Tutorial Tuesday: Cake Truffles

01 Feb 2011 39 Comments

by gemcitytiffany in candy melt, chocolate, holidays, truffles, tutorial, tutorial tuesday Tags: baking, Blog, cake, cake balls, candy, candy shell, chocolate, colorful, cute, deocorating, diy, food, hearts, how to, sprinkles, truffles, tutorial, valentines day, Wordpress

Alright guys! This is my first ever blog contest!

I’ve been busy creating all these wonderful cake truffles and I’m going to show you how to make them! And give you a chance to win some!

How do you win these delicious treats??

1. Subscribe to my blog! If you are already subscribed, you’re already one step ahead!

2. Leave a comment on this post suggesting some thing cake related you’d like to see me create a tutorial for! Or, if you aren’t baking inclined and don’t really have anything you’d like to learn, ask me a question about anything you’ve seen on my blog! It doesn’t even have to be baking related!

3. Share this post with your friends via facebook or twitter!
The buttons at the bottom the page make it sooo easy!

That’s IT. Next Tuesday (FEB 8, 2011), I will announce the winner and send them a package of cake truffles!

For those of you who don’t win, here’s how you can make them yourself!

You’ll need some cake. You can even just prepare a box mix cake, let it cool and then crumble it up for this, but I have a lot of spare cake lol. When I first learned how to level a cake, I was mortified. So much cake gets cut off! I couldn’t just throw it away. That seemed so wrong. I hate to waste food! So, I started saving all the cake tops in my freezer. Every few months… I turn that cake into truffles!

You’ll need
-your cake (at room temp)
-Frosting- about 2 table spoons, I used home made that I had on hand, but I’ll admit to using store bought frosting for these in the past with good results!
-One package of candy melt (also called almond bark or candy coating)
-sprinkles and candy for garnish
-wax paper
-a spoon
-a fork
-a frosting spatula
-and a microwave safe bowl

You’ll want to start by adding two table spoons of frosting to your cake. Then mashing it all together. Using your hands really is the best way to accomplish this.

The consistency should be sticky, but not overly wet. Remember, you can always add more frosting if it’s too dry, but you can’t take any out of it’s too wet! You should be able to form it and have it hold it’s shape.

Then you roll it with your hands and form tight little balls. I think they’re best when rolled about the size of a golf ball.

I line them up on a wax paper covered cookie sheet and then leave them in the fridge to chill for 15-30 minutes. This will really help the chocolate harden around them.
When you’ve got about 5 minutes left before you want to take them out, go ahead and prepare your chocolate coating. If you have the discs, you can just pop them in the microwave in your bowl, but with these big blocks, I like to cut them down into small pieces to help the process along.

I microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between.

You’re really looking for a liquid consistency.

Alright, now start by dipping the bottom of the cake ball into the melted chocolate. Then cradle it on a fork, so that excess chocolate can drip through the fork tines.

Now you’ll use the spoon to pour chocolate over the ball while it rests on the fork.

Let the excess chocolate run off the sides and the bottom, wave the fork back and forth over the bowl to shake extra chocolate off. When it’s not really dripping much anymore, use your spatula to move the ball from the fork to a cutting board or cookie sheet covered in wax paper. I use a marble board because it helps cool the chocolate very quickly.

Add your candy or sprinkles before the chocolate sets!

Depending on how fast you are able to work, you may need to microwave the chocolate coating again once or twice for 20 seconds or so to return it to it’s liquid state. You’ll also need to clear the tines on the fork a few times so that they don’t get clogged up with set chocolate or cake bits.

Now, they look finished, but I like to go a step further. I take a small knife and cut that excess off the bottom. And then look, underneath, there’s some cake showing through still. I don’t want that!

I like mine to be all sealed up tight in chocolate to stay moist and delicious! So after I trim the bottoms, I dip the bottom again!

Perfect!
And honestly, what’s better than a delicious cake and frosting ball coated in a tasty sweet chocolate candy shell!

I’d also like to comment that is was hilariously hard to make these and take all the photos myself haha. I probably looked like a crazy person! I think I washed my hands a dozen times. At the points where I got food on my hands, I was washing them between each photo so I wouldn’t get my camera all grossed up haha! I think my skin is going to come off!
No regrets though! I’m glad I got this done… and on schedule!

So come on and try win yourself a box of these!

Contest entries will be accepted up until 9:00am (EST) Tuesday Feb 8, 201110:00pm (EST) Monday Feb 7, 2011. I realized I need to give myself time to pick the winner with random.org and draft and schedule the post!

(Unfortunately, this contest is only open to the lower 48 US states! I don’t think these would travel well outside of the country and it would probably end up being pretty costly to ship them! Sorrrrry!)