Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake Balls

Cake balls have become a little obsession of mine. Chocolate covered cherries have ALWAYS been an obsession of mine, so I just had to combine the two. It's the perfect way to use up leftover cake. . . or to just make a cake from a cake mix just for cake balls! One of the things I love about cake balls, is that even though they take a decent amount of time to complete, you can do it in about 30 minutes at a time, whenever you have time. How awesome is that?!

 From the time it takes you to make a cake from a cake mix until the time you take it out might be 30 minutes total. Let the cake cool. . . you can do it in about an hour or just let it sit overnight. Find your favorite flavor of icing (or one you think will go great with the cake you have made). Now you mix the two together. I generally put mine in my stand mixer and just let the two ingredients mix. I use my handy-dandy small "cookie" scoop (Pampered Chef is my favorite, but I left mine at my mom's house so I got another brand from the store). FYI--the other sizes work great too; cake balls are generally so rich the smaller pieces are better. Place it on a cookie sheet and put it in the freezer to let them harden as these are a little mushy. It doesn't matter how long you leave them in the freezer either. If you do leave them in for longer than a day, it would be a good idea to put them in a freezer bag. Sometimes, I will make a batch and only coat a few with candy and leave the rest in the freezer until I'm ready for more. Other times, like today, I made the whole thing. I totally intend to share! ;) Coat them in your favorite candy coating. I like Wilton Candy Melts and Almond Bark. Today I used chocolate Almond Bark. See how easy it would be to break it down into smaller time commitments? Each "step" of actual works takes about 30 minutes.

Now on to the specifics as to what I did on this day.

(Step 1) I used a Betty Crocker Cherry Chip cake mix. I baked it according to the package directions. (Step 2) After I let it cool, I combined a can of store bought cream cheese icing and my cake that I had broken up into my mixer. Since I didn't have a can of cherry icing, and I wanted a strong cherry flavor, I used about a half jar of maraschino cherries and juice. I mixed those right in there too. I lined a couple of cookies sheets with foil (parchment paper works really great here too, but I realized I was out), and I used my smallest scoop and got about 5-6 dozen from this. I really can't tell how many because I have eaten a few :)  Anyway, I popped these in the freezer for a couple of hours. I took a poll on Facebook as to what I should cover these with, vanilla or chocolate. Chocolate won. My plan was to do the chocolate until I ran out, and then finish up with vanilla, but my one and a half pounds of chocolate almond bark was more than enough to finish the job. One little trick that I know I have mentioned before, but it is most definitely worth repeating, add a little Crisco (about a couple of tablespoons) to your candy as your are melting it. It smooths out everything quite beautifully and makes for an easier dipping process. (Step 3) I melted this all together in a bowl in the microwave. I pulled my now frozen cake balls out of the freezer and I then kind of "reformed" them into the shape of a ball. I dropped it into my chocolate and swirled it around with a spoon. I placed it on waxed paper to set up. I found a few cherry flavored chips and melted those in a double boiler (ok so really it was a glass bowl on top of a saucepot filled with boiling water) and I "sprinkled" it on top.

The end result is quite tasty, at least it is to me. I am going to share these with the teachers at my kids' school and I hope they like cherry chocolate as much as I do. If not, I will just have to put the finished product in my freezer and pull a few out any time I need a pick-me-up, or a chocolate fix, or just because!