to chill.  Because I was doing these for a wedding and had about 500 cake balls to make, I did two and three cakes in a row.  I usually just leave mine in the fridge overnight and start making the cake into balls the next morning.  Yes, it is very time consuming!

Wax paper goes on a cookie sheet, I use the sheets that have sides to keep them from rolling around.  Then, I like to use a melon ball scoop to make them a more uniform size.  You will need to stop and wash your hands at times.  When it starts getting more room temp, your hands seem to get sticky.

Scoop it out, roll into ball, plash on the sheet and keep going til you are out of dough.  I can get about 3 dozen balls out of one cake mix.  Slide your cookie sheet(s) into the freezer.  You can dip them the next day.  IF you are not dipping them the next day, take them off the sheet and put into either an airtight container or into baggies.  I put mine into baggies and just stacked them, 500 balls take up a lot of space!  

I use Almond Bark for my dipping.  I know folks that use the chocolates from the Cake Carousel in Richardson, and some that use the bakers chocolates sold at the craft stores in the Wilton Cake section.  I just have not tried any of the others, and have stuck with what works for me.  I try to heat about half the package at a time, and there are good directions on the package. It takes "about" one package of Almond Bark per cake mix.  I hope that this has not confused you.  

You can see as my friend, Linda, is dipping this one...my preferred method of dipping is two forks.  Drop the ball in, scoop it out, and tap it a few times on the side of the bowl to get extras off. 

Some will look smoother than others, and I think that is partly due to the creaminess of the Bark. Ooops, let's back up just a bit...you can see my bag of cake balls that I cut open so that I could get to them.  Be sure to take them out to start a small room thaw for a few minutes BEFORE you heat up your Bark.  IF you dip these when they are straight from the freezer, they might crack or you might get a hole with some cake snaking out as they cool and have to have somewhere to sweat.  

From the fork, it goes back onto some fresh was paper to dry, harden and cool.

Because these were for a wedding, I took a small knife and trimmed all the drips of each one after they had hardened.  They just look nicer.

This is just to show you how you can get the frosting too hot and burn it!  Ewww....that one got thrown out.

This is from my chocolate ones, and you can just see the difference.  I will say that the chocolate Almond Bark always seems to melt and dip so much better than the white does.

After the balls have been cooled and trimmed, you are ready to put them into containers for eating or transporting.

This is what 480 cake balls look like!  Wow! Now, we did not serve them like this.  We had tiered glass plates that we displayed them on.  I think that I will have some pictures to share from the wedding in my next post and you should be able to see them on display then.

Well, that it is for now, and I hope to be back more regularly now.  IF you have any questions about the cake balls, please just leave me a comment and I will get back to you on it.  See ya in a couple weeks!!!  Stay warm, it is cold out there!