Got Me Goodies

In my last post, I said I would share the recipe of the delicious cake bites I recently delivered to my sweet volleyball team. Well, as promised... here it is!

Cake Bites 

...cake pops without the stick.

• 1 box White Cake mix
• 1 container Vanilla frosting; not whipped - only 1/3 of container necessary for this recipe
• 1 container Wilton Candy Melts - white chocolate for this recipe
• 1 Tbsp Vegetable/Canola oil
• Blue food coloring
• Toothpicks

Prepare cake mix as instructed on the box... 

For a BLUE display, add food coloring to batter. 

This recipe called for only 3 or 4 drops to make it baby blue.

Bake as instructed (depending on the size of the pan); 13x9 baked 30 mins at 350 degrees. Then allow an hour or so to cool. My trick is to set the pan up high, so the bottom and top can cool evenly.

Meanwhile, prepare the icing! 

 I scooped out 1/3 of the icing into a separate bowl, to add blue food coloring. 

 After your cake has completely cooled, crumble it up into a bowl. Using a spoon, or clean hands, add the frosting and carefully mix together. Be sure to add a little at a time - too much moisture will prevent the balls from holding their shape. Once the cake and icing are mixed well, begin rolling .5-1 Tbsp of mixture into balls. If the mixture does not stay together, add more icing. 

When you are finished - THIS IS IMPORTANT - allow the cake balls to sit in the FREEZER for at least ONE HOUR. Any less, the balls will not be firm enough to dip into the chocolate. 

Onto the fun part... 

Melt the chocolate as directed. I preferred melting them in a glass measuring up, but you have the option to melt them in the container itself - the choice is yours! Once completely melted, add 1 Tbsp of oil and stir, stir, stir until nice and smooth!! It should almost slide right off the spoon.

 When ready, remove the cake balls from the freezer. Wait a moment before dipping them into the chocolate, due to the drastic change in temperature - cold cake balls combined with warm/hot chocolate will cause the cake to eventually expand and crack the dried coating. 

Place a toothpick in the center of the cake ball, about 3/4 deep - you don't want it to go completely through, nor do you want it too shallow or it will fall right off. Carefully dip the cake ball into the melted chocolate, covering every inch and around the toothpick. Don't leave any cake ball visible - unlike my one in the middle... you don't want that. 

Once the coating has dried, slowly twist the toothpick out of the ball. Be careful to not crack the icing, or to separate it too much where the toothpick is inserted.

Decorations are completely up to you!! Given, this was a reveal celebration I wanted to continue with the theme and decorate as I've seen them displayed in such events. For this occasion, I needed a pastry bag, and an applicator that would provide about a centimeter of icing... see below for my clever improvisation.  

For the pastry bag (since I was OUT; too much baking last year) I simply used a Ziploc baggie! Cut a tiny hole in the corner, and insert the applicator as shown. Voila!! Decorate to your liking, then place them back into the refrigerator until ready to serve.

OUTCOME:

Crunched for time, I did not have the steadiest of hands... but it got the job done!!!

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Well, it's been quite a few Fridays since I've participated in one of my favorite bloggy link ups! So, along with the theme of Ms.Whitney's #backthatazzup, I figured I'd share the song currently stuck in this noggin of mine. Call me a repeater, because I know I've shared this song before, but it just seemed appropriate given this particular artist enjoys Goodies, and my post was clearly about some goodies of my own, right? Let's keep it in good context people. ;)

HAPPY FRIDAY, everyone! ;)