The Plaid Pladd

If they look delicious, it's because they are

Cake balls are pretty amazing, and they are completely easy (and fun!) to make. They’re great to bring to a party since they’re small, portable finger food, and they are sure to impress despite their simplicity! Plus, there’s endless combinations of flavors to try!

Chocolate coating outside, cakey goodness inside

Here are all of the ingredients, plus some escape artist tulips:

1 box cake mix, 1 can frosting, 1 bag of chocolate chips

I’ve made the traditional yellow cake/chocolate coating before, but this time I wanted to try lemon cake, so I went with white chocolate chips and white frosting. I figured lemon frosting would be too lemony, but now I’m thinking there’s no such thing. And, okay, this picture is maybe a little misleading because, depending on your cake mix, you’ll probably also need an egg and/or some vegetable oil and water. Details. Besides, you have those lying around your house anyway just waiting to be put into a cake.

So, Step One: Make the cake

Ta-Dah!

It doesn’t matter what shape or size pan you use, since the next step is to wait till it cools and then

Step Two: WRECK THE CAKE

This is by far my favorite part

That’s right, get in there and smash that cake up! I usually crumble it into a very large bowl. It’s super fun just grabbing whole hunks of cake and crushing them into tiny pieces! Once that’s done it will probs look like this:

Make sure you start with a big enough bowl! I had to switch mine out

Now you’re ready for Step Three: Stir in the Frosting!

Frosting is serious business

The first time I made these I was a little skeptical, thinking “Really? An entire can of frosting?” But yes: three-fourths to an entire can of frosting, depending upon how moist you want your balls and how much your cake rose.

At first, all it wants to do is stick to your stirrer, so you've got to show that frosting who's boss

This time I even put in a little bit of extra frosting, since I already had some in the fridge from Rainbow Cupcakes anyway. It was only a little bit, so probably not worth buying two cans just for this.

By the time you're done, it'll look like... a totally wrecked cake

Or possibly Thanksgiving stuffing. It should be sticking together, kind of like cookie dough.

It's me, frosting! I'M the boss!

Now for Step Four: Make Cake Balls

Line them up on a cookie sheet or a tray

It’s just like making little balls of cookie dough, except we’re not baking them so don’t worry about spacing them so far apart. Some people use an ice cream scoop for this part, which would probably mean a lot more uniform balls, but I don’t have one of those so I just use my hands.

Ta-Dah!

Now pop those babies in the fridge or freezer for a few hours. I had to go to work in between steps 4 and 5, so the fridge was just fine for me, but if you’re in more of a hurry to get them done, the freezer’s got your back.

Step Five: Chocolate Coating!
Unfortunately, I did this part without Steven, and my hands were covered in melted chocolate so I didn’t take any pictures. But here’s the sitch: you’ve gotta turn that bag of chocolate chips (mine were white chocolate!) into a candy coating on those hopefully slightly firmer cake balls. So, pour some chips into a shallow dish (I used a pie plate) and melt those suckers in the microwave, heating for about 30 seconds at a time, then stirring, then heating some more, until they are totally melted. Then, dip your cake balls into the chocolate, coating all the sides. Set your cake balls down on wax paper, and they’ll harden pretty quick since the cake ball is so cold.

That’s my way of doing it. When I run out of chips, I just heat up some more. The chips revert to their hardened state pretty quickly, which is why I don’t heat up the whole bag at once. I know other people probably have more elegant and less messy ways of doing this than rolling the cake balls around with their hands, but this way seems easiest to me. Sure, once again, my cake balls do not come out exactly even or all alike, but I don’t fash myself about that. This is also the point where you could decorate with sprinkles before the coating hardens, but I didn’t have enough hands to do that.

Step Six: Tastiness!
You can refrigerate them, or keep them at room temperature, whichever way you prefer! I like to eat them a little cold. There are so many more cake/icing/coating flavors to try! I’m excited.

Cake Balls!!