Tuesday, July 26, 2011

I Was Doing Cake Balls, Before Cake Balls Were Cool...

Apparently there is a "Cake Pop" craze right now. Just google them, and you will see. I have made cake balls for several occasions, for quite some time now, and I always get the same reaction... people LOVE them. When I tell them how they are made, they are shocked that they are so simple. You start by baking a boxed cake, following the directions on the back of the box. You can use any flavor but I prefer white.





After you let your cake cool, crumble it up in a large bowl.





















Next, take a can of your favorite icing, (nope nothing fancy about it) and put in about half of the container. Take off your rings, and go to town. Mix with your hands. When you are done mixing make sure to lick your hands clean! ;)









It should come clean from the sides of the bowl. If it doesn't, you probably need to add a bit more icing.








If you are boring, like my husband, then you are done. Scoop them with a cookie scoop, cool, and eat. You can make these cute by melting the remaining icing, drizzling, adding sprinkles, and placing in an ice cream cone.






...but I wanted to turn these plain cake balls into CAKE POPS, so I started by adding some chocolate and pink food coloring.















I got this!





I used my medium sized cookie scoop,









and rolled out balls of dough. They went onto a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. I then placed a stick in each one. Next, they took a trip to the deep freeze while I started my next step.








I can already hear the redneck jokes... Yes, this is a pan with a bowl on top. Yes, I am pretending it is a double boiler, and yes, I do bake/cook often and do not have one, nor do I have a working candy thermometer! I am that cool. I used this... whatever you want to call it, to melt a half a package of white almond bark.





See! It works just fine!














Put green food coloring into the bowl, that is still on the boiler. This is going to stiffen up your bark, but all you have to do is add a little crisco, and it will go back to the right consistency. That is a fairly new, and very helpful trick, that I read about.





Take the balls out of the freezer and dip them quickly. Once they begin to thaw, they won't hold onto the stick as easily.












Next, I took the remaining icing, and put it in the microwave for abut 25 seconds, until it was runny. Then added a different shade of green to it. ( I use Wilton's food coloring) Take a spoon and drizzle the green over the cake.






I did it! I took the plunge and had a bite, so that you could see the inside and how it looks like a sweet little watermelon. You could just use strawberry cake mix, but a watermelon that tastes like strawberry creeps me out... so TA-DA!



Your turn. The possibilities are endless... :)