(slightly unrelated note: the next batch of posts are not being posted in the order in which they were created; I have a bunch of backlogged photos and mini-posts from Facebook of all places that I’m transporting here. )

Just look at those things. When I ran across Bakerella’s blog for the first time I sat and stared in awe at the completely adorable treats she manages to produce time and time again. In fact, you should go there right now and look at these Snow Globe Coca-Cola Cupcakes. As someone who consistently fails at cupcakes (I don’t know why, I really don’t) I just love looking at the edible art other people seem to be capable of creating.

Anyway, I believe it’s reasonable to say that her Cake Pops and subsequent Cake Bites have earned her a special place in the dessert world and the recipe is so easy it’s almost ridiculous, so I tried them out to give to friends who were gathering shortly before Valentine’s Day. What I greatly underestimated was the volume and the time involved in their creation.

There are three basic ingredients:

1 box of cake mix

1 tin of frosting

Candy melts and/or chocolate/almond bark

And one very useful tool:

Mini peanut butter cup candy mold

In my case, I had a box of white cake mix leftover from my when my Dad made my wedding cake, and I thought some cherry frosting would be festive considering the upcoming holiday. The trick to the cake balls is using the right ratio of cake to frosting, and I did it wrong. First you bake the cake and let it cool. Then you crumble it all up in a bowl, and add the frosting. It makes like a dough, but it’s cooked. Well, you should really add the frosting in segments and keep checking the texture, because I just dumped the whole tin in and I had a sticky, gloppy mess. I managed to make it work anyway by chucking it in the fridge for a few hours, because you have to roll the mixture into little balls and I am not kidding about the sticky, gloppy mess part.  Anyway.

Once mine were all rolled, I stuck them in the freezer while I melted the chocolate bark in the microwave. When it had melted, I used a spoon to transfer some into each cup mold – enough to hold the cake ball in place and take the shape of the cup. Once the cake balls were in, they went back into the freezer for a few minutes to set. 5 minutes or so later, I took them out of the freezer, gently wiggled them out of the molds, and repeated the process what felt like a million times.

Next up, I melted the white almond bark – I thought it would be cheaper than candy melts but it actually wasn’t, they are priced roughly the same. Holding the cake ball by the candy bottom, I dipped the tops into the bark and used a small spoon to fill in any missing spots

I only topped 6 at a time so that I could get the decorations on before the bark set. If you manage more than that, you are more awesome than I am.  Also, it should be noted that this recipe makes A METRIC BUTTLOAD so I hope you have an event or a lot of friends to give these to. Think I’m kidding? Let me show you another picture.

Yeah, I wasn’t. I think I had something like 55 of them. You may also notice that the Hershey’s Kissables I used as decoration on some of them, particularly the pale pink ones, make these look alarmingly breast-like. Now, there’s nothing wrong with boobs but I’ve never particularly wanted to eat one. Luckily Warren came home from work and pointed this out to me so that I could place the remainder at an angle instead.

Overall, I’m really happy with how they turned out and the idea is absolute genius, because they are so cute I could just hug them. I will say, whether it’s the cake balls themselves or the combination with the candy or the frosting I used, they were painfully sweet to me. The flavor under the sugar was nice, but I absolutely could not get beyond the sweetness. Can someone who has made them using the red velvet cake with the cream cheese frosting verify whether this is the expected result or if mine were just the wrong combo?