Cake Pops, perhaps a first and last

Can you stand one more cake ball post? This time I made cake pops. Bakerella and others do a beyond fabulous job on these. All those who excel will be happy to know that they need not worry about any competition from me.

I made chocolate cake balls with chocolate frosting in them. I dipped the ends of the popsicle sticks into melted chocolate before inserting them in the balls. I covered the balls in the same melted white chocolate before inserting them into a block of Styrofoam.

Uh oh....I didn't have enough Styrofoam to hold 47 cake pops.

Looking around for a substitute holder, hubby and I found nothing suitable so I went to Michaels to buy two more blocks. Styrofoam, for the purpose it was serving, is not cheap. I spent $8 on those blocks, plus whatever I paid for the original one last week.

One pound of chocolate melts didn't look like it was going to completely cover all the balls, so the last dozen got a half dip and were treated to very tiny red, white and blue round sprinkles. There is probably a technical trade name for them, but I am sure you are clever enough to get what I mean.

A few cake balls didn't hold up to being inverted on the sticks. One fell apart before decorating, two others had the nerve to wait until they were decorated. And let me tell you about my decorating disaster. I had half pound bags of red and dark blue chocolate melts from the cake and candy supply store. I melted a small amount of each in two squeeze bottles I have used for this purpose for years. My intention was to make star like designs, some red stripes with a small blue star or blue dots and other fun designs on the cake pops.

The colored chocolates were melted in the microwave, the same way I've done them for years, on a low setting. I stepped out of the kitchen to check for a minute and came back to smell something odd. The bottle with the red melts had split its seam near the bottom. It wasn't a bad mess to clean up. The melted chocolate and plastic had congealed into a sinister looking blob.

* sigh *

I melted more of the red in a measuring cup and used the tip of the spoon to drip red chocolate over blue squiggles.

Flavor-wise, they were a hit. Since many members of my extended family don't bake at all, they were unreasonably impressed with them. Bless their hearts. The 8 and 5 year olds loved them. I think I have attained celebrity status among those three kids, at least in the dessert department.

If I ever make these on a stick again, it will be only a few at a time for the kids. I didn't think to cover the Styrofoam with plastic or wax paper so I have blocks with dripped chocolate on them. Do I pick it off, shave a layer, or pitch it and say never again? I guess my mood will decide that later today.

In another post or two, I will talk about two super simple things I made for the gathering we had last night. No cooking was involved, just a can opener, scissors, a colander, bowl and spoon. That is my kind of cooking!

Cake Balls, second time around

Ok, yesterday I said I had been so frustrated over my first attempt at Cake Balls, I was never ever baking or cooking again.

I lied.

Tonight is going to be a salad supper at my knitting group. I made Cake Balls today that turned out much closer to the ideal picture I showed yesterday. Once again, I am not going to name websites because I read many while looking for advice. I took advice from here and there, and some bits of advice appeared in many sites.

I began with a yellow cake mix, baking it in two round layers. I like Duncan Hines.

I broke the cake layers in a large bowl. Anyone recognize the Tupperware bowl?

I broke it up further by using the mixer. Some use their hands, others use forks, and one woman wrote of using her food processor. Whatever works for you is just fine. That isn't butter in the bowl, it is canned frosting, Lemon by Duncan Hines.

When the frosting is well blended into the cake, it will almost look like cookie dough.

I scooped out balls, getting 45 of them again, and rolled them before putting the tray in the freezer. Depending on whose directions you read, you will never put them in the freezer, put them in for less than 5 minutes, put them in for an hour, or you'll put them in overnight. Mine were in for a bit over an hour. This photo shows the back half rolled, the front ones just having been scooped from the bowl.

This time around, I did not use Wilton Candy Melts. Wilton makes many fine products but I am not personally fond of their candy melts. When someone else mentioned this, I decided to try Kroger's brand as that was convenient. I melted the chocolate in a double boiler with the addition of a tablespoon or so of shortening to make it flow better. These first few were still looking a little rough, but I got better as I went along.

