Eggnog Cake Balls

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Cake balls has truly been this year's baking craze, and with good reason; they're delicious, they're cute, and they're delicious.  How awesome would it make you look if you brought a tray of these to your next Christmas party!?!  

I have made my regular boring ol' vanilla cake into a festive eggnog cake, perfect for the season!  Then I dipped each ball of confectionary goodness into milk chocolate, and sprinkled with fun decorations.  Cake balls are not difficult to make, but they do take some time and patience.

Ingredients:

• 1 box vanilla cake mix
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon vanilla 
• 1 can (16 oz-- you could always use homemade if you'd like) vanilla frosting
• 2 12 ounce bags of milk chocolate chips
• festive sprinkles 
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Steps:

Make your cake according to the directions.

Add the nutmeg, ginger, and vanilla to the cake batter (this is what turns it into an eggnog cake.)

Make sure that you spray the pan well for easy removal of the cake.

Notice all the flecks of flavor in there!

When the cake is done baking, allow the cake to cool for 5-10 minutes, then turn it out onto a cooling rack, and let the cake cool completely.

When the cake has cooled, break the cake up into large pieces using your (clean) hands, and place the pieces into a bowl.

Using your fingers, gently crumble the cake into small uniformed crumbs.

When the cake has been completely crumbled, add about half of the can of frosting to the bowl.

Using your hands (or a spoon if you would like, because this is quite messy--however, I found it easier to do this by hand) mix the frosting with the cake.

The mixture should resemble dough.

If the cake and frosting is too crumbly, add more frosting until you get the right consistancy.

Using a Cookie Scoop put a small ball of 'dough' into the palm of your hand.  Roll the ball into a quarter-sized ball of deliciousness, and resist popping it into your mouth.  Place the rolled ball onto a cookie sheet. 

Repeat this process until all of the cake and frosting mixture has been used up (this should make about 60 cake balls.)

Place the tray into the refrigerator overnight.  Cover the tray with a kitchen towel.

When the cake balls have chilled out overnight, they are ready for their pretty outer layer.

Over a double boiler, melt your chocolate.  

I like to only work with 1/2 a bag of chocolate chips at a time.  For each 1/2 a bag, add 1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil.  

When the chocolate is nice and smooth, remove it from the heat.

Take a few (no more than 4 or 5) of the cake balls out of the fridge, and place them on a small plate lined with wax paper.

Using a spoon and a fork drop 1 cake ball into the melted chocolate.

With the spoon, cover the ball completely with chocolate.

When the ball is covered, scoop the ball out of the chocolate using the fork.

With the spoon, gently tap the fork to get the excess chocolate to drip back into the bowl.

Place the covered ball onto the wax paper and sprinkle with decorations.

Repeat with the remaining 3 balls.

Place the plate in the freezer for 10 minutes, or until the chocolate coating has hardened.

When the chocolate has set, transfer the bite-sized drops of yummy back onto the cookie sheet in the fridge.

When all of the balls have been dipped and decorated, they are ready to make their debut at your next party!

If you don't plan on eating them immediately, store them in your refrigerator in an air-tight container for up to a week.

If you wish, you could make a bunch of cake balls and store them in the freezer for up to a month.