This weekend is another one of my friends birthdays and y'all know what that means...baking! I tried to ask her what she wanted but couldn't get a hold of her so I started doing some research for something yummy. I probably spent a good 2 hours on Pinterest, which I would recommend to anyone to get one but I have to warn you it will take over you life...no really it will. Anyway, I got kind of overwhelmed with so many choices so I tried to narrow it down. I finally narrowed it down to 3 but for some reason I have been wanting to make a red velvet something so I decided on red velvet cake balls. I've never made cake balls either so I can now officially check that off my baking list. I found the recipe from google off of a website called Bakerella but I tweaked it a little bit as always. Here is the recipe that I used...
1 box red velvet cake mix
1 batch of low-fat cream cheese frosting
1 package of white chocolate bark (can either use regular or white)
Wax paper
First thing that I did was bake the cake according the the directions on the box. I used a 13 x 9 pan because that's what the Bakerella recipe called for. The batter looked like straight blood though. Take a look...
Ew.
The batter actually stained our sink red too but I washed it out thankfully. I cooked the cake for about 35 minutes and took it out to cool. Meanwhile, I made the cream cheese frosting which called for...
1 8 oz. block reduced-fat cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
I added all the ingredients for the icing in a bowl and blended them with our hand blender until fully combined. Once the cake finally cooled, I cut it into smaller sections, crumbled it up, and added it to the bowl with the frosting because that's the only big bowl we have. This is where it got SUPER messy. I was mixing the cake and frosting by hand because I figured that would be the easiest thing to do. My hands have never been so messy and red in my life. I mixed it all together thoroughly and started to form them into small balls. This was a bit difficult and also very messy because I'm not sure if there was enough cream cheese frosting or not. Some of the cake would like flake off so I just did the best I could to make them stick together and I just went with it. I put the balls in 2 plastic containers and put them in the fridge overnight to cool. You don't have to leave them in the fridge overnight but it was late and I knew that I wouldn't have time to do the chocolate coating so I just figured leave them there all night. Here's what they looked like pre-chocolate coating...
I honestly can't tell y'all how many it made because it really depends on how big you make them. I would say that it made over 30 at least but again it just depends because some were bigger than others. Anyway, the next day I added the final touch...the chocolate coating. I broke the package of chocolate bark in half and placed half of it in a microwave safe bowl. I microwaved it for about a minute but it was nearly melted enough so I put it back in the microwave for another 30 seconds. It was melting better but still not fully melted so I microwaved it again for two 15 second intervals and that did the trick. I had to work fast though once the chocolate was melted because once the chocolate gets cool it gets very hard.
The recipe I went off of said to use a spoon to dip it in and out of the chocolate but I honestly ended up using my hands most of the time. Honestly there is no good way to make them look pretty and covered in chocolate but I figured as long as they taste good, who cares? Once I ran out of melted chocolate, I repeated the microwaving process again and continued to cover the other cake balls in chocolate. Sadly, I ran out of chocolate though. I'd say about 2/3 of the cake balls got the chocolate coating so next time, I will buy another package of the chocolate. I tried to be inventive and melt some remaining white chocolate chips that I had on hand but it was kind of a fail in that they didn't melt very easily or stick to the cake balls very well...o well live and learn I guess haha. Now, time to have a taste and they were great! The birthday girl, my roommates, and my family all loved them so this is definitely a crowd pleasing recipe! It is a little labor intensive I must say but if you're willing to put in the time and effort, they are definitely well worth it!
Finished product YUM.
I honestly can't tell y'all how many it made because it really depends on how big you make them. I would say that it made over 30 at least but again it just depends because some were bigger than others. Anyway, the next day I added the final touch...the chocolate coating. I broke the package of chocolate bark in half and placed half of it in a microwave safe bowl. I microwaved it for about a minute but it was nearly melted enough so I put it back in the microwave for another 30 seconds. It was melting better but still not fully melted so I microwaved it again for two 15 second intervals and that did the trick. I had to work fast though once the chocolate was melted because once the chocolate gets cool it gets very hard.
The recipe I went off of said to use a spoon to dip it in and out of the chocolate but I honestly ended up using my hands most of the time. Honestly there is no good way to make them look pretty and covered in chocolate but I figured as long as they taste good, who cares? Once I ran out of melted chocolate, I repeated the microwaving process again and continued to cover the other cake balls in chocolate. Sadly, I ran out of chocolate though. I'd say about 2/3 of the cake balls got the chocolate coating so next time, I will buy another package of the chocolate. I tried to be inventive and melt some remaining white chocolate chips that I had on hand but it was kind of a fail in that they didn't melt very easily or stick to the cake balls very well...o well live and learn I guess haha. Now, time to have a taste and they were great! The birthday girl, my roommates, and my family all loved them so this is definitely a crowd pleasing recipe! It is a little labor intensive I must say but if you're willing to put in the time and effort, they are definitely well worth it!
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