I think I have this now.......Progression Series

Okay I am pretty certain that at this point I have the BASICS of cake balling down. A week ago I have the cutest cake to do for a family that loves a football team. So I needed to carve the cake........and my new - well I was going to say "motto" is never throw cake away, but that would be totally a lie because just yesterday I threw a ton of cake away because I didn't have time to make cake balls. Given that and not wanting to make myself look thriftier with cake then I am......I will simply say that it is my new "goal" to try to use every bit of cake. In this particular instance I was totally able to.

Also to become a better cake baller (this is what you should call your friends that do cake balls by the way. for no particular reason. just because it sounds sporty. totally expect them to look at you weird though. then laugh to yourself - in your head so they don't think you are certifiable.) - anyway - also.....to become better at cake ball making - I have been using different types of chocolate. Michael's had a sale going this week where there melt chocolates were a good deal - and on top of that I had a 25% off your entire sale coupon - BONUS (gotta love Michaels coupons!) - so I tried those. They melted like cotton candy in humidity (this really happened to some cupcakes I made - ugh cotton candy melts in humidity - who knew? - yeah I know EVERYONE knows - my 3rd grader told me all about it).

Anyway - the cake balls above are the ones that I made to see how the candy would coat. Pretty nicely. Fairly easily. I just need to figure out how to get the cake ball off the spoon without making a mess. Still .... they look like cute little chocolates.

The bulk of the cake mixture went to making these.....footballs. Remember - the cake ball mixture came from a carved cake that was for a football cake. I figured what better way to use the finished cake balls then give them to the family having the party. I asked if they would let me do this - wanted to make sure because you never know when you will show up with something to a party and find out "Dang Patti wish you would have asked - WE HATE CAKE BALLS!!" Silly sounding? Maybe, but you never know when a persons Great Aunt Milly choaked on a cake ball and caused an accident while driving that ran over another persons prized personally genetically developed apricot colored roses that were going to fair for competition and Great Aunt Milly ruined them due to cake ball chokage - was sued by the guy with the roses and won and poor Milly ended up working at Walmart in her retirement because she lost everything in the law suit. You Just Never Know......so I called ahead and asked permission.

They granted it. So I decided to make Cake POPS!! What is the difference between a Cake Ball and a Cake Pop? Duh - the stick!!

Notice that the stick is a REAL BONAFIDE stick this time? Not a cut off straw? I learned - sticks can hold the weight!! Who knew? Yeah yeah my 3rd grader. "Whatev's" as my 6th grader would say.

Basically what I did was roll the cake mixture out onto the counter and cut them with an oval shaped cookie cutter. Simple simple simple. If you do this - roll the mixture out thick. The first couple I did them normal size for a cookie, but you have to stick a stick in them and this makes the mixture less sturdy On The Stick. Of course after cutting the mixture into ovals I then stuck a stick in them and kinda compressed them a bit to make sure there wasn't a lot of air around the stick area.

Following that I dipped them into the melted chocolate. This is a step I still need to perfect. I used an icing spatula spreader thing (they might be called something different at your store if you go looking for them) and gently shaped the chocolate around the football as the excess chocolate dripped back into the bowl - then set them down on a piece of parchment paper to dry. This was pretty quick. Time example - ate dinner - cleaned the table - came back to these and they were ready for the football lines. Since I had some left over black icing from another cake I did that day I used it to make the lines. It seems to me that most footballs have white lines for the strings, but I didn't Google it.


The finaly project I let dry overnight. Some of the footballs fell off their sticks because I - a) rolled the first batch out too thin and they didn't stay attached to their sticks and the chocolate added caused too much stress and they broke off - and - b) I am sometimes clumsy.

In the morning I popped the Cake Pops into bags and tied green ribbons on them. As my sister-in-law and I have learned.......many sites that ship cookies & cake balls advertise that they do this for YOUR display purpose and for Added Freshness. I personally think it is so they don't melt together. Regardless they made really cute little party favors.

The balls in the top picture went to the neighbors after dinner the night I made them. Feedback on them were they were delish!!

These were Deep Chocolate Cake with Vanilla buttercream and Chocolate Mlets on the outside. They really were yummy.

