Cake Bite? Delight!

No post on weight loss (last week) would be complete without a follow up post that shows very clearly HOW I got fat in the first place. I could blame all sorts of foods but sweets are at the top of the list. Sweets that look like this: Cake bites are often called Cake Balls but I just can't call them that. Cake Balls brings to mind a certain Saturday Night Live skit and well, the name just isn't appetizing.

If you follow any online cooking blogs, you'll see renditions of Cake Bites/Balls everywhere. Bakerella started this whole thing and they've taken on a life of their own. Cake Balls/Bites have been a trend in many places for a few years now and so they've lost the novelty of being 'something new'.

However, I don't live in a 'hip' kind of place so these little morsels are just starting to catch on. Most people haven't seen them so around here they're so new they aren't even cool yet. Don't you love how blogging lets you jump on the bandwagon late yet still look as though you're on the cutting edge of taste? Me too!

I'm about to go into a whole lot of detail on how to make these. It's not that they are hard to do, just that there are some little things that make a big difference in quality that I've had to learn the hard way- so I thought I'd go into enough detail to make it easy for you to try these with considerably less experimentation than I had to do. For the strawberry cake, I actually did a from scratch recipe but the others are just box mixes and it comes out just fine to do it that way- I can't tell a big difference for all the extra work so don't worry about overachieving there.

The basic recipe for Cake Bites is REALLY simple:

1 cake mix, any flavor you want
1 can icing, any flavor you want (only use about 2/3 of the can)
Dipping chocolate, any color/flavor but it must be made for dipping unless you know how to temper regular chocolate.

Make your cake according to package directions. I always sub out most of the vegetable oil with applesauce but that's a personal preference thing- these suckers are not going to be healthy no matter what you do. Bake as usual. Once the cake has cooled, crumble into a bowl. Yep, just rip it out of the pan and turn it into crumbs- it's quite cathartic. Try it when your irritated.

Stir in frosting. I'd recommend Cream Cheese Frosting because it's less sweet- you'll be dipping these in chocolate so you want to keep the sugar down in the centers if you can. On the cake bites I've made here I just did up my own Cream Cheese Frosting and added just a little confectioner's sugar. This is a binder, not a true frosting so it's okay to have a little different consistency than would be ideal for a standard frosted cake.

For the Swiss Chocolate Cake, I used Nutella as the binder instead of frosting. It doesn't HAVE to be frosting. I've read on some blogs that they use the flavored liquid coffee creamers for the binder- which sounds yummy too. Or peanut butter or jam or caramel sauce- you get the idea. Scoop the mixture into balls with a cookie scoop then roll between your hands to smooth (kids love to help with this step and with sprinkles). You may have to apply a little pressure to smoosh them together if they are a little dry. You want them just 'wet' enough to stick together but not so wet as to be completely mushy- it's a texture thing. Place cookie sheet in the freezer and freeze solid then place the frozen cake balls in a ziplock bag. You can store them like this as long as you want.

My niece Natalie rolls cake bites while Anna reaches for another one (she's not wiping her nose with her arm even though it looks that way in the photo, LOL!). Notice the difference between the ones that have just been scooped vs. the ones that have been rolled smooth? The smoother the better.

To dip, melt chocolate over a double boiler. Remove bites from the freezer, just don't let them defrost or you'll get crumbs in your chocolate which isn't attractive. I use a fondue fork because it inserts and removes easily. You can also use chocolate dipping tools if you own them or even a plastic fork- just break off the two middle tines. I like to gently tap the fork on the side of the pan while rolling it to get the extra chocolate off. A thin coating is better than a thick one. I learned that after my first attempt at making these went bad.

See how I lay it on the parchment paper so the fork marks will be on the underside? I use a second fondue fork to hold the bite/ball in place while I pull out the first one.

Sprinkle the tops with whatever you want to use: nuts, coconut, sprinkles, sugar crystals, etc. Make sure you do this immediately while the chocolate is still wet so the sprinkles/ topping will stick. For some of these I also melted an alternate color then flicked it on with a fork.

The cake bites are frozen so the chocolate that's touching the cake will harden faster than the chocolate that drips off onto your parchment/wax paper. For the cleanest finish, I just pay attention to them as I dip and when I see the tops are hard, I move them. This pulls them out of the little 'puddle' of chocolate that pools at the bottom and keeps them smooth (see below). You can always trim the bottoms when they're done but it's easier to just move them out of the puddle before they're dry. Having a kid handy is great for this step because you don't have to put down your dipping tools between each one to do the sprinkling. Anna is helping with this step.

The finished product! 1. White Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting and Strawberry Chocolate Coating. 2. Swiss Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Hazelnut Butter (fancy way to say Nutella) and White Chocolate Coating. 3.Strawberry Cream Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Milk Chocolate Coating (would have been better if I'd used a Dark Chocolate- both the visual and flavor contrasts would have been stronger thus more attractive).

Serve them up in the mini-baking cups (the ones shown here are actually meant for chocolates but regular mini-muffin cups work fine). I even bought some chocolate boxes so I can give some of these away for Valentines Day to Grandparents. The majority of the Cake Bites are going to be served at little sis's baby shower this week. It's a girl (thus the pink) but the color is perfect for Valentines Day too!

One cake mix will make 30-40 cake bites/balls depending on size. Once dipped you can store the cake bites in the freezer but NOT the fridge- it will make the chocolate sweat unbecomingly. No one likes Schwetty *ahems* (thanks a lot SNL!)

*** If you're interested in overachieving, check out THIS post on Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake Bites.