Red Velvet Cake Balls

Last week, I made red velvet cake balls in the Valentine's Day spirit!

Regardless of the occasion, though, cake balls are a delicious and crowd-pleasing treat to make if you have some time.

You only need three things:

Cake

Frosting

...and Chocolate!

Often it's easier to make them with box cake mix and canned frosting, but this time I really wanted red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting and could not find any canned frosting of that flavor on short notice, so I ended up making both from scratch. (I wanted to try a new recipe so I went on allrecipes.com and just looked at the most highly-rated red velvet recipes. I settled on McCormick's recipe, duplicated below.) For the coating, feel free to use any kind of chocolate, confectionery coating, almond bark... whatever floats your boat!

After the cake is baked and cooled completely, you need to crumble it up. I like to cut out a manageable chunk of cake, tear it apart with two forks, and then finish off the crumbling with my hands to get rid of the bigger lumps. Then, mix in your frosting a few spoonfuls at a time. It doesn't take much frosting to get the cake crumbs to stick together, so it's really up to personal preference. Pay attention to the texture of the mix, but also to the taste! I really wanted the frosting flavor to come through with this batch, so I added a bit more than I usually would have. (I used roughly 1/4 of the cake recipe and about 1/3 of the frosting recipe.) Roll the mixture into balls and chill them in the refrigerator overnight (or at least for 2-3 hours.) You want them to be cold and solid enough that they won't fall apart or crumble instantly in the warm chocolate.

Then it's time for dipping! If your chocolate is too thick, like mine was here, try adding a bit of shortening or butter for thinning and extra shine. If you do add fat to the chocolate, your cake balls might need to be refrigerated in order to dry, since, as you know, butter and shortening are both fairly soft at room temperature. A fork is great to let excess chocolate drip off. Whether on the counter or in the fridge, place dipped cake balls on a wax paper-lined plate/tray and let their coatings solidify.

Once the coating is dry to the touch, you're done! I topped a few with heart-shaped sprinkles this time :)

YUM. These are definitely a super-rich treat!

Red Velvet Cupcakes Recipe:

Cake Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
Red food coloring (The recipe calls for 1oz liquid, but I used 2 generous dabs of gel coloring)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Frosting Ingredients:

1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 tbsp sour cream
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 (16oz) box powdered sugar

Directions:

(Preliminary note: Make sure the eggs, sour cream, and milk are all at room temperature. I cannot tell you how many times I've ruined perfectly softened butter by forgetting that the eggs I'm throwing in came directly out of the fridge!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. Set aside.
2. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in sour cream, milk, food color and vanilla.
3. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until just blended. Do not overbeat. Spoon batter into 30 paper-lined muffin cups, filling each cup 2/3 full. (If making cake balls, just pour into any regular cake pan. I used a 9x13 - if your pan is large, make sure to check that your thinner cake doesn't overcook!)
4. Bake 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean. (If baked in a cake pan, cooking time will probably be longer. I turned down the temperature about 50 degrees after 20 minutes and kept doing toothpick tests about every 5 minutes.)
5. For the cream cheese frosting: Beat cream cheese, softened, butter, sour cream and vanilla extract in large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar until smooth.

Because I only decided to crumble about 1/4 of the cake recipe, I had some leftovers to deal with afterward ;) Still too worn out from the cake balls to do anything fancy with them later that week, I made some rudimentary layered cake portions!

I'm really glad to have found this recipe, because it's definitely a highly-ranked one for a reason. The cake was incredibly moist, and I think the sour cream might be responsible. 

Hope you give these cake balls (or at least this cake recipe) a try, and happy belated Valentine's day!