Monday and Tuesday I went on a baking streak. I spent the entire day buying ingredients that I will probably use only once ever (crushed cloves??), test driving my hand mixer whisk style, dropping snippets of dough and large chunks of peppermints (thank you Jack for cleaning that mess up), and frosting the walls, stove top, and every counter space we have with melted chocolate.

I am not a graceful baker. In fact, I don’t know if I even like baking. I’m slowly learning that it’s not my forte. I’d rather chop a bunch of vegetables, sautee garlic, roll wrappings around egg roll ingredients. That’s okay though. I’m pretty sure I had the same reaction last year when I was getting frustrated make these guys but I still kept going. And I’m already accumulating sweet treat recipes for next year. Guess I like it enough to keep trying!

I’ll start with my favorite Christmas treat of them all (and yes, I will post the rest of the recipes in the next couple days). These little balls of deliciousness really do melt in your mouth. I’ve never really been a huge fan of red velvet cake (or cake in general…gasp!!! I know…) but these changed my  mind real quick.

They weren’t really hard to make either which was kind of nice but I did have one challenge. I melted the chocolate and dipped the balls into the chocolate which wasn’t pretty because they kept crumbling but not the end of the world. Then I ran out of milk chocolate and I still had another tray of cake balls to dip so I figured That’s okay, I’ll just melt the white chocolate that I have and dip the balls in those and put pretty sprinkles on top. The cake ball gods had other plans. Note to self if you make these: white chocolate is not melting friendly. I melted it and stirred it around half way through and it was hard on the bottom. So I kept melting. The longer I melted it the stiffer the chocolate got.  It’s like it melted and then hardened almost instantly. So I took it out quick and drizzled some over the milk chocolate balls and then started dipping the leftover cake balls.

You want to talk about frustrating. I got through about half of them and had had it. The rest of them ended up looking a little something like this…

Yeah, you laugh. Whatever. Post a picture after you’re done dipping them in white chocolate so I can laugh at you!

Minus the terribly hideous white on red cake balls, they turned out pretty mouth watering. Add some festive sprinkles and you have a delicious dessert on your hands.

Also if anyone has any tips on melting white chocolate, it would be MUCH appreciated.  Since…you know…I suck at it.

Red Velvet Cake Balls (adapted from Iowa Girl Eats)

Makes between 40-50

Ingredients

1 box red velvet cake mix (plus ingredients required on back of box)
16oz Baker’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate
6oz Baker’s White Chocolate
colored sprinkles

For the cream cheese frosting (could use store-bought):
1/4 cup butter, softened to room temperature
4oz 1/3-less fat cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar

Directions

1. Bake red velvet cake according to package directions. Let cool completely then crumble into a very large bowl.
2. In a separate large bowl, cream together butter and cream cheese until smooth.
3. Add vanilla then beat until combined. Add powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, then beat until combined.
4. Incorporate half the cream cheese frosting into the cake crumbles, then add more frosting until the cake crumbles just come together.
5. Scoop by the Tablespoon then roll into balls and place on a wax-paper lined baking sheet.
6. Repeat with remaining cake then refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
7. Melt semi-sweet chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl in 30 second increments, stirring between increments, until smooth.
8. Dip cake balls in chocolate using two forks, then place back on wax paper.
9. Melt white chocolate in 20 second increments, stirring between increments, then use a spoon to drizzle over cake balls.
10. Sprinkle with colored sprinkles, if desired, then refrigerate until chocolate is hardened. Keep refridgerated for best results until your ready to eat.