German Chocolate Cake Balls

 OK, I admit it! I am a huge slacker! I have been really falling down on the "job" of baking and blogging. I've been doing a lot of subbing and (praise the Lord) I am finally able to run again, so I am of course training for a half marathon at the end of the month. Thankfully my mom has gotten into the baking portion, so I can still have stuff to write about. . . It can just be difficult to make time to write about it. A couple of days ago though, my mom and I got together and experimented with a ton of ideas which of course spawned even more ideas :). Today's cake ball is the German Chocolate Cake Ball. Very simple, very easy and quite tasty.

Remember the best thing about cake balls, they are really hard to mess up. As long as you combine flavors that you like (and like together), the are practically no fail. It takes a cake you bake and icing, or if you bought a cake at the store and have leftovers, that will work too.

Here is what I did for this particular cake ball. I started with a cake mix. Notice the box top for education? It's one of the reasons we get this brand. I baked it according to package directions. I normally use my jelly roll pan because it is really spread out and it takes less time to bake.

After I let the cake cool. I chopped it up and placed it in my stand mixer. I added icing to it and let it mix together. I used the coconut pecan icing. It gave it a nice texture.

Notice I've already cut off the box top on this one :)

After mixing together, I use my fabulous Pampered Chef mini scoop (some will call it a cookie dough scoop) and I got about 6 dozen on my cookie sheet. I line mine with parchment paper and get about 7 rows of 10 (give or take a few). Let them freeze for about an hour, longer if you don't have time to complete them. If you leave them in your freezer for more than a day, make sure you cover them or place them in a freezer safe bag after they are set. A lot of times, we will make some up and leave in the freezer for whenever we have the time (or the need) to make some.The really do last for a while.

Now you are ready to coat.

The best way for these to quickly coat is for your cake balls to be as COLD as possible. When it hits that hot melted candy, it sets up pretty quickly. The only issue is when you want to sprinkle something on top, like I did.This process was a bit more on the tedious side, but I REALLY like the results.

While my cake balls were setting up in the freezer, I took the time to toast some coconut (then I chopped it) and chop some pecans. You can buy toasted coconut, or you can just follow the package directions on the back of the bagged coconut. FYI--It says you can toast coconut in the microwave. . . let me put it this way. . . I wasn't successful!!!!! I do believe, that it turned out fabulously in the oven. :) I then mixed my chopped pecans and my chopped and toasted coconut together. I plopped my cake ball into my melted almond bark (remember to add about 1-2 TBSP of Crisco Shortening to help with consistency), swirled it around, then I laid it on parchment paper. I quickly sprinkled my mixture of coconut and pecans on top. Doing that step while the chocolate is still setting up ensures that most of the topping will set with the chocolate. I experimented a little with whether I like the combo, just the coconut or just the pecans. I went with the mixture, but I don't think you can go wrong with any of it.

Top: Coconut and Pecans
Middle: Pecans only
Bottom: Toasted Coconut only