The Truth about Cake Balls

Happy New Year everyone! I can't believe my last post was in October! I feel like such a slacker--hopefully in the new year I'll keep up more with my blogging.
Many people have been asking me about how to make cake balls so I thought I'd post my "recipe" and all of my tips and tricks to hopefully make the process as painless as possible.
Supplies:

• 1 box of cake mix (& all it calls for to make the cake--typically just eggs and vegetable oil
  
• 1 can of icing


• 1 brick of almond bark


• shortening
  
• toothpicks
• wax paper
  

Process:

• Bake the cake according to the instructions on the box(I use a cake mix to help with the time, but if you have a wonderful homemake cake recipe you want to use-knock yourself out)


• Let the cake cool for about 15 minutes


• Cut the edges off the cake and discard (feed to the dog, husband, etc.)


• Dump the cake into a big bowl and crumble it up (I typically use 2 forks and all of my pent up aggression)


• Mix the cake with the full can of icing--be prepared for the gooey/delicious mess that this will create


• Stick the bowl with the mixture in the freezer for a while (I usually wait at least an hour)


• Roll the mixture into balls and place on a wax paper lined cookie sheet (you can do this by just grabbing some of the mix and rolling it with your hand, or you can use a cookie scoop and press the mixture firmly into the scoop. I prefer using the cookie scoop because it is easier to create more uniform balls, and I like the balls to have a flat bottom so they don't roll around). 1 box of cake and 1 can of icing usually makes a little more than 7 dozen balls.


• Freeze the balls at least 3 hours. (I typically let them stay in the freezer over night.)


• Melt 1/2 of the brick of almond bark and add 1 tablespoon of shortening. If you melt the whole thing it gets hard too quickly and the shortening is important to thin the chocolate a little bit.


• Stick a toothpick in the bottom of the cake ball and dip into the chocolate. Be sure to only pull a few cake balls out of the freezer at a time or they will become soft and more difficult to dip.


• After you dip the ball you need to twirl the chocolate around to let it set before you put it down onto wax paper. OR if you have a piece of styrofoam you can stick the toothpick into it, but you still need to let to chocolate set before your put it in the styrofoam or your cake balls will end up looking like the ghosts on pac-man.


• After the cake balls are dry you can decorate them however you want. For a friends wedding shower I drew pink hearts on the cake balls. For Trey's birthday we drizzled milk chocolate over the white chocolate. For Christmas I dipped them in crushed peppermint before the chocolate was completely dry.
  

The combination possibilities are endless! We've made:

• Strawberry cake, cream cheese icing, white almond bark with chocolate drizzle


• Yellow cake, cream cheese icing, chocolate almond bark


• Red Velvet cake, cream cheese icing, white chocolate almond bark with red drizzle


• Triple chocolate fudge cake, chocolate icing, chocolate almond bark coated in crushed peppermint.
  

ALL were delicious! If you're making them for the first time be prepared because the process if very time consuming, but the results are worth it!

Happy Baking! xoxo, Shel & Bert