Sadly, I am attending another farewell to boobie gathering for a friend who will have a mastectomy. But we are all bringing breast themed food items, which is a fun distraction. Last time I attended a farewell party, I made melon balls and gave them berry nipples.
Truffles seemed like a good idea. I even tried out a recipe with avocado and chocolate last week, but they didn't go over too well with my family. Cake balls or cake pops also came up in my searches. I hadn't eaten cake balls before, but I had seen them and heard about them. Though I hadn't quite grasped the entire concept.
Cake balls it was. Generally cake is baked, crumbled up, mixed with frosting and formed into balls. Then the newly formed ball is dipped into chocolate flavored coating.
I was set on spice cake with pumpkin; cream cheese frosting seemed like the way to go. I checked around to see how others had had success with that. I found two references to only using cream cheese, not cream cheese frosting. Also, the spice cake mix can be made with only a can of pumpkin, or water and pumpkin and sometimes eggs.
These were to be a healthier version of pumpkin spice cake balls. The process took less time than I expected which was a nice surprise. I used a spice cake mix and added a 15oz can of pumpkin and one egg. I placed the sticky batter in a 9x13" glass dish sprayed with Pam. After baking about 27 minutes at 350 degrees, I let it cool completely and cut the cake into sections.
The whole cake seemed pretty soft and moist but I did trim off the edges in case. This also gave the young one some nice samples. I had a package of softened cream cheese, the lower fat, neufchâtel variety. I crumbled the cake into fine pieces with my hands, then added the chopped up cream cheese. The mixture became smooth and dough like. The next step was to form balls. The consistency of the cake and cream cheese made it very easy to roll balls. I placed them on wax paper and then put them in the freezer. I intended to just leave them 15 minutes, but then I had to pick up the middle one and they ended up being in the freezer a bit longer. My concern was that if the balls became frozen and then thawed, they might crack the chocolate coating.
12/21/13- For round two of Pumpkin Spice Cake balls, using only 1/3 of the cream cheese complimented the moist pumpkin spice cake even better.
12/21/13- For round two of Pumpkin Spice Cake balls, using only 1/3 of the cream cheese complimented the moist pumpkin spice cake even better.
In my research of cake ball making, I saw that a small chocolate melting pot might be a nice accessory. This information was just after I has unsuccessfully melted chocolate for the avocado truffles. I gathered my coupons and found the last one on the shelf! In addition, I purchased some new chocolate: pumpkin spice in a nice orange.
While the chocolate melted, I allowed the nearly frozen cake balls to warm up a bit too. The chocolate melted perfectly. I began with white and covered the first sheet of balls, it went pretty well. I used a fork to lift the balls out of the chocolate and allowed the excess to drip off. The second sheet of "balls" had a flattened bottom and was a bit more dome-like to resemble breasts.
With my daughter's help, we added pink to the white and finally decided to add a little bit of orange too. It yielded a nice color. I had hoped to find pink m&ms for nipples, and also considered fondant. Finally, I hoped to create nipples out of pink melted chocolate, but my result was a bit messy. The pink chocolate was too warm and wanted to run everywhere out of my decorator bag. Interestingly, the orange chocolate decorations I added to the white balls was perhaps not warm enough and too thick. I thought I might have challenges with the dipping, but that was the easy part.
After sleeping on it, I decided to try the orange again. The old orange came off easily. I melted new orange and it still was rather thick. I considered adding coconut oil or shortening, but decided to add some white chocolate which had melted so nicely. It helped a bit. I think the orange spice just melts differently.
I got to try both the chocolate and the pumpkin spice balls. Both were yummy! Thanks! If I had to pick one over the other, I think I would say I like the pumpkin spice ones a little more. They were very good, and the only change I would even think about would be maybe a little less "dip".
ReplyDeleteThanks again!
You're welcome! Glad you could try them. Thanks for the feedback. I do feel there is an art to melting the chocolate coating and allowing enough of it to drip off before cooling.
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