Last year while camping at the Texas Renaissance Festival a lovely lady offered me a tasty treat. It was a ping-pong ball sized chocolate covered bite of banana yumminess. I couldn't tell what was inside but it was soft and almost candy-like in consistency. Curiously I asked her what was inside. She told me it was cake and frosting and she called them Cake Balls. I begged her for the recipe but she revealed no such secret due to the fact that she owned a Cake Ball business. I was left to my own devises to find the recipe.
Since then, I have searched for these tiny balls of joy online. Much to my delight, I found out they are the newest treat sensation to grace the tables of Southern ladies social functions. I discovered the overwhelming method for making these "Cake Balls" was to use the cake mix of your choice, a jar of store bought frosting and Almond Bark. The directions were to bake a cake, let it cool, mix in the container of frosting until it forms a huge ball. Shape the balls to the size you want and dip them in either dark or white Almond Bark. Some even suggested spiking them with the liqueur of your choice. My only compliant other than the obvious pre-packaged horror was that you couldn't tell the filling was actually cake.
Now, being a Pastry Chef by trade, I couldn't allow such a dessert to leave my kitchen, no Ma'am. I was going to give these little darlings the makeover they deserved. I knew I could build a better confection. I would even give them the proper name of Cake Truffles. For indeed that it was they appear to be.
My first batch was Italian creme cake with tres leches butter cream dipped in white chocolate and gilded with gold leaf. I made all this from scratch with my own two hands, of course. I lowered the ratio of cake to butter cream so that once bitten you could tell that it was indeed cake hiding inside. The result was pure heaven.
Of course there is an endless supply of combinations you can create. Any cake you can dream of can become a more demure version in the form of a Cake Truffle. Some of my favorites are Red Velvet, Carrot, Triple XXX Chocolate, Strawberry, Pineapple, Lemon, Classic French Vanilla and Pumpkin Spice. They make a beautiful sophisticated display on any dessert table. With the holidays fast approaching, consider whipping up a batch as gifts.
If you live in the Austin area there a few shops specializing in these trendy treats. If you are in the Dallas area stop by Neiman Marcus for a luxury version of Cake Balls. If you are not near these two cities and want to try some for yourself, don't worry, I won't tell a soul if you use the popular store-bought method. After all it IS cake, frosting and chocolate, how can you go too terribly wrong?
