Weekend Recipes - Cake Balls

Alternatively titled: How cooking/baking is a metaphor for my twenties.

So I mentioned yesterday morning that my friend Beth stopped by on Friday night to pick up her camera that she had left with me at an event at Candler on Thursday night.  We ended up looking at some of our favorite cooking blogs and decided to attempt to make cake balls - we found recipes at The Pioneer Woman, Bakerella and Kelly's Korner to work with.

Cake Balls

1 box cake mix (we used golden butter / yellow)

Oil/Egg/Water/Etc. to make cake

1 can frosting (we used cream cheese)

Almond Bark (you could also use melting chocolate)

Bake cake according to directions on box

Here's Beth with our cake.  Isn't she pretty?  She grew up in Iowa, which I just think is the coolest thing ever.  I think her parent's farm in Iowa is probably bigger than the entire state of Connecticut.  We met in our first year of seminary when we were both student interns at a homeless shelter.

Bake in a 9x13 pan - I'm not sure this is necessary, but just seemed to be the simplest option

Allow cake to cool

(We grew impatient and put our cake in the refrigerator)

Once cake is cool, crumble it into a big bowl

It should look something like this

And your face should look something like Beth's, because - let's face it - it's fun to crumble a freshly baked cake into a ba-jillion pieces

Add can of frosting

Mix until well-combined

It should look something like this

Using a cookie scooper, scoop balls of the dough onto a cookie sheet

LET HARDEN.

I repeat ... LET HARDEN.

I say this with such fervor because Beth and I were tired (it was closing in on midnight - I told you, impromptu) and we wanted to get to the almond bark coating.  We had some difficulty coating the balls because they started to fall apart and it was hard to get them out of the bark.

But you get the general idea - melt the bark (or chocolate) and dip the balls in them

(We melted the chocolate in the microwave, but you could do it on a double broiler on the stove, too)

Put on wax paper to harden

I had sprinkles so we decided to decorate a little

Now - do you notice how the balls aren't coated in some place and they aren't exactly round?  This was what I was talking about when I said that we didn't let the them harden enough before we started the coating.

HOWEVER ... It was late and we didn't coat all of the balls - I put the uncoated ones in the freezer and took them out today, completely hardened (but not frozen) and ready to be coated.  It was AMAZING how much easier it was to coat them in the bark when they weren't falling apart.

See what I mean?  They look a lot cleaner.

So the moral of the story is:

1. Don't rush through something (like the cooling process) just to get it done faster - take your time and learn how to do it right (even if it takes longer to cool - the coating process will go much more smoothly).

2. If something doesn't turn out perfectly the first time, don't be discouraged - try it the next day and you'll be amazed at how much you know / how well you can do what you are trying to do (compare picture #1 to picture #2).

The funny thing is - the lessons that I am learning in the kitchen are the same lessons that I am learning in my twenties.

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

xoxo,

Sarah

p.s. Photos taken with my new camera - what do you think?  I'm loving it!!