Cake Balls

I got the technique from Bakerella.  I have only tried this once, but it turned out Good.  She has other variations of this that you can check out at her blog.  This is just an overview.

In order to be more figure-friendly, I used half sugar, half Splenda.

This is the recipe that I vaguely followed.  It is from Cooking Light, the Best of 2007.  (By the way, I HIGHLY recommend this cook book.  Great, great, great.  One of the few I actually use, plus, LOTS of pictures.)  Instead of adding coconut extract and butter extract, I used double vanilla and 2 teaspoons almond extract.  I omitted the coconut and the nuts.  I only did this because I didn't have them on hand.  You could follow the recipe exactly, and I'm sure it would be equally good.  My version is less like an "Italian Cream Cake" and more like "Cream Cake, or Wedding Cake."  Very yum.

Just the butter, sugar, and 2 egg yolks.  Look how yellow it is!  I am able to use fresh eggs from my Mother-in-law's chickens.

Once you make the cake according to the directions, you let it cool, and crumble it in a big bowl.  Mix it with one tub of icing from the store.  I'm sure if you're adventurous, you could make your own, but I'm not that adventurous...at least not today.  Mix it good until all the icing is mixed into the cake and it turns kinda like sticky crumbles.  Once it is, its ready to be rolled into balls.  When your cake balls are all made, pop them in the fridge for about 30 minutes or so.

When they are good and solid-ish, dip those bad boys in melted chocolate or white chocolate.  I added food coloring to mine to give it the blue shade.  This recipe that I used combined with the white chocolate (or blue chocolate) tastes like petite fours.  Yum.

today i woke up to the little man singing and talking to his stuffed animals in his room. after getting him dressed, wesley took him to ms. ladonna's so that i wouldn't have to get out. while he was gone i finished the laundry and found the long-lost gift cards i needed to finalize the baby shopping (thank you Lord). wesley suprized me with drive-thru breakfast (mmm), and i ate it while shopping around online for last minute baby items. i thought i would just spend a couple of minutes online, but i also found some friends online on facebook, so we chatted for a while. once i left facebook i watched some tv online while i scrapbooked. kinda trying to get some last minute scrapbooking done, too, before there's a whole new set of pictures to scrap. after lunch, i had time for a much-needed grocery trip with robin, and then back for a nap. usually i just put knox down, but today i needed it, too, so i took it. he's still in his room being quiet, so i have just a few minutes left before the dinner rush. pop pop is coming over tonight to watch the little guy so wesley and i can go to the movies one last time before we have an official family of four.
tomorrow i plan on getting some picture cds out to people and cooking food for the freezer. i am trying to stock pile a little bit of frozen food so that i won't have to cook so much once the baby arrives...thursday! that's so crazy. it doesn't seem like it should be here already. 3 more days!