Cake Balls

This past weekend we had our family get together from my mom’s side of the family and I took the usual meatballs and weenies with sauce. I was also asked to bring a dessert if I could, so I thought I’d get fancy with some Christmassy looking dessert. I thought of Cherry Cheesecake because that is pretty and always a hit, but I would have to make a lot of pies to feed everyone. My Aunt Jane has the cookies market cornered and everyone has their “Specialty” dessert that they bring so I had to get creative. Well, with creativity comes trouble sometimes. I spent more time and effort on these dang things and they all only ate a few. It’s those cookies that went like hot cakes and the dirt pudding. Ugh. Why is it when you try the hardest to make something nice and special that either it goes unnoticed or poo poo’d all together?!

But aren’t they pretty! They taste great, too. They are like Crack! Very addicting. This is not the recipe you throw together a hour before you have to leave for the party, let me tell ya. If fact I will tell ya:

Cake Balls
1 cake mix, baked according to directions (any that you want)
1 can of icing (that will taste good with the cake!)
Almond bark or chocolate chips for melting and dipping the balls into
decorative sprinkles or nuts (optional)

• Bake your cake and let cool but not completely cold. 
• Crumble up the cake (I used a wooden spoon) then add the icing to the cake and mix it all together. You could use a mixer if you want but it only took a few minutes to mix it all together. If you use a warm cake it will be a gooey mess, but yummy to lick your fingers! 
• Place the mixture in the fridge overnight or for a few hours. 
• Next day roll balls out of mixture and place on parchment lined pan (or wax paper, whatever you’ve got) and place in the freezer for 15 minutes or so. I use this time to melt my chocolate. I used Almond Bark and to make it a little more Christmassy, I added a half a teaspoon of peppermint flavoring to the melted bark. I’m not sure I’d do that again, it didn’t add the pizazz I thought it would. 
• If you want sprinkles, ass soon as you coat one ball, have the sprinkles ready to throw at the ball as you lay it on the paper. It hardens almost immediately. I used a big tablespoon and my fingers mainly to twirl the ball around in the bark. I tried toothpicks but that was taking too long. 

I store these in the fridge, but I don’t know that you have to.

Easy but time consuming. Costs about $5 or less to make, I’d say. You could make the balls bigger or smaller. They do look pretty, don’t they!

Merry Christmas! (a wee bit early)