i've had bad luck melting morsels and wilton candy melts...could never get the cake balls to look smooth. i use Baker's semi-sweet and white chocolate for dipping now. it coats nice and thin, looks great ... i just need to figure out how to get them off my dipper w/o ruining the coat.
I do NOT like the texture of cake balls!!! I think if I ever make them again I will make them without any icing at all so they are a little more fluffy...before I made them with a bit of buttercream and it seemed like the texture was a rather grainy, "soggy cake" thing. Ew. And I can't stand anything that even remotely resembles soggy bread or cake. I don't even like ice cream touching my cake! haha.
I would rather make truffles out of thick ganache, or the oreo/cream cheese thing.
I admit, I can't stand cake balls. I want to like them, I try to like them, but they are just gross. Maybe it's because when I see them, I expect them to taste like wonderful Timbits, and they just don't!
I made my first batch with chocolate cake and chocolate/mint truffle coffee creamer. I was the only one who liked them, possibly because I have an incredible sweet tooth. They were really mushy and I threw them out. Don't know what to do with the leftover creamer as I don't drink coffee.
I made a second batch with WASC but this time I used some leftover homemade fresh strawberry filling. I coated them with white almond bark and they were heavenly. My niece wants me to make her birthday cake out of the same flavor. That presents a problem: Can I make a WASC and maybe swirl the filling through like a marble cake? Will that cause rising problems as the strawberry is not really cake as in a marble cake? She doesn't want a strawberry cake... Cake balls might just be my undoing. (I can't do a "bouquet" as it is to be a sculpted cake!)
Milkmaid, I just made a wedding cake with strawberry swirl from Amaretti.. the swirl seems to be just like a strawberry filling you get in a tube, but thinner. Don't go heavy on the amount you put in the batter. My first attempt, the swirl puddled and sunk to the bottom and the cake fell apart. (luckily it didn't burn - used for cake balls!) I used much less the second go-round and it was perfect.
And for my cake balls, I use the bettercream instead of icing, frosting or creamer... it's not as sweet and doesn't turn the cake to mush like the creamer can. And yes, only use a bit at a time to get to the consistancy you like.
The above wedding cake was WASC with Amaretti strawberry swirl with vanilla bettercream. Which all got crumbled up and dipped into milk chocolate! YUMMY!!!!
LadyK, thank you. You have so encouraged me. I am really going to give it a try. I have some time before the date and would plan to preview the attempt, but there are just so many people to give cake to and they are all tired of cake!
As to the Bettercreme, I am under the impression that it is a frozen product. As I have to mail-order almost all my supplies, I don't think that it is available to me. I do see a lot of CCrs use and recommend it, though. I think I have heard of a similar product found at Sam's, but haven't checked the St. Louis store. I don't know if it is the same or not. It is a long trip in to St. Louis but it might be worth my while if it is any good.
I made them for my Mom over Christmas. I made them with my choc. cake recipe and mixed in chocolate truffle filling. Then dipped them in white chocolate. I also made them using a maraschino cherry cake with walnuts, white chocolate buttercream and then dipped them in white chocolate. I do not add creamer at all to my recipe. I believe the recipe is from Bakerella. SHe uses red velvet for hers and most of her cake pops. But either way, when I made these, they werent mushy and not overly sweet since my buttercream is made with butter and not a whole lot of confectionary sugar. So it was yummy and we couldnt make them fast enough!
I don't know why my post posted twice, so I'll edit this second one with this:
Milkmaid, if you can't get the frostin' pride or pastry pride, this web page:
From the CakeCentral thread Bettercreme Fun! by Melvira
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjqsjjc_4gmsq9sdh
has a recipe for a mock bettercream.
I haven't made it myself, but from others on that thread it's pretty tasty.
Melvira has also put on their many ways to flavor the bettercream.
HTH
Here is my finished product.....
I was skeptical about it... but as we have read here... if u do not overload them with icing... there is no reason for them to taste bad... it's your cake recipe so the cake should taste the same... and it's chocolate... always good... so I think it's the amount of icing that makes the difference...
I have tried the cake balls according the bakerella's instructions on her site...by the way, she does have some great ideas...but most of her stuff is WAYYYY too sweet (in my opinion) sometimes too much sugar destroys flavors...so I agree with many people here, less is more.
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