Making Balls of Cake......progression series for Mindi

It is always sweet to me when friends and family say things like, "Wow what you are making is AMAZING!" or "You are so good at things that are crafty". While I am Amazing (good to build my ego) and I am good at things that are Crafty.......those talents are NOT without practice. I do have to practice things and often times there are some miserable FAILURE moments. The reason some of you don't seem to think I have the ability to fail at crafty things is because.......well I don't put those things on display! I tell my friends during coffee mornings or marathon phone conversations and we giggle out bottoms off (geez I wish I could literally giggle my bottom off! I would have it made! I would open Giggle Gym's all over the world. I would be able to buy all the cake making supplies not matter how expensive.........oooh to have have one of those giant fondant rollers.......course those things seem counter productive - a Giggle Gym to keep in shape so I can buy things to make decadent cakes.......hmmm...counter productive, but hey it is my dream sequence leave me alone sense maker voice in my head......wake up Patti - wake up!!). Okay...back to here and now. Anyway, recently one of my FAVORITE sister-in-laws sent me a note asking if I would like help her with her sisters baby shower. Sports theme. She is thinking cookies in shapes of sports balls - football, baseball, soccer, basketball.....my thought was cut round cookies out and ice them - that is CAKE! I am totally in!! Then I read on and noticed she was also thinking of doing some cake balls in the same type shapes........my thought was Cake Balls are my downfall....but I am always up for a personal challenge. Add in that the other day I was reading something on my new favorite place to see cake information.......Sweet Wise.......and she mentioned that when you top a cake you can keep that cake and make it into cake balls or cake pops. I throw away a lot of cakes because there really is no such thing as a Giggle Gym and my bottom can't take any more cake scraps. So with the cake topping and trimming I do I can really practice cake balls for Mindi.

But first I thought I would share my beginning......because Cake Balls/Pops are NOT easy. No matter how simple the video you watch makes it seem - NOT EASY!! Last October I watched a video on them and thought - "Dang I can do that".....and I tried. See these gems? They are Pumpkins. WHAT? You don't think they look like pumpkins???

Look again.......here is a close up......now do you see it? Still NO? Well that is because they are an EPIC FAIL. I was going to throw them out. Sure I was just kinda messing around - I mean I don't even have the right pieces for the cake pops - my sticks are straws and let me tell you - a straw can not hold the weight of a cake pop........so they became upside down cake pops.......sad, but true. Also - apparently you don't just melt chocolate to dip them in. I mean you do, but certain chocolates don't melt that well if you don't add oil - they didn't mention that on the video. Also you can OVER melt chocolate and then it becomes a hard mess. Didn't know that either. PLUS - you can't just use regular coloring - this was A LOT of orange coloring, but still I only got a pretty pastel color. Ugh. I became so frustrated (disgusted) with them that I quit trying. Got ready to toss them out and was stopped by the kids and Dave.

We were headed to a local horse arena to watch our wonderful niece, Megan, compete in a Hunter's Pleasure riding competition. They asked me to bag them up and take them as a snack. Since it was family I figured it was safe because family will only make fun of you - they will still love you and promote your hobbies. Off we went to watch Megan win an award for her wonderful riding. And to sit in the sun.....it was a gorgeous day!! And to eat up all the cake balls.

Which leads me to another issue about my cake balls.......apparently they were a little large. If you look at this photo you see that they are basically as big as my 5 year old sons head! But I was assured they were DELISH and by the end of the event they were all gone. So my thought was......maybe someday when I feel like banging my head against a wall I will try these again......and I filed that away never to probably see the light of day. Welcome to the Light of Day.......Mindi asked if I could do cake balls/pops. I had just read Sweet Wise's post about the cake toppings.....and I felt like a challenge. So why not try to make some cake ball/pops out of a few of my cake scraps? Who can it hurt......plus Andersen was pretty much BEGGING to do it. So we did it together.

The ones pictured here are the remaining cake balls that we did not get covered in chocolate. They were not covered only because if you don't make the balls as huge as your 5 year olds son and cover half of them due to frustration.......well you have a lot of them and you don't have enough chocolate. So we experimented half with chocolate and half with some royal icing.

Note: Royal Icing never sets up on a very moist cake ball. So while it was super tasty, it was a sticky mess on your fingers. Win Win for my son Ben who loves to eat things and then try to remember later what he has eaten by wiping his sticky fingers on his shirt. Bonus right?

The goal was experimenting with the covering part of the cake balls - making them look kind of like bon bons or something. This was the end result ..........

Cute.........nice............definately a step in the right direction.........and we will keep improving right?

Plus we added a few sprinkles.....made them cuteish.

This weekend - Football shaped cake pops. Yes, I bought the correct sticks to make them and I will attempt it .......... we will see what happens.

ALL of these cake balls were Chocolate Cake and Vanilla Buttercream icing........with a shell of White Chocolate - or - Royal Icing.

Tasty.