Cake Balls!

I have been a fan of Bakerella's blog for awhile. Her cake pops look amazing and she is always coming up with new decoration ideas. I'm not so good at the decoration side of things but I still wanted to try making these just for the taste and the novelty of them. I don't normally like to cook with cake mix or canned frosting, but I thought it was worth a try and I didn't have enough time to make everything from scratch. They were GOOD and everyone seemed pretty intrigued by them! I highly recommend them!

Cake Balls

Ingredients (makes about 50)
1 box of cake mix, cooked as directed for a 13x9 cake
1 can frosting (16oz)
1 package white chocolate bark (I used about 900g)
1 package regular chocolate bark

When cake is completely cooled, crumble into a large bowl. I used chocolate cake mix but you can really use whatever flavour you like.

Mix throughly with the can of frosting. I used vanilla, but again, use whichever flavour you want. It is easiest to mix it with your fingers.

Roll mixture into balls that are roughly 1 inch in diameter and lay on baking sheet.

Chill for several hours or freeze for 60minutes.

Melt the white chocolate in the microwave (this chocolate is best worked with in batches, as it tends to set quite quickly).

Roll balls in the chocolate, tapping off excess. Place balls on wax paper until chocolate has set. They may need a second layer of chocolate.

Melt the regular chocolate bark and drizzle over the balls with a spoon. These do not need to be refrigerated, but they can be if you would prefer them cold.

Recipe adapted from Bakerella

This is a picture of the inside of the cake ball. Sooooo yummy.

Mini Apple-Cinnamon Loaves with Calvados Glaze

This is a favourite recipe of mine. And now that it's October, I felt like it was time to have this again. It is a really great apple loaf cake recipe. Perfectly spiced, not overly sweet, with chunks of apple that are perfectly tender. The glaze is also amazing and worth making (it's also very easy to make!) It adds some richness to what is quite a light loaf cake.



Mini Apple-Cinnamon Loaves with Calvados Glaze

Ingredients

Loaves:
1 cup pecans
1 1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 cups peeled, cored, diced apples (about 3 large apples)

Glaze:
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 Tbsp golden syrup (or light corn syrup)
1 Tbsp Calvados

To make the bread: Preheat oven to 350*F. Arrange pecans in a single layer on baking tray and bake 10min until golden and aromatic. Cool the nuts and then coarsely chop.

Grease and flour five 6x4x2-inch mini loaf pans. Whisk together the oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt. Stir the flour mixture into the oil mixture until incorporated. Stir in the apples and pecans. The batter will be stiff and difficult to stir.

Spoon the batter into the loaf pans, filling each about 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 50min to 1 hr until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool loaves in the pans for 10min and then turn them out onto baking racks.

To make the glaze: Melt the butter, brwon sugar, syrup and Calvados in a saucepan set on medium-high heat for about 2 min until slightly thickened. Spoon the warm glaze over the loaves.

Do not wrap them until they are thoroughly cooled and the glaze has set, about 1 hr. Wrapped bread will keep up to 4 days at room temperature.

Adapted from the Pastry Queen cookbook


Here is a picture of one of the loaves in the pan:

Here is the loaf before covering it in glaze:

Here is a picture of the glazed loaf cut in half. Sooo yum