After spending too much time today having my searches error out and then the forum going down, I thought I'd just try posting a topic.

Cake balls for Christmas.

- What are your favorite flavor combinations?

- What have you done to make a nice Christmas presentation? For both the cake ball and how it is delivered (box, basket...whatever!)

- How far ahead can you make them? How long can you freeze the uncoated ball, how long can you freeze the coated ball, and how long is the room temperature coated ball fresh?

I really appreciate any help you can give me! I am particularly interested in your ideas about flavor combos, as I have allergies which will keep me from sampling. And, I am trying to plan out some of my holiday baking, crafting, shopping, etc., and anything I can start on early will be a big help to me!

Thank you!

Sorry I can't help, I've never made them before but I can't wait to see what flavor combinations people suggest! I'm so glad you posted this.

Chrisy

sorry I am no help, I also would love to know of any great combinations out there. I was aksed to put together an order form asap so I may have my orders in early, any help is greatly appreciated.

Darlene

DebbyTCL posted a great combo in another thread:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-560783-balls.html

It was pumpkin spice cake with creme brulee creamer, dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with cinnamon. Sounded really good

Chrisy

May I ever so respectfully give this thread a bump?

I know this is a crazy time at CC to try to get a good thread going, but I would like to do what I can to encourage some discussion and sharing about this. I think it could be fun and I really think a lot of people can get some great ideas!

Thank you!

My favorite is a cranberry cake with french vanilla creamer. dipped in white chocolate.

Ok...I'm giving it a bump too.

I'd really like to try these as gifts and would love some great flavor combinations.

Please help us out everyone!

Chrisy

I made red velvet ones last year with bc binder and dipped in white chocolate. Then I decorated with bc holly and wreaths. They're in my photos if you want to take a look.

I haven't tried these yet, but have been compiling a list from those that I've read about.

Apple Pie: White cake with sour apple pucker (as the binder) and graham crackers, rolled in cinnamon sugar. (YUM!!!)

S'mores: Chocolate cake with chocolate syrup as the binder, rolled around a mini-marshmellow and covered in chocolate.

Butterscotcheroos: Chocolate cake with melted peanut butter as the binder, with butterscotch chips and rice krispies added, and covered in chocolate.

Chocolate Banana: Chocolate cake with Banana extract covered in chocolate. So simple but sooo yummy!

Twix: Chocolate cake with melted peanut butter and caramel syrup, with soft caramel candy and covered in chocolate.

I've got a large spreadsheet full of ideas, but am always looking to add more possibilities, so if anyone else has more ideas like these, I'd love to hear them!

Oh they all sound so good! I just made a few today. It was a orange dreamcycle cake with Grandmarinier and Vanilla Creamer as a binder dipped in white chocolate

For Christmas I did carrot cake with cream cheese icing as the binder, dpped in white chocolate. I also did strawberry cake with cream cheese icing, dipped in white chocolate. Thanks for the variations. Can't wait totry the smores one. Sounds delish!!!!

My favorite are german chocolate with coconut pecan icing(duncan hines) as the binder dipped in chocolate. And this week I made Paula Deen's chocolate chip cookie dough cake balls and they were VERY delish!!I'm definaely going to have to try those white rasberry ones. I bet if you added the white rasberry coffee creamer to those they would be really good too!

Fresh strawberry cake with buttercream and grenadine as the binders, covered in white chocolate.

vanilla cake w/ amaretto as binder dipped in milk chocolate ..2nd runner up is triple choc cake w/ Godiva Liquor as binder dipped in dark chocolate

mom2c-m, what wonderful combo. ideas. I'm definitely going to have to try some of those! I've recently been experimenting with flavors in preparation for Christmas as well. I just made Chocolate covered Strawberry Cake Truffles last night with Strawberry cake and dipped in chocolate. I experimented with adding some mini chocolate chips on top, and loved the look (I just uploaded a pic.). One of the things I was just thinking about is that I would like to offer a sampler box of assorted cake truffles. Does anyone distinguish between different flavors, or do you provide a chart of some sort?

Oooooh! Thank you so much for all of those great ideas! I'm thinking about making some today, as I just learned I have company coming.

I'm going to make a fudge cake mix. I have both chocolate syrup and hazelnut creamer...would it be crazy to use a little of both to bind it? And, I made homemade caramel yesterday...what about putting a smidge in the middle of them?

I hope more people will share their ideas. I'm still very interested in how long you can safely freeze these in their various states.

Thanks again!

I was thinking about doing cake balls on a foam cone with toothpicks. Something like a chocolate Christmas tree look. I haven't played with it yet but I think it would work!!

Coconut balls -- WASC with coconut creamer rolled in coconut.

Spice balls -- spice cake with orange juice for the binder rolled in white chocolate.

MMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!

One of my students came up with this the other day: yellow cake with orange juice binder dipped in dark chocolate! Sounds awesome!!

I have been dying to do pumpkin cake balls with mini-chocolate chips or plain pumpkin using cinammon creamer and dipped in white bark. I also was thinking of banana cake dipped in chocolate. These are really simple but sounded awesome to me.

Around here, cakeballs are a thing of beauty.....no one understands what they are but they can't stop eating them. I had an order last week of 90 and my hand is just now back to normal from the hand-dipping of them all!

