The Great Cake Ball Adventure

S'mores Cake Balls: I’ve been rolling this idea in my head for a while now. Since May actually because I thought about doing it for Mother’s Day. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I was in a baking mood – a big one. These are based off of Bakerella’s Cake Balls. If you haven’t been to her site you should go – now. Well maybe after you’re done reading this post, but seriously go when you have a little while to get lost in her site. She is nothing short of a Rockstar in my book, and after making these little guys I have a whole other level of respect for her.

So Cake Balls seem to be a pretty easy idea with simple ingredients: boxed cake mix, frosting, and melted chocolate. Totally doable. Or so I thought. Ok, in all honesty they weren’t THAT hard. They take some finesse is all. Once I realized I was suppose to let them chill in the fridge for a while, the hardest part for me was that I couldn’t get my balls to look smooth and as perfect as Bakerella had. She listed using a bar of baker’s chocolate on her site, but I used chocolate chips because they were two bucks cheaper for the same amount of ounces. Maybe this was why my chocolate was a little hard to manage?

I forget how I actually came up with the idea to do a S’mores version of the cake ball, but it seemed like a perfect little match. Instead of just using cream cheese frosting I mixed in Fluff as well (Yes Fluff!) and then rolled the chocolate coated balls in some crushed graham crackers. And thank DOG for those graham crackers because they made my little balls look less like the hot mess that they were.

Originally I intended to take pictures of the process, but that was near impossible since my fingers were coated with chocolate and graham crackers. In fact I almost didn’t get ANY pictures but remembered to at 8:10AM right before BD was walking out the door with them.

S’mores Cake Balls

– Adapted from Bakerella

*Makes approx 55 balls

(Printable Recipe)

 

Ingredients:

- 1 box vanilla cake mix

- 1 cup cream cheese frosting

- ¾ cup fluff

- 2 12 ounce packages of milk chocolate chips

- 9 graham cracker sheets, crushed

Directions:

1. Prepare the cake according to box directions. Allow cake to cool completely.

2. Mix cream cheese and fluff together in a bowl.

2a. Wait impatiently and eat remaining cream cheese frosting with spoon out of the can.

3. Crumble cake and add fluff mixture and combine. It’s best to use your fingers.

4. Roll cake mixture in balls about the size of a quarter and lay on a sheet lined with wax or parchment paper. Refrigerate for several hours.

5. Once balls (I’m seriously giggling every time I write that word. Sooo Karen Walker) are ready, crush graham crackers and place in a bowl. Melt chocolate in either microwave or double boiler.

6. Set up assembly line. Take each ball and dip in chocolate. Tap off excess and roll in graham cracker. Set back on cookie sheet lined with parchment or wax paper. And repeat…again and again and again until done. Allow balls to firm. Won’t take long if you put them back in the fridge.

Notes:

- I crushed the graham crackers by placing them in a large ziplock bag and rolling a rolling pin over top. You want them as fine as possible.

- When melting chocolate in a microwave, use a small amount and heat for short increments - like for 45 seconds and then stir in between. If I do these again I will use a double boiler, because I had to keep going back and forth with the micro.

Thoughts: I liked them and so did BD and he is not a fan of graham crackers or cake. (I suspect he’s an alien or something because of this.) After these little guys were “set”, I packed them up and sent them off to work with BD. I did not need 55 cake balls in my fridge calling my name. The marshmallow flavor was not as prominent as I thought it would be, so next time I might play with the ratio OR just use regular vanilla frosting with the fluff instead of cream cheese frosting.

I would definitely make these again or would do another variety of cake balls. Perhaps next time I will use the bakers bark instead of chips to see if that works better. If not, I shall roll them in nuts or sprinkles or sugar or something to make them pretty.

Now what to do with the rest of the jar of Fluff???