You may have heard of cake balls, a sweet treat which is basically a chocolate covered ball of cake.  They have become increasingly popular from sites like Bakerella. Cake ball companies are popping up all over the country as these yummy little balls find their way into our tummies.

For Valentine’s Day I wanted to make my darling something special and that he could take home on the plane without much problem.  So, I made cake balls and they were a huge success!  Sweetie loved them and I did too.

In case you are thinking about making these yummy treats, I’ll share a bit about my experience to help you along.
First, the basic recipe for cake balls:
1. Make a cake- any kind!
2. Smash the cake into crumbs
3. Add a tub of icing (again, any kind, think of all the possibilities!) and mix together
4. Roll mixture into little balls and refrigerate for a bit
5. Cover balls in chocolate (I used Kroger “bark coating” which is what most people have used with great success.  Any candy coating will do)
6. Let chocolate cool and enjoy!
So now about my experience:
These were the most complicated thing I have ever made! I am a novice baker, by far, but in all my experience of cooking and baking, this was the most complicated thing.  It wasn’t difficult, but just complicated.  Making a cake is hard enough, but then smashing it to bits, mixing it with icing, rolling it into little balls (probably the hardest part) and then dipping that in chocolate (second hardest part) was a lot.  Rolling it into the little balls was hard because the mixture was sticky.  I tried an ice cream scoop, but it didn’t help. Rolling it by hard worked out, but my hands got really sticky.
Cake balls are definitely worth it and I plan on making them again!  Just plan a lot of time aside for making them.
Plus it made making baklava seem a lot easier after making cake balls

Use a boxed cake mix and one regular cake pan (not Bundt) I love baking and therefore thought I could make my own cake for the balls and it would turn out even better than a box.  I was wrong! I tried to make my own red velvet cake which tasted pretty good, but the consistency just did not work for forming into balls.  Plus I used a Bundt pan which added all sorts of edges that did not want to form crumbs. I read something about Bundts not being big enough too, so I got paranoid and used two pans.  Another bad idea which just itnroduced more hard edges to the mix.  I had to throw these guys into the trash which made me sad, but I was determined to have something great for my sweetie!
Here are some pics of my red velvet cake ball fail:

If you have one, use a pastry blender to make the cake crumbly. Just make sure it is super crumbly! A tip I got from another website.  I think some people used their food processors too.  This is definitely the most fun part!  But part of me feels morally wrong smashing up a cake.

To let the cake cool or not to cool? Online there is such mixed feedback on this from different bakers.  I think the cake is easier to crumble when cool, but the icing does mix in better when slightly warm.  When I crumbled it and added icing it was only mildly warm, plus I used whipped icing, which might have helped.  Some bakers have warmed the icing and added it to a cool cake.  The choice is yours

Ball forming tips? I don’t really have any. Just have patience and enjoy licking the crumbs off your hands when you are done because there will be a lot there!  I did try the ice cream scoop, but it wasn’t making it “ball-like” enough for me, although some bakers have had success from this.  One baker on All Recipes recommended keeping your hands moist and having a bowl of water to dip them in helped.  Next time I’ll try it!

Refrigerate or freeze the balls before dipping them in chocolate: It will make a difference in helping the balls stay together when dipped in chocolate.  I read that from another website and I think it really helped.  When I rolled the balls I thought, “There is no way these will hold up in melted chocolate”.  I had them in the fridge 1-2 hours, more wouldn’t hurt too.

Chocolate time: This is how I dipped the suckers in chocolate: I chopped up a few bricks of the bark coating and melted them on medium heat on the stovetop in a small saucepan and turned off the heat.  I took a cake ball and rolled fit around in the chocolate pushing it around with a fork, before spooning it out (with the fork, so the excess chocolate dripped down) and placed them on a covered sheet to cool.  This method worked out very well for me, except that I had to work quick with the chocolate (this was also my first time melting chocolate for dipping, so that was an experience itself). Also, I had to google how on earth to get the hard, burnt chocolate out of my saucepan (answer: boil baking powder in it). I melted more chocolate as well needed so the balls were easily rolled around in it, not drowning.

Most people have had problems at this point, but I think my method worked pretty well. Other solutions I saw involved toothpicks and breaking a plastic fork.

Decorating?I told my friend Sarah about my cake ball experience and how good they were and she made them as well.  Her main issue with them was their appearance. I added sprinkles and dark chocolate goo to mine, but I do need to work more on decorating them, so they look like this someday:

For now I will be satisfied with mine, after all my sweetie sure was!

I love my sweetheart very much.  He has loved video games his whole life and is currently living the dream of being a computer programmer for EA-BioWare working on games (I’m so proud of him)!  I wanted to make him something extra special so I made…

PAC MAN COOKIES!

My boyfriend loved them!  And they tasted absolutely delicious, the best sugar cookies I have ever made/had!

I followed this easy and fun tutorial from iD Tech Bloggers and used the cookie cutters from my new 101 Wilton cookie cutter set.  If you don’t have the tulip cookie cutter for the ghost, you can apparently make your own here.

Some of my Pac Men were structurally unsound, he kept breaking at his jaw-line. I’m not sure how to fix this, maybe he needs a smaller mouth.

I’m a huge fan of the website Snack or Die which features video game inspired foods.  I aspire to one day create something that will be featured on it!  My sweetheart fills me in on all sorts of cool games, maybe we can come up with a cool game-inspired food together.

These cookies seriously were the best sugar cookies I have ever tasted. AllRecipes is my favorite way to find recipes and this is what I found:

Best Rolled Sugar Cookies This really is the BEST. Use it for all of your rolled cookies! I rarely use butter in recipes (although I live in Georgia, I’m no Paula Deen) and used butter flavored shortening and I’m not sure these cookies could have been any better! They rolled very smoothly and cut out great. The dough got a little crumbly, but it was all fixed with mixing the dough together in my hands.

Sugar Cookie Icing This dried hard and looked great.  I messed around with the recipe a lot added more equal parts of corn syrup and milk until it was a good consistency.  I wish I remembered how much I did so I could tell you, but it was easy.  Instead of almond extract I used a lot of lemon extract which gave the cookies a wonderful flavor.  My sweetheart loves Italian cookies with a light lemon flavor like Grisbi or Anginetti.

It was my first experience using food coloring, I used the Wilton little tubs.  In my manual on cake decorating it says to use a toothpick.  After a zillion toothpicks I resorted to using a fork (it’s like 4 toothpicks at once) and came to the conclusion there has to be a better way to do this.    I was very pleased with the color though.

I hope to make more delicious game-inspired treats!