Cooking with Kids (Halloween): Halloween-y Cake Balls

Cake balls are a new found indulgence of mine. They're tasty, sophisticated, fun, and truly simple to make. I personally like the flavor of the Oreo truffle balls even better, but these are slightly less sweet and have the color and the cool factor going for them! My kids had a blast making these with me and are now begging to make them for every holiday. The only problem I see with these is how addictive they are!

The ingredients:

1 box Duncan Hines Red Velvet cake mix, baked as per package directions

1 jar Duncan Hines frosting, cream cheese or vanilla (or an 8-oz. pkg. of cream cheese)

Melting chocolate in various colors (I got mine from the craft store) OR white chocolate chips

Decorating gels, black, green

3-4 Tbs. Crisco

lollipop sticks (from the craft store)

Bake the red velvet cake as per directions on box. Allow to completely cool.

When cake is cooled, use your fingers or fork to crumble the cake until it is nothing but fine crumbs. My children happen to think that crumbling the cake is a job that is particularly humorous and exciting.

When cake is crumbled, combine the entire jar of frosting with the entire crumbled cake.

Mix until cake and frosting cling together.

Now using your best cookie dough skills, form the cake/frosting mix into 1-inch balls and place on wax paper.

(Kids also really like this job). When balls are all formed, place in freezer for 1-2 hours (or more). You could technically skip the freezing, but unfrozen cake balls are VERY difficult to work with and tend to fall apart very easily while dipping. I highly recommend being patient and freezing them.

When cake balls are frozen and you're ready to start dipping, put 1 cup of melting chocolate (or chocolate chips) in a microwaveable bowl and add 1-1/2 teaspoons of Crisco. **The Crisco makes the consistency of the melted chocolate easier to work with and decreases the setting time significantly.**

Place in microwave for 90 seconds, stopping it every 30 seconds to stir well. Your chocolate should now look like this.

Now on to the fun part.

Stick a lollipop stick in each ball (another good kid job), then immerse completely into the melted chocolate. Use a spoon to help to evenly distribute the chocolate over the entire ball.

My kids also liked helping with this step, but they may need a little more supervision, especially in making sure the entire cake ball is evenly covered.

After dipping, set the wet cake ball lollipops gently onto a piece of wax paper and allow to set before moving.

After the chocolate has set, use the decorating gels and decorate as desired. The gel will eventually harden, but it will take a few hours.

Ellie was very proud of her ghost with hair!

Enjoy!