Since I still had white chocolate in a squeeze bottle from Saturday's attempt, I warmed the bottle in the microwave and added decorative lines to the balls.

They are resting on a sheet of wax paper while I decide how to plate them for tomorrow night's festivities. I'll be making them again next week when our extended family comes here to watch my town's fireworks. I think I will make them pops instead of balls, meaning they will go on lollipop sticks. I'll need to get some styrofoam to hold them while they set.

This looks much better than last week's dipped trio. The yellow cake with lemon frosting is a winning combination and the chocolate exterior makes it even nicer.

If you don't like melting chocolate or the idea intimidates you, the uncoated cake balls are really good as is.

I think pondering cake flavors and frosting combinations is going to be a fun past time.

Cake Balls

Have you read about them? Tasted them? Made them?

I have no idea who first wrote about them so I won't credit any blog or recipe source here. All I can say is that suddenly I seemed to hear or read about them every time I turned around. The basic directions called for a cake to be baked, cooled, crumbled, well mixed with a can of frosting (or an equivalent amount of homemade frosting), chilled, then scoops of this mixture rolled into balls and chilled again. The last step was coating them in melted candy coating melts. They were supposed to look like this. In this case, a red velvet cake mix was blended with cream cheese frosting and milk chocolate coating was the final touch. This particular image was the most frequently found image when I googled for cake balls.

There are many recipes/instructions for these simple little things. The one I followed said to let the cake cool for 15-20 minutes. I baked a chocolate cake in a 9 x 13 pan. After 20 minutes, it was still pretty hot when I began cutting it up and transferring it to a bowl. I attacked it with my mixer to get the crumbly cake into finer crumbs before adding the frosting. I had two half cans of frosting on hand, one dark chocolate and one milk chocolate. Sounding good, eh?

I refrigerated the mixture overnight. The time to chill wasn't specific, it was late and I was tired. The next morning I scooped the mixture into balls and attempted to coat them with white Wilton candy melts. Crumbs were breaking off and getting into the melted white chocolate.

I stuck the balls in the freezer for a while and tried this again. I should have anticipated the result. When warm chocolate meets cold cake ball, it doesn't flow gracefully over the ball, it sets in lumps. And in smears. And in frustrating ugliness.

I truly wanted to be a southern belle at that point so I could pitch a hissy fit, but alas I am a Michigander. All I could do was slam things around the kitchen and vow to never ever cook or bake again.

Bill, witnessing this from the safety of another room, asked if I might feel better with the air conditioning on which would lessen both the humidity in the house and decrease the steam escaping my ears. I tell you, that man is as smart and he is considerate.

The air came on, I took a shower, had a cold diet Coke and re-entered the scene of the crime. I really didn't want to make a third attempt at creating what is in the above photo so I warmed the candy melts again and put them in a squeeze bottle, then drizzled the white chocolate over the balls.

I tasted one of the pathetic looking balls and thought they might be too rich. To know my sweet tooth, you would be shocked to hear that. Not knowing exactly how they were supposed to taste and feel, I thought they were too soft and too much like fudge....not that fudge is a bad thing.

I took them to my son's barbecue anyway, telling Kim that this was not my proudest moment, but maybe someone would eat them.

Holy cow....they were a hit! One man asked me if I had been a crack dealer in a previous life because these things sure were addicting. 

The white squiggles tended to break as the cake balls gave way to pressure of fingers when being handled.  After researching this subject online, I've decided to try them again, probably later today. I will let the cake cool longer before mixing in the frosting. I will use less frosting to start off, adding more if I think it is needed. I will chill them only for a few minutes. I will not use Wilton candy melts. Wilton is good for many things, but their melts have never been my favorite and I can't recall why I even had them in the house. I will add some shortening to the chocolate melts I bought today and see if the result is smoother.

The cake mix is yellow and the frosting is lemon. Cross your fingers for me. I'll let you know how they turn out. Maybe I'll even save a few for you.