I would like to make cake balls for teacher appreciation week. Every time I try to make them they seem to crumble or fall of the stick. Any advice? Is there an exact recipe someone can give me rather then eyeballing the amount of liquid or icing to be added to the cake. Help, also a good recipe would be helpful.

I personally haven't tried them but have heard great things about bakerella, she has a site w/tons of cake ball photos & I assume recipes

The best cakeballs I have made and the easiest to work with were made with very moist cake crumbs and white chocolate ganache. I did not add a lot of the ganache, just enough to help the ball hold its shape. They were delicious. I find most cake balls too sweet and too mushy but these were not. They held their shape great and I didn't have any trouble dipping them in chocolate. Dip your stick in chocolate before putting it into the cake ball and then put them in the freezer for at least 30 minutes prior to dipping. Take out just a few at a time from the freezer because otherwise they can start to get kinda soft while waiting to be dipped. HTH

Do you have a recipe for ganache? What kind of a cake did you make?

I have trouble with always getting mine too "moist." I think that means that I'm adding too much buttercream. They fall off of the stick and look AWFUL!

Would love to hear everyone's advice!

Scratchdog - the recipe I use for ganache is pretty standard. It's 1 part heavy whipping cream to 2 parts chocolate. If using white chocolate it's 1 part heavy whipping cream to 3 parts white chocolate. You heat the cream to almost boiling then pour over the chopped chocolate or chocolate chips. Let it sit for a few minutes then start slowly stirring it until it is a nice smooth blended mixture. Cover with plastic wrap so that the wrap is actually touching the top of the mixture (so no film forms on it) then let it sit out at room temp overnight. The next morning it should be the consistency of peanut butter. If it is still too soft just put it in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes. If it becomes too hard you can microwave it for about 10-15 secs. It doesn't take long. When it is the right consistency you are ready to use it. It's great for icing cakes under fondant. Just ice, smooth, let sit out overnight and the next day you have a great shell to cover w/fondant and I find it really enhances the taste of the fondant - it kind of tones down the too sweet taste of the fondant. There is an extensive thread on here about using ganache.

Any moist cake will do. I just use my standard enhanced box recipe.

Sew4children- that too moist texture/taste is why I don't like to use buttercream in my cakeballs. With the ganache they are not too moist and they hold their shape a lot better because of the chocolate.

Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions.

in a pinch i've used store made angel food cake and store bought frosting. and then added some rum or other flavorings to make it mine. i start adding 2 tbs of frosting to my cake crumbled in the mixer, and continue to add frosting until the cake starts to ball up. then i roll into cake balls, stick on a tray in the fridge and melt my bark chocolate. dip, add sprinkles, and put back in fridge.

the most frosting i've ever added was about 1/3 of a tub, aprox 1/2 cup

My cake bites used to be too mushy also. Heres the process i use now:

1 - I have 2 large tubs in my freezer for scraps (one for chocolate and one for white) When I am ready to make bites I pull out as much as I need and spred out on a cookie sheet breaking apart large pieces.

2 - Toast the crumbs on low heat - time depends on moisture in cake. I generally let them go for at least half hour. Check often, flip the pieces over and continue break apart.

3 - Process crumbs in food processor.

4 - add binder and any other add-ins

The drying process allows me to add quite a bit of liquid for flavor without creating a mushy mess.

HTH!

Jen

I wanna make these cake balls u guys are discussing but don't know how to make the balls! do I mix the cake mix and the frosting or the frosting and the cake (already cooked) help!

cyntdondi, basically you mix your already cooked and crumbled cake with frosting, creamer, etc.
There is a thread with a lot more information about cake balls:
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=658476&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0

HTH