Cake truffles

These are also featured over at Sweet as Sugar Cookies in her sweet treat linky party.

These little dessert treats will make you look like the gourmet cook in all of us.  When in reality they are as easy as can be and you won't believe how delicious they are!

It may not seem this way but I really am not a baker and rarely do but with most everything I do I cannot just make a cake and slap on icing.  Why?  Will it taste the same?  Yes.  But I cannot settle for just one aspect of the process.  I not only love funtionality but beauty in the practical is what I love.  So it is actually hard for me to bake cupcakes and slap on icing for childrens treats because I just don't see the beauty in it but when I stumbled upon these beauties in a bakery I just had to find out what they were.  Because the look of them caught my eye enough to get me to purchase one for $3.99 but when I ate it...oh mmm.  My curiousity wouldn't rest until  I found out what it was I was eating.  They were called cake truffles.  What I found was they are incredibly simple.  So here it is in a nut shell. 

Today I made "Turtle Cake Truffles" to celebrate my husbands 32nd birthday.  But last week they were "Chocolate Covered Cherry Truffles" for my daughters 6th birthday.  The combinations are endless. 
What you will need:  Cake mix of your choice, container of icing your choice, chocolate for melting and any other extras you want to add.  Here I also used carmels and pecans.

Step 1: Make the boxed cake mix as directed,

OR enlist any helpers from the 4 ft and under crowd to do it for you.

The you have a perfectly good cake.  Slap on some icing and done!  Ha, nope I said simple but it is not that easy.  You take that perfectly good cake and....

demolish it!  Cut it into peices while it is still warm.  Not need to worry about keeping it pretty.

Then take a container of frosting.  I used caramel.  (It did not auto rotate so it is sideways icing)

Dump the cake and the icing into a large bowl.  I know it may seem weird but stick with me here.

Mix it all together until it is all well incorperated.  No need to over mix.

I said it was simple but I didn't say you wouldn't get really messy!  Now you need to form balls.  I do 1 1/2-2 inch balls.  They will be kind of rough at first but if you let them set for a couple minutes and clean your hands you can reroll them and they will be more shapely.

Let them cool.  I would suggest putting them in the freezer for about 20 min before dipping in chocolate.
During this phase you could also get a little fun and add suprises in the middle.  EX: chocolate covered cherry, chocolate cake, cherry icing and put a marcino cherry in the center of the ball.  Or Turtle, you can put a whole pecan or caramel in the center.

Some people use dutch ovens, I improvise.  This is my set up to melt the chocolate.

Drop in the balls...

Cover them thoroughly and quickly.

The last couple steps I failed to get photos of because my hands were full.  I just used the same method to melt the carmel as I did the chocolate.  Drizzled the balls with the caramel and quickly sprinkle with toasted pecans.   And here is your finished product!

And they taste amazing!  Like a super moist, dense, rich cake, covered in chocolate.  What is not to love?!

Happy Birthday Love!