CakeDiva73, I have wondered...how do you hand dip them and still get them to look good (smooth and round)? I use a fork and pat the excess, then remove with the aid of a toothpick slid under the bottom, but it is a bit time consuming. Any tips in that area would be appreciated.

Banana cake with chocolate - now that sounds yummy. I might have to try that with a peanut butter type binding. I just love that flavor combination.

I'm not an expert by any means but I have frozen my cake truffles before covering with chocolate for 2 months without any freezer burn taste. Once they are covered in chocolate I would be leery of freezing them as the chocolate would be brittle and may even turn white. Pam from Bama

Thanks so much for the info about freezing the undipped cake balls. That encourages me to start making a few here and there for Christmas![/quote]

I know that there are people on here that really love cake balls and people on here that don't care so much for them .. all these combinations sound sooooooooo good to me and I would love to make some but the one and only time I tried to make them, they ended up looking like something I would not feed to a dog let alone charge someone for them! How do you guys make them look so professional? Please give out any helpful information that you may have!

Obviously, since I started this thread, I'm no expert.

But last night, I made my first batch, and they look really good and my husband says they taste wonderful.

I got the balls nice and round just by rolling them between the palms of my hands. After just a few seconds, I could "feel" a difference as I rolled them, and found that if I waited until I could "feel" the difference, they were just about perfectly round.

I just dipped them in the chocolate with my spoon, rolled them around, and then lightly dropped them on waxed paper. They look a lot like a lot of candies I see in boxes...almost round, just a little extra chocolatey.

I have tried searching forum topics for cake balls and, maybe it's me....but I get topics that come up that have absolutely nothing to do with cake balls! Am I doing something wrong???

Anyway, a few of my favs are:

Lemon: lemon cake with lemon juice and powdered sugar as a binder, lemon zest shavings, dipped in white chocolate. (This one's always a hit)

Heath bar: chocolate cake, sweetened condensed milk for binder, heath bar pieces, mini choc. chips, dipped in chocolate with heath bar sprinkles on top.

Chocolate covered strawberry: strawberry cake, sweetened cond milk for binder, mini chocolate chips, dipped in chocolate or white chocolate with mini choc chips sprinkled on top.

Carrot cake: carrot cake, cream cheese icing as binder, dipped in white chocolate, sprinkled with pecans and cinnamon.

I have a pic of these in my photos....I can't wait to make these for the holidays!

I love making these...I could eat them all if I tried!

What do you all sell them for? By the dozen? Each? Whats a good price to place on them? I'd like to add this to my menu.

Cake balls can be covered with different colored candy coatings and then drizzled with another color. I did white chocolate drizzled with red last year for Christmas. For Halloween you could use orange drizzled with brown (I don't think candy coatings come in black).

ziggy, the cake balls that you made, when you were rolling them in your hands, were they heavy feeling? I made them once and they were very very heavy .. maybe I added to much binder .. they almost felt like raw cookie dough balls .. is that the right consistency?

I don't think they were that heavy. I used hazelnut creamer with a bit of chocolate syrup for a binder. It was quite similar to cookie dough. When I rolled them into balls, after about 5 seconds, not only did it feel like I was rolling a round ball, it also sounded like it? (Maybe I have really good hearing?) And I rolled them very quickly, trying to move the ball around to get all areas equally.

I was worried they might be too wet, but I don't think they were. But if they WERE too wet, I think they would seem too heavy and wouldn't roll very well?

Great topic!

I am about to try these for the first time since my Spice cake caved on me.

I can't wait! I'd love to add these to my menu. I think they will be great. But first I have to run it past my testing crew....i.e. the Family!

Lots of great ideas. Thanks everyone!

Ok...I haven't tried this yet but here's a suggestion:
White chocolate cranberry cake, with lemon cream cheese frosting as binder and dipped in white chocolate. Maybe sprinkle with diced dried cranberries and drizzle with an icing or glaze to jazz them up.

Oops.

I decided to do a test run, by freezing half a cake mix worth of cake balls to coat in chocolate at a later date.

Since I didn't have any "freezer bags", I first froze the balls on a cookie sheet, then dropped them into a gallon bag, tried to remove most of the air, sealed, and then placed in another bag in which I removed most of the air and then sealed again.

Yikes.
By the next morning, there were lovely ice crystals.

I'm wanting to try again and freeze a lot more tonight. I can't seem to locate my large, flat, airtight container (where DID I leave that thing?). Do I need to go buy something new, or what?

Something that sounds good for the holidays (the apple pucker got me thinking along these lines) is doing a rum cake batter (there are receipes for rum cake or just use a yellow cake batter adding nuts and rum to a yellow cake mix) and then using the instructions for making cake balls with a plastic mold, use chocolate to coat the mold, put in a ball of cake and add a tsp or (if you're me) tablespoon of rum and let that soak into the ball, maybe add some more chopped walnuts, then cover the top of the mold with chocolate. I wonder if it would be sort of like chocolate covered cherries but with rum cake inside. I may have to try that.

Has anyone tried using rum cake in their cake balls?

Okay, so I'm a lush, sue me!!