Cake Ball Fiasco

by Ty
(Austin, TX)

Me and my fiancee aren't getting married until June of 2010, but we wanted to start experimenting with what kind of food to serve at our wedding since we are planning to cater it ourselves to save money. I came up with the idea of serving little cake balls as dessert at our buffet. Here is a tutorial on how to make your own.

What you will need:
Cake
Frosting
Lollipop sticks
Melting Chocolate Discs
Wax Paper

Optional:
Candy Cups
Nuts
Powdered Sugar
Sprinkles
Coconut Flakes

1. Bake the cake flavors of your choice. Since me and him were just practicing with this idea we opted for box cake mixes instead of making a homemade cake. I used french vanilla and chocolate cake mixes.

2. Once the cakes are done baking let them cool. When it's cool enough to touch with your hands put the different cake flavors in large, seperate bowls. When you get them into bowls start smashing and tearing up the cake until it finally reaches a sand like texture. It's important to make sure there are no clumps.

3. Time to get messy! You are going to add a handful of whatever type of frosting you want into your cake as a binding agent. I used buttercream frosting for the french vanilla cake and caramel frosting for the chocolate cake. The amount of frosting you need is determined by however much cake you have. Be sure not to go overboard with the frosting where the consistency of the mixture is gooey. You need just enough frosting to make sure that the crumbs will stay together when you mold them into balls.

4. After mixing in the frosting, you are then going to mold the mixture into little balls the size you want your cake balls to be. I recommend not doing a ball any larger than the size of the circle your index and thumb finger make. When you mold all the balls insert a lollipop stick into each of them, making sure not to go all the way through the ball.

5. Freeze the cake balls for 20 minutes or until the lollipop sticks are held firmly inside the balls. Remove the balls and then melt some milk chocolate, white chocolate, or dark chocolate in a microwave safe container. You will then pick up one of the balls by the stick and spoon chocolate over it until you get a nice, even coat around the entire ball.

6. Now this is the fun part! It's time to decorate. You need to add any decorations you want on the ball while the chocolate coating is still soft and not hardened. You can use nuts, coconuts, chocolate candy, powdered sugar, sprinkles, etc. You're only limited by your imagination. For the purple, brown, and tan colored balls my fiancee used homemade colored marshmallow fondant, but you can get the same color effects by melting white chocolate and adding food color to it. =)

And there you have it, CAKE BALLS!