Cupcake Cake Balls

This is my last week teaching a few of my kiddies, and I wanted to gift them with something as a way of saying, "thanks for putting up with me forcing 10 pages of math problems into your brains every hour." hahaha In every job that I've had, I usually disguise my real identity. I don't let people in on who I am, what I do, and where I go. I don't know. I'm pretty open about who I am, if you ask, but I just wanted parts of me to be secret, especially with this job. So yea, I never told any of them that I bake, and that is one of my passions in life. It's sad that some of my work is over with these kids. I really wish I made a positive impact on their lives, and hope that they get better at math when I'm not there. Sigh, that's the sadness of teaching. It is so rewarding to see the kids do well, but also incredibly discouraging to see kids struggle with problems we've worked on for so many hours. I've picked up more work to round out my last month of working. My next job will be as a... dentist. That's definitely a scary thought.... even scarier.... that'd only be a little over 3 years from now! AHHH! Sorry, I digressed. Back to cake balls...

Doesn't this concept seem a bit counterintuitive to you? Why? I baked a cake, made some frosting. Simple steps to building a normal cake or cupcake right? Well, not a cake ball. I crumbled up the cake, mixed IN the frosting, shaped it like a cupcake, and dipped it into chocolate. So, it goes... Cupcake -> Destroyed cupcake -> (back to) Cupcake. I mean, common sense would be to.. just make cupcakes.. right?? I don't know, maybe it's just me... but! I enjoy eating the cake balls, and it's very cute! These were Bakerella inspired, and my sis has been doing these for quite some time now. I have just never made them in these shapes.. even though I bought her the peanut butter cup molds.

I will also add (I'm in a digressing kind of mood)... that there is now a shop in downtown WC that sells cupcakes and... cake bites.. aka these cake balls... or cake truffles. Whatever you call it, it's all the same, cake mixed with frosting dipped in chocolate. I haven't tried it yet. I passed by many times thinking.. psh... they are living out my dream (envious, I know)... and selling these things at an insane price. I don't know, reviews have been mixed. I hold Sprinkles as being one of the best cupcake shops I've been to, and well, nothing else has come close. I looked at that store's website, and my reaction was... "...." Not to be snooty, but, come on... you have a shop in another even more upscale location, and a shop right on Broadway, and you can't afford a photographer? Their site is beautiful, but... the pictures of the cupcakes just don't match the beauty of the site. Ok, maybe I'm just ranting, but if anyone checks out that site, you'll know what I'm talking about. I'd love to take a shot at taking pictures for them (I think I can do better.. but am no where near to great at taking pics of cupcakes haha.. but they fit my style.. scrapbook paper + cupcakes) I'd love free cupcakes in return of course :) They charge around 2 bucks for a cake ball... arg. These cost 2 bucks to make! I made the cake and frosting from scratch, and the candy melts were fairly cheap. (My sis gutted her entire Guittard Melting Chips stock from her store when it went on clearance....so now I have many many pounds of chocolate to spare... enough to make it through the year...hopefully :))

Recipes:
- I used my favorite chocolate cake recipe, and kept the sugar level a little under 1/2 cup ... this is the best way to control the sweetness of the dessert since you will be adding a lot of frosting/coating later. This made the dessert not so overpoweringly sweet.... well sweet enough because the kids liked it :) The recipe: Click here!-Teddy Bears at the Beach Cupcakes!
- For the frosting: 1/4 cup butter 1/8 cup shortening 1.5 tsp vanilla extract and as much powdered sugar needed to make a stiff consistency frosting.

So here they are.. my cupcake cake balls....the lighting was bad today :( It was rainy....

Un-molded cake balls from the plastic peanut butter cup molds (Found at Michael's and Jo Ann)

The easiest way to melt chocolate for me is by using the microwave. I filled a disposable piping bag (the plastic ones) with chocolate (3/4 full) heated it in the microwave for 1 minute, squished it around, heated it until it was thoroughly melted, snipped the tip, and filled the molds around 1/2 way full, tap it down, and placed in the cake pieces.


Yum.. sugar... the circle ones are my favorite type of sprinkles.. although the ones above these ones are fun too... :)



Packed up and ready to give out... :)
So many sprinkles!!!
HAHA... this is the result of using Wilton candy melts to try to dip the cake balls in... what a disaster!!!! Wilton's candy melts are very thick. I tried to then it out with some shortening, but might have needed some more. The thickness caused the cake to break off half way, I saved it, but still... it produced quite a unique cake ball (flames? a flower?) For the white tops, I used almond bark. I only find these during the holidays... and I'm down to my last piece :( The base was Guittard dark chocolate melts, Wilton could be used for the bottom as well because it doesn't matter how thick it is.

That's it for now, I will be making things this entire week, probably a lot of repeats, just my favs... I haven't dipped probably 10 of them, I'm going to freeze them and complete the dipping stage on Friday so they will be fresh! What's really weird and great about this time in my life is that I seem to vacation every month. I'm going again at the end of the week... yea... hope to see and do new things... here's to my seventh vacation in seven and a half months... wowsers... life is awesome... *knocks on wood* :)