Cake Balls-Part 2: The Successes

And now, the riveting conclusion to Cake Balls-Part 1.............

So the cake ball pops were not a complete failure.  There were just a few bumps a long the way.  We actually ended up with many wonderful and semi-wonderful looking cake pops. 

How we made our cake pops:
2 boxes of cake mix
2 containers of icing
A bunch of Candy Melts from Michael's (we had 5 bags but only used about 3 bags)
Sprinkles
Cake Pop sticks (from Michael's)

1-Bake the cakes according to package (very important)
2-Let the cakes cool
3-Crumble the cake into a bowl and add about 3/4 of a can of icing
4-Mix the icing into the cake to form a dough (add more icing if you need it)
5-Roll the dough into little balls and then refrigerate or freeze them so that they are more firm (makes it easier to dip in the melted chocolate)
6-Melt the Candy Melts (or you can use real chocolate, I think Candy Melts (CM) are easier because they harden faster but real chocolate might taste better)
7-Dip a stick in melted CM then dip the stick in a ball and dip the ball back into the CM until it's coated.  Quickly add sprinkles before the CM hardens.  You can also let it harden and then write on it with more melted CM or draw designs on it with melted CM
8-Stick it in styrofoam to fully dry

T constructed a cake stand for us out of styrofoam and ribbon.  We started with the sprinkles and then B5 did an excellent job of writing letters (and drawing creatures) on some of the balls.  Basically the ones that T and B5 made are much prettier than the ones I made.  I also tended to shriek or yell when my cake balls did not turn out as planned.  It got pretty tense up in there (for me, not for other people).

Our biggest success by far was figuring out how to transport the cake ball pop cake from T's apartment (3rd floor by the way) to the bar later that night.  We sat in contemplation for a few minutes when we realized we would need something to put the cake in, in order to move it.  Then T decided to take action and after searching through her storage closest for a few minutes, T pulled out this drawer which ended up being the perfect thing to transport the cake.  (We cleaned and disinfected it before putting the cake in there by the way.)

So I took the cake to my house and then later was in charge of transporting it to the bar.  I was very freaked out the whole way to the bar and sat in the back seat with the cake to make sure it stayed safe.  I also yelled at B for going over speed bumps.

However, we made it and the cake was a success!

I'm not really sure what she was blowing out here as this cake ball
cake had no candles.  However, M seems to think it's hilarious.



Cake Balls-Part 1: The Failures

How it all started..........
Secret email chain between Me, Curly T, and Beezus5 in regards to Shanzie's Birthday party......
ME: should we make/buy cupakes or a cake or something for saturday night for shanzies bday partay?  what does she like?  will the bar allow that?
T: hey...sorry, for the delay in response...I didn't have to work today.  Yes...I think she would definitely appreciate that....and I would think that the bar would be fine with it since we are bringing like 20 people into their business (but B5 might know the establishment better).
B5:  The Bar would be fine with that. #1 i'm in with the waitresses, #2 i had some cake balls there a few nights ago for another dude's bday.
ME:  ooh maybe we can make cake balls.  i have wanted to try them
T:  my co-worker brought in cake balls for Valentine's day and they were delicious!!!
ME:  yeah i see them on food blogs all the time.  lets do it.  I THINK IT'S PRETTY EASY.  you just bake a box cake and crumble it up and mix it with icing and dip it in something.  we can add some sprinkles to make it birthdayish.  i'll look it up.

Of course I was the one who had to say "i think it's pretty easy."  In my head I should have known it wasn't going to work out as I planned (just like those Martha Stewart glasses).  So after a few more email chains we decided that B5 and I would pre-bake some cakes and take them over to T's house on Saturday morning.  She would get the stuff to decorate them and then we would make something amazingly beautiful, just like these.......

Picture from cakepops.com (much prettier pops than ours)

So anyways, my first big fail happened when I was making the cake.  The directions on the box said to add 1/3 cup of oil.  Apparently I thought it said to add 1 and 1/3 cups of oil.  Ooops.  I didn't realize this until the cake had been baking for like 45 minutes and it was still liquidy.  It finally baked and I decided since we were crumbling it up it would be fine. 

No, not really.   I should have known.  I mean the balls were pretty soggy even after I froze them.  The first one I tried to make ended up like this.....as did the next few. 

We finally got a few of them to stay on the sticks but an hour later we realized that they were actually leaking oil (yeah there was that much oil in them).  GROSS.  So we threw away all the pink cake.  Fortunately I did make a chocolate cake with the correct amount of oil and B5 made a yellow cake to use

Our next big mishap occurred when B5 threw one of the recently coated melted chocolate balls under T's kitchen table.  Ok she didn't really throw it.  She just dropped it.  I just stood there frozen and yelling while T and B5 actually figured out how to get the (hardening) chocolate off the carpet.  (I also took pictures. I'm sooo helpful in a crisis.)  Good times.

by the way, they got the chocolate up with clorex wipes, I think

So in conclusion, when you make cake balls don't add 4 times the amount of oil the cake recipe calls for and try not to drop the balls on the ground.  See what we had to go through, Shanzie.

Did we end up with any successful cake balls?  You will find out tomorrow in the riveting conclusion, 'Cake Balls-Part 2'.