Prep Time: A couple of hours
Cost: Under $20
Things You Need: Cake, Frosting, Almond Bark, toothpicks, cupcake liners, electric mixer, wax paper
Terms to Know: Double Boiler, Moderation

These totally divine cake balls can be made using your favorite from-scratch recipe or your favorite from-the-box cake mix. We (and by we, I mean my sister-in-law, Jessica) used sour cream chocolate cake and butter cream frosting recipes from cupcakes!, by Elinor Klivans. You can always take your favorite mix, substitute milk for the water and get a richer product.

Step One: Make your cake according to the directions. While it’s cooling, mix up the frosting.  The cake will need to be completely cooled to get going, so you might want to chop it up (a la the photo below) to speed things up.

Step Two: Scoop the cut up cake into a bowl and begin adding the icing, about 1/4 of the recipe at a time to get the right consistency.  Our recipe does best with about 3/4 of the icing. Mix together with the electric mixer.

Step Three: Either wearing latex gloves or with clean hands, roll the mixture into bite sized balls. The size really depends on you – I like a two-bite treat, personally and they fit nicely into the cupcake liners.

Step Four: Freeze cake/icing balls for about an hour. The firmer they are, the easier they are to dip!

Step Four: Make a double boiler. Simply, this is a shallow pot or skillet  filled with water (as seen above) with a heat-safe dish inside.

Step Five: On medium-high heat, melt the Almond Bark in the double boiler. I chose Almond Bark because it gives such a nice finish and, well, it’s easier than messing with melted chocolate which must maintain an optimal temperature for dipping. Our cake balls are all about forgiveness.

Step Six: Grab your frozen balls from the freezer, poke ‘em with a toothpick and dip  in the melted almond bark. Transfer to wax paper (a fork will be  useful in this process) and remove the toothpick.

Step Seven: Add any pretties you want (we went with simple, pink pastel dots) and once dry, carefully set them in holiday-appropriate cupcake papers. Ta da!

Lessons Learned: When the instructions say to freeze the dough for an hour, it’s best to go along with it. Haste, in this case, made some really tasty waste. Which leads us to that thing about learning moderation. Wowsers.

Jessica Jamison is from Dallas, Texas. She loves anything vintage, worships Martha Stewart, and would be considered a hoarder if not for her excellent taste. She is starting up her own event and design business – Everly Lane – and sells her wares at Etsy.