St. Patrick's Day Cake Balls
(for cake)
1 cup granulated sugar
4 oz. unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 T vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 3/4 t baking powder
1/2 cup milk
(for icing)
4 T unsalted butter, softened
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 t vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
(for coating & topping)
24 oz. white chocolate, melted
food color (green)
confetti of your choice
>how to make<
(for cake)
*Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 10" round cake pan.
*With an electric mixer, cream together the sugar and butter.
*Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
*In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder, and then add to the wet mixture.
*Stir in the milk.
*Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until fully baked. Let cool.
(for icing)
*With an electric mixer on medium speed, beat together the butter and cream cheese until smooth.
*Mix in the vanilla.
*Slowly mix in the sugar until smooth and creamy.
*After the cake has cooled to room temperature, pick up a small portion of the cake and crumble it into a large mixing bowl using your hands.
*Continue to crumble the cake until you no longer see any chunks.
*Add about 1/2 to 3/4 portions of icing to the cake crumbs with a wooden spoon.
*You will need to give the cake and icing mixture a good stir until it is fully combined and has a dough-like consistency.
*Using a cookie scoop to portion out equal amounts of cake ball dough.
*A good size for a cake ball is about 1 1/4" in diameter.
*You would like to scoop out all the portions before you start rolling.
*Take each portion that you have scooped out and roll it back and forth between your hands until you have a nice smooth ball.
*Place each ball on a tray lined with parchment or waxed paper.
*After you have rolled all of the scooped out portions, place the entire tray of balls in the freezer for at least 2 hours.
*Before you take your cake balls out of the freezer, you will need to prepare the dipping chocolate in a bowl.
*Mix in the food color to half of the melted chocolate.
*Remove your cake balls from the freezer and spear each ball with a toothpick.
*Pick up a cake ball by the toothpick and dip it in the melted chocolate.
*Be sure to coat the entire ball.
*Then, lift the ball above the chocolate and give it a light shake to let the excess chocolate drip off.
*Set the dipped cake ball back down on the waxed paper and move to the next cake ball.
*Continue to dip each cake ball until all of them a re complete.
*You will now remove all the toothpicks and "cap."
*Using a spoon, take a small amount of the melted chocolate and cover the small holes where the toothpicks were.
*You can now decorate the dipped cake balls as you wish.
Note: I adapted the recipe in "Cake Balls" by Robin Ankeny & Charlotte Lyon.
Labels: cake balls recipe, St. Patrick's Day dessert recipe