Cake Balls

This summer I was reading my coworker Cynthia's blog, specifically her Adventures In Cooking: Cake Balls post. I happen to LOVE Holy Cacao cake balls so I immediately starred this post for another, more housewifey day.

Today was that day.

Exhibit 1

Well, actually it started last night when I baked a butter fudge chocolate cake. Today I tore that cake apart and mixed my cake crumbs with white frosting. See exhibit 1.

Then I chilled it in the fridge for a few hours before moving it to the freezer for a few hours. Fast forward to 2:30p this afternoon and I was ready to make cake balls!

Using my favorite kitchen tool, my un-ringed hands (as in naked of engagement, wedding and TriDelta rings), I started making a million little cake balls, all about 1 inch in diameter. Then I popped those suckers into the freezer and got to work melting my white chocolate chips.

This, friends, is where things got ugly. I improvised a double boiler with a small pot and Pyrex bowl but the chocolate seized. I tried again. Ditto. I realized that it was the steam from the water; the condensation was ruining my chocolate. So to the microwave. This worked OK but my best microwave bowl for the job was a tiny guacamole bowl. I couldn't fit much chocolate into it and what was there would quickly harden. I'd add more chips but now there were little bits of cake in it too which ruined the smooth meltiness of it.

I even called Age and she suggested using my frying pan instead of my Pyrex bowl and going back to the double boiler method. This worked better but again, the condensation kept ruining my chocolate. Somewhere in the neighborhood of attempt 7, I ran entirely out of chocolate. Damn.

My foil wrapped, store brand savior

Off to the grocery store, only for the third time in one day, to buy dark chocolate, the easiest to melt of all the chocolate varieties. And that is when I saw it: my savior.

I know Christmas is about the baby Jesus and he's my savoir, etc, but I kid you not, there were three wise men and a manger surrounding this HEB brand easy-to-melt chocolate-in-a-tray. I grabbed the chocolate and the vanilla and sang hallelujah while standing in the check out lane.

With the help of my savior, I was able to quickly melt chocolate, dip my cake balls and decorate them in lovely white sprinkles, all before kickboxing at the gym.

Ta-daa!

And BAM! Now I've got ballpark 3-4 dozen cake balls plated and ready to travel to Christmas Parts 2 and 3 tomorrow and Sunday respectively. 

To answer the your next two obvious questions:

1. I'll make these again provided there's more HEB chocolate goodness available.
2. I have no idea if they are good. After eating cake, frosting and chocolate instinctively off my hands all afternoon the last thing I wanted when I finished these was more sweets. So the jury is out until tomorrow.