Cake balls (truffles)

Ingredients:

• Four packet cake mixes, made according to the instructions OR four medium-sized cakes of your choice made from scratch
• Four cups of icing sugar (a.k.a. powdered or confectioners sugar)
• A little vanilla, cocoa, spice or essence depending on the flavour of your cakes
• Approximately 1 1/3 cups of melted butter or firm margarine
• A little milk
• 2 x 375g bars of chocolate to coat the balls. I used 1 bar each of white and milk chocolate.

SUGGESTIONS:

• Turn a basic butter cake into something yummier with a dash of orange/lemon/lime juice (replacing some of the wet ingredients) OR a teaspoon each of cinnamon and ginger for a spicy kick OR half a teaspoon of orange or peppermint essence to a chocolate cake.
• After dipping, drizzling or coating your cake balls in chocolate, roll or sprinkle them with crushed nuts/sprinkles/shredded coconut etc. Try a small pinch of orange zest or edible glitter for fancy cake balls and crushed sweet biscuits or animal sprinkles for the kids.

For approximately 60-70 cake balls (depending of course on your choice of sizing) I made four packet cake mixes, two vanilla and two chocolate. I used the super cheap no-name brand but feel free to use your favourite mix or bake a cake from scratch. Let the cakes cool completely (use the fridge or freezer if you are in a hurry). Break the cakes into fine crumbs, I did that by hand but a food processor would have been fantastic. You do NOT want a sticky mud cake or something with chocolate chips, raisins or fruit for these cake bites. A fruity or chippy cake might be fine but I don't think the balls would stay together very well with chunks, and a mud cake will not crumble properly.


Then add about a cup of powdered (icing) sugar to each crumbled cake, a few tablespoons of cocoa to the choc ones and a teaspoon of vanilla to the vanilla ones. Or use your tastbuds to dictate the essences :D.

To bind, add about a third of a cup of melted butter and drizzle milk in until the balls stay together when squished. Add your wet ingredients slowly, you want to avoid gooey cake balls.

Then grab a small handful of mix and squeeze in your hand until in forms a ball. Most of ours were on the big side, lol. Pop them in the fridge for 10 minutes to harden a little and melt some chocolate while you wait. I got a 375g bag each of milk and white chocolate and that let us half-dip most of them with a few totally covered, so you may need quite a bit of chocolate to fully cover your cake balls. We dipped half the balls in chocolate and laid them down on a tray covered in baking paper and popped them in the fridge to set.

We wrapped each ball in a square of cellophane, twisted the top and secured with a little clear tape cause the buggers wouldn't stay closed. They were delicious and not too sweet like the recipes that call for a tin of premade frosting, although the recipe using cream cheese might be nice. Mine were not super soft, just soft enough to hold shape and they tasted just like the original yummy cake mix.

A banana cake or carrot cake would be delicious using cream cheese in place of the butter and milk.