Busy Baking Bee

I've had a very productive day in the kitchen. I have a champagne themed jewelry party at a coworker's house tomorrow and I offered to make cake balls for it. Inspired by Mr. Kingston's favorite cake flavor, I made them cherry chip.

If you haven't made cake balls before, here's the process: first, you bake a cake (I use boxed mixes). While it's still warm, remove it from the pan and mix in a tub of your choice of frosting. For these I used a cherry chip mix and cherry frosting. Last time I made them I used spice cake and cream cheese frosting. After you mix the cake and frosting, you'll want to chill it. I chilled mine overnight, but as little as 3 hours will work.



When the mixture is firm, roll it into balls. Mine are probably about a tablespoon each. I got just over 3 dozen out of the mixture.



Next, I melted Wilton candy melts to dip the balls. I used regular baker's white chocolate last time and I think the consistency with the Wilton candy melts was better. It also went further for less money. I used about 1 package for 2 dozen and with the baker's chocolate, it took a package per dozen.



After they were hardened, I tinted the spare chocolate pink and used a pastry bag to drizzle the cake balls to give them a little something extra. Here they are all packaged up and ready for the party.



But that's not all I did today. I also made these cute candy corn cookies.



When they're dry, I'll package them in bags with a Halloween ribbon and take them to work on Thursday (I'll freezze them until them) in a jack-o-lantern bucket. I don't usually get fancy with my presentation with work treats, but I think it would be a cute touch. Plus I already bought the ribbon.

So that was my domestic Saturday.