Recipe: Cherry Chip Cake Balls

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted a recipe.

So I should probably begin by saying that I didn’t originally set out to make cake balls. My goal was to make cake pops, those cute little round decorative things on sticks. Except the stick part didn’t work out so well, because I didn’t freeze them and I made them too big. Yes, cake pop virgin here. So here’s a recipe for cake balls instead. Or cake lumps. Cake dollops? Regardless, they taste good.

Ingredients:

1 box cherry chip cake mix (or any flavor you like!)
3 eggs (or whatever your box-o-cake says is necessary)
1/2 cup vegetable oil (see above)
1 container of cream cheese frosting (or any flavor you like, again)
2 bags of candy coating (or any meltable chips, I used Vanilla Candy Melts and Cherry Flavored Baking Morsels)
Sprinkles and/or other decorative wonders
Food coloring (if you want to get fancy… I didn’t)

IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO MAKE CAKE POPS, PLEASE ADD:

Cake pop sticks
Styrofoam

1) Start by making yourself a nice little cake. Just follow the directions on the box, and make sure it cools completely before the next step. (You can also make a cake from scratch for this step. I’m just impatient and there is no way to recreate the magic that is cherry-chip-cake-from-a-box. None.)

Just in case you need some inspiration, I highly suggest you watch this whilst cake-baking:

2) Crumble the hell out of that cake. Trust me, this will break your heart. A newborn cake, crushed mercilessly in your unforgiving hands. Just remember, it’s for the greater good.

3) Spoon out that frosting and mix it up with your cake crumbles.

4) Here’s where it gets messy. Take tiny lumps of cake-frosting batter and roll them between your palms to make little balls. The size is up to you, but if you’re looking to make cake pops, I’d try to keep them on the tiny side–mine were about the size of golf balls, and proved to be too heavy to work with the sticks. Thus, cake balls.

5) Throw your cake balls/pops in the freezer for about 30 minutes to an hour. I happen to have a narrow-ass freezer, so there’s where mistake #2 came in: they didn’t fit, so I threw them in the fridge for a few hours. They firmed up a bit, but if I wanted to head the cake pop route, the freezer would have helped tremendously.

6) Pretending my workspace isn’t such a disaster zone, you can see my cake pop flop. Too heavy for the stick. But anyway. Melt the chocolate/candy coating and pour it into a cup or glass. If you’re making cake pops, dip it on in. If you’re a complete baking failure like myself and have resorted to cake balls (they’re good, promise), I find it best if you drop the cake ball into the glass and spoon the coating over it until it’s covered. Then spoon it back out onto a plate, and cover it in some sprinkles before it dries. Freeze/refrigerate. If you’re cake popping, put the sticks into your styrofoam and put them back into the freezer/fridge for a bit.

You may notice I didn’t include any photographic evidence of the dipping part. That’s because it was a huge mess and I was trying to hurry so I wouldn’t have to remelt the chocolate. Ever so sorry.

You now have cake balls/pops. They may not be symmetrical. They may not be smooth, or uniformly-sized. But they taste amazing. Well, that’s all the time we have for today; we’ll see you next time on Glamburger’s Dysfunctional Kitchen Adventures.