900 Cake Balls

From her post over Easter weekend, Rebecca explained,

“I have been too busy to blog lately. And the main reason is that I have been making cake balls, for Debby’s wedding. I am glad to report that I have survived, and it’s all finally over! 😉

“Cake balls are something that I had never heard before. My dad sent me a text awhile back asking me to try making some, because he needed ‘a reliable cook’ to try them out. Uh ok! So after looking up some instructions on the internet I got busy. I started with 4 flavors, chocolate, strawberry, lemon and rainbow chip.

“Then I passed them all out after giving Debby a bunch to try.”

I decided to hijack this post and make it my own. -evil laugh number 14-

Cake balls are pretty simple in concept, but VERY time consuming. As the name implies, they start out as a cake.  The beautiful thing about making these little morsels of wonderfulness is, you can use ugly cake to make them.  The cake is then mixed with frosting until thoroughly mixed, then they are shaped and dipped in chocolate.  As the pictures below show, white, milk, or dark chocolate all work for these.

She expanded her original four varieties into a total of 11 (yes, eleven!) different flavours!

Rainbow Chip.

In our taste tests, this one was referred to as “cupcake flavour” by children.  And we don’t blame them! It was white chocolate coated Rainbow chip cake blended with rainbow chip frosting. the finishing touch was confetti chocolate drizzles. It certainly has a party appearance to it, although the taste is still sophisticated enough for adults.

Quadruple Chocolate.

This cake ball was chocolate cake and chocolate frosting, coated in milk chocolate, with dark chocolate drizzled on top.  I really wasn’t sure what to call this (these names ARE working titles only, of course), but the thought of how much chocolate goes into this is rather overwhelming.  Now, if only I could figure out a way to get chocolate chips and chocolate drizzles into these, and they’ll be a true “death by chocolate” experience!

Red Velvet

The “Southern tradition” of Red Velvet, from what I’ve read, is really classic and popular in the south.  My first experience with it was at the buffet restaurant, Golden Corral.  A deep red cake with a hint of chocolate flavour, blended with a mild cream cheese frosting, coated in white chocolate, with drizzles of red.  This was one of the most popular flavours in our family and trials.

Ultimate Carrot.

What better name for it?  This was a moist carrot cake, merged with crushed pineapple, raisins, coconut and chopped pecans. Adding cream cheese frosting for the perfect taste, and then dipped in white chocolate, drizzled in orange stripes.  Not to be confused with Orange or Pumpkin (coming soon!)

Almost Fresh Strawberry

Rebecca insists that to be called “Fresh,” it needs to have fresh strawberries added, but that wouldn’t keep very well.  A rich strawberry cake blended with strawberry frosting is almost overwhelming for haters of the berry, but if you enjoy strawberries, it’s quite the experience.  Once dipped in dark chocolate and drizzled with pink, you won’t even miss the fresh fruit.

Vanilla Chocolate Chip

Aren’t they cute?  This was actually a basic vanilla flavour, but we found adding chocolate to anything can really make it better.  French vanilla cake and frosting, with mini chocolate chips, dipped in milk chocolate and decorated (by hand, of course!) with little dots.  Quite the contrast to the rainbow chips in the aforementioned cupcake flavour up above.

Lemon

Lush, lush lemon.  This was one of the four original flavours Rebecca made in her trials, and found the white chocolate coating really helped the tangy lemon flavour come out, while the initial tests of milk chocolate masked the taste.  Simply lemon cake, mixed with lemon frosting, with yellow stripes on the white chocolate coating.

Pina Colada

I know, I know, it’s just Pineapple Coconut, but there’s something special about using the Spanish name for it.  This was my personal favourite to design and decorate.  A pineapple cake with extra pineapple mixed in for texture, plus flakes of coconut, dipped in white chocolate, then dipped in toasted coconut.  Aren’t they just divine?

Butter Pecan

Okay, I’ll admit it.  Discussing this flavour didn’t excite me.  I always have high expectations for Butter Pecan ice cream, yet am always disappointed, so when we looked at Butter Pecan cake, I wasn’t thrilled at first.  But when cream cheese frosting and chopped pecans were added to it, the result was so sweet and tasty!  This was dipped in milk chocolate and drizzled with milk chocolate stripes (although I’m sure I can convince Rebecca to roll these in chopped pecans next time.)

Chocolate Rum

Wow. Simply wow.  When I was on my mission in England, some bakeries carried items called “Rum balls” which were just large moist balls of some kind of cake, rolled in sprinkles.  I don’t think there was real rum in them (never asked), but the flavour was something else.  These are very close; chocolate cake mixed with chocolate frosting and rum flavoring, give quite an overwhelming rum taste (you either like it or don’t!), dipped in dark chocolate and topped with chocolate sprinkles.  Not to be confused with a See’s Candy Bordeaux, since they are so much better!

German Chocolate

After making the Pina Colada flavours, we thought it would be pretty to decorate these in a reverse colour scheme.  German Chocolate cake was blended with coconut pecan frosting, giving a subtle coconut flavour on the inside, then dipped in milk chocolate and topped with flaked white coconut.  Similar to the regular chocolate in flavour, but you can certainly taste the coconut inside and out.