Warning: This is a long post. I apologize for not having actual pictures because it would have made this one a lot funnier. I'm looking for a new camera so these posts are a little more personal.
You know the person in your office who gives Valentine cards and bakes treats for everyone - that's me in my office. This year, I was inspired by Jill's Facebook pictures of her cake balls. I decided to get fancy too and tried my hand and Paula Deen's Red Velvet Cake Balls. I took a look at the recipe and figured it would be a piece of cake (no pun intended). HOLY CRAP...was I wrong!
You know the person in your office who gives Valentine cards and bakes treats for everyone - that's me in my office. This year, I was inspired by Jill's Facebook pictures of her cake balls. I decided to get fancy too and tried my hand and Paula Deen's Red Velvet Cake Balls. I took a look at the recipe and figured it would be a piece of cake (no pun intended). HOLY CRAP...was I wrong!
First step is to make the cake, then crumble it, mix in the frosting and let it set in the fridge. This ended up taking a total of 2.5 hours to do plus the time to set the mixture. The recipe says you can let it set for 3 hours or overnight, I chose overnight. Mixing the frosting and cake together took FOREVER. I only had a spoon to mix everything, so that could be why. The recipe says to use a hand mixer...what the eff is a hand mixer if not a freakin' spoon in your hand? Regardless, I'm pretty sure my right bicep is now slightly bigger than my left bicep.
After the cake mixture has set, you're supposed to use a melon ball scoop to form the balls. Yeah, a melon ball scoop does nothing. The recipe should say, "Now use your hands and start rolling balls out of the mixture (similar to making meatballs). DO NOT use a melon ball scoop because it does shit." Paula Deen says you're going to come out with 36 balls - I came out with 68. I blame the melon ball scoop for throwing me off. After you've formed the balls, you have to let them harden for an hour in the freezer. I placed my 68 balls in the freezer and went to the gym for a run - I felt fat from smelling everything and I had to do a taste test every now and then to make sure it was good :)
Once the hour in the freezer is up, the next step is coating them in white chocolate. I thought this would be the easiest step...NOPE.COM. I took 18 balls as my first batch and started getting ready to coat. I melted the chocolate in the microwave (that's what its bag said to do since I didn't have the fancy double boiler it recommended). I took the first one, swirled it in the chocolate so that it was fully coated, took it out, and laid it on the wax paper to cool. It was cute. The second and third one came out nicely too. When I started the fourth one, I noticed the ball was falling apart and left RED crumbs in the WHITE chocolate. It was also getting hard to swirl the ball with a toothpick. The chocolate started hardening and the balls were softening. The fifth ball tore apart in the chocolate. I stood there looking at my broken ball in the chocolate and decided to improvise a double boiler to keep the chocolate soft.
There I was with a bowl of white chocolate sitting in a pot of boiling water That's basically a double boiler, right? Nope. The chocolate started cooking and I basically made a white chocolate ball with red crumbs. FAIL. I started over with a new bowl of white chocolate, but by that time the cake balls were too soft to swirl. Balls 6 though 8 were a mess. I looked at my white chocolate that was still liquid-y, then at the 10 remaining uncoated cake balls. I knew I had to come up with something fast before the chocolate hardened again, then I thought of the chocolate factories that have a conveyor belt of truffles run under a fountain of chocolate and come out beautiful on the other end. I figured pouring the chocolate over the ball would have the same effect. It didn't.
Out of my 18 balls, 3 came out decent. That's a 16% success rate, which would be an "F" if I was going to grade myself. However, if I had to grade the taste of the final product, I would give it an "A" with a happy face. With a sigh and in partial defeat, I went to go watch The Office and a surprisingly funny episode of 30 Rock (I don't usually watch 30 Rock because I don't think it's that great, but I was SO over doing anything because of the damn balls that I just left it on NBC and watched). Needless to say, I'm sitting at work now without valentines to give and no home-baked goodies for everyone to fawn over.
I have 50 balls in the freezer right now. Should I event attempt finishing them? How the hell do you keep melted chocolate liquid-y enough to swirl? Is it normal that my hands are still kinda red from rolling balls last night?
Below is a picture of Paula Deen's cake balls and a link to the recipe. Proceed at your own risk.
Happy freakin' Valentine's Day.
God this post is sooo full of win.
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