Inspired by Angie at Fluid Pudding, this week I made cake balls (or truffles, depending on your preference). She had been posting about them for a while, and finally did an instructional post on some she made. It inspired me to get baking.
And bake I did. I started with my grandmother’s buttery bundt cake, which I baked on Wednesday night just after the kids went to bed. I love this cake. You know what makes her bundt cake awesome? The orange juice. Yes, her cake features OJ. And cinnamon sugar swirls in the middle. See?
On Thursday night, after I scarfed down a small slice of cake, I cut away half the cake and turned it into crumbs. I couldn’t face “getting rid” of the entire cake, so I only used half. This way I can enjoy slices of cake AND cake balls.
The next part was easy. I mixed in 3/4 of a can of icing into the cake crumbs. We chose buttercream, since we had a buttery bundt cake. You can never have enough butter! Once I had a mass of sticky (but not goopy) cake crumbs, Denis and I began rolling them into balls. And despite using only half a cake, we ended up with a LOT of balls.
I put them in the freezer over night. Upon arriving home from work today I melted some milk chocolate pieces (Wilton’s melting chocolate) and began dipping the balls in the chocolate. It’s not as easy as it sounds. The chocolate doesn’t stay liquid very long, so you have to work very quickly. And since the chocolate dries quickly, if you want to put sprinkles on them you have to work even more quickly. I think I did okay though.
CootieGirl asked if she could help. Guess how long she helped? Long enough to put sprinkles on ONE truffle. Pfft. However, in quick time I got them all dipped and sprinkled. Don’t they look pretty?
But I didn’t stop there. I did something special with 1/3rd of the balls I made. I put an additional treat in them. CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH. Yep, about 1/3 of those are cookie dough in cake, dipped in chocolate with sprinkles on top. Talk about decadent. I was hoping one of the ones I put on that plate had the cookie dough in it, but upon cutting all of them open they were all just plain cake balls.
Still delicious, but no cookie dough. But they are there….just waiting to surprise some lucky taster.
So thanks, Angie, for the inspiration! It was a lot of fun!
They’re lovely!!! I’m loving the chocolate chip cookie dough idea! (A friend of mine rolls caramel chunks into hers, and I hear they’re amazing.) That cake looks delicious. I’m with you on only being able to crumb half of it!
Fantastic! They look absolutely delish. Wish I could bite into one right now. The original recipe for the cake also called for Butter flavored oil which I don’t think is made any more. Did you add the butter extract, too? Yep, that along with the orange juice makes one terrific cake. One teeny thing I noticed…no nuts. All you people out there, it is supposed to have chopped walnuts mixed into those cinnamony layers as well. Yessiree, it is one delicious cake!
I’ll have you know my cinnamon swirls DOES have nuts – even though they may not be visible in the pic, they are definitely there. And yes, I added butter extract.
butterlicious.com has butter flavored oil.
Those are some pretty little cake balls. They must have been so much fun to pop in your mouth and eat. I have a sweet treat linky party going on at my blog and I’d like to invite you to stop by and link your cake balls up. http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com/2011/03/sweets-for-saturday-10.html
Impressive woman!