Thursday, January 8, 2009

Red Velvet Cake Balls


If you haven't ever stumbled across the site Bakerella, I urge you to go check it out. Not only is Bakerella really good at baking and writing, she is insanely creative and talented at food decorating. I am always amazed at her little creations and how picture perfect they are. She makes me want to spend just a tad bit more time when I'm putting on the finishing touches of my baked goods.

So I snatched her very popular recipe for cake balls and found out exactly why they're so famous. And I was surprised at how easy they were to make. I must admit I stared at the picture of her cake balls for a long time and wondered - first of all, how did she do that? And second of all, how long did she spend on hers to make them look that perfect?

This recipe is extremely easy. But be warned, unless you're extremely patient and have a lot of time on your hands, they'll probably come out as brown chocolate blobs like mine did. But the good news is that they're reeeeeally good and you'll get a lot of compliments. My hubby took some to work and was told that I needed to open a business selling these. I don't think they would have said that if they compared mine with Bakerella's, but I guess it's agreed that they tasted good!

Just a note on the recipe - Bakerella suggests using chocolate bark for the outside coating. I couldn't find chocolate bark, but my supermarket sold bags of chocolate candy coating, which worked great for me. And only melt a little at a time - it coats better when it's hot and very melted. If you try them, let me know what you think!


Red Velvet Cake Balls
(recipe from Bakerella)

1 box red velvet cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake)
1 can cream cheese frosting (16 oz.)
1 package chocolate bark (regular or white chocolate)
wax paper

1. After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.
2. Mix thoroughly with 1 can cream cheese frosting. (It may be easier to use fingers to mix together, but be warned it will get messy.)
3. Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50. You can get even more if you use a mini ice cream scooper, but I like to hand roll them.)
4. Chill for several hours. (You can speed this up by putting in the freezer.)
5. Melt chocolate in microwave per directions on package.
6. Roll balls in chocolate and lay on wax paper until firm. (Use a spoon to dip and roll in chocolate and then tap off extra.)

Makes 45-50 cake balls.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've had my eye on this recipe for a while and now I want to make them even more - they look awesome! I hope you'll make the French Pear Tart sometime - it was seriously good!

Anonymous said...

These look beautiful! I've never made cake balls before, but they look like a fun treat to try!

Kristin said...

Mmmm, I'm a sucker for anything with cream cheese in it. These look great!!

Cathy said...

I had never seen Bakerella's blog before -- wow! These cake balls look soooo good. And they are so little and innocent; surely one or two or ten of them can't hurt, right?

Pamela said...

I think they look really good! I've been wanting to make these, too. But I need an occasion...can't have these laying around the house, that's for sure!