Chocolate Cake Truffles / Cake Pops

I have a love-hate relationship with Pinterest. B can’t resist teasing my hopeless addiction.

B: you know what Pinterest is? It’s what your girlfriend/fiance/wife stares at 8 hours a day and then you find yourself eating salads out of mason jars for dinner.

I admit many of the ideas are over the top – hence these spoofs “A Day in the Life of Pinterest” in The New Yorker (“Pinterest spends every day from 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. trying on very casual wedding dresses in a secret room, drunk on herb-infused cocktail”) and the ridiculous Hipster toddler Quinoa (“After an exhausting day of back-to-back play dates, Paleo relaxes with chamomile Tea while Quinoa prefers yoga”).

Fourth year of medical school is peak wedding season (we’ll never have 2 months off again!). Weddings are already over the top, so I figured why not run with the Pinterest ideas. I’ve wanted to make cake pops (even though they make no sense whatsoever – take a perfectly good cake and squash it with your bare hands) because they look so darn cute.

My roommate is actually getting married two weeks before me, so for her pink-and-purple bridal shower on Saturday, I, of course, decided to make these cake truffles (adapted from Divas Can Cook) on Friday night after a long day in the ICU.

Fast froward to midnight – I was cursing these cake pops, well aware I had a 5am wake up call the next day since I was working both weekend days. At 1am, I made an executive decision to switch from pops to truffles for my sanity. I can doctor or I can Martha Stewert, but not both simultaneously. While these chocolate cake truffles turned out cute (note: fairy dust ie pink sprinkles fix everything), I’m filing this recipe under “special occasion” or “not on a rotation” desserts only.

PS. No, I have never eaten (or made B eat) salads or anything out of mason jars. I’m not that addicted…yet.

Cake Truffles / Cake Pops

INGREDIENTS
Chocolate Cake box mix, prepared
Cream Cheese Frosting
1 bag white candy melts (I used Wilton)
cake pop sticks
sprinkles

DIRECTIONS 
Prepare and bake your chocolate cake according to the box mix directions. Let your baked cake cool fully.

Crumble cake into fine crumbs. Add your frosting a little bit at a time until cake is moist and can hold a ball shape. Do not add too much frosting – use your hands to incorporate the frosting into the cake crumbs.

Roll the mixture into a ball (about 1 inch) and place on a large tray. Repeat until all the cake mixture has been rolled into balls. Freeze the cake balls for at least an hour (this helps them keep their shape).

When ready to coat the cake balls, melt your white candy melts in a double boiler ** (be careful to not let it burn). Add vegetable oil as needed to make the candy smooth.

Remove the cake balls from the freezer. Place your cake pop stick into the balls and dip the tip of the cake pop sticks into the white candy. Roll the cake ball in the air to smooth the coating. Place the stick end into styrofoam *. Shake sprinkles over the top before the coating hardens. Let the cake pop sit the the air before handling.

If you keep it as a cake pop, leave the cake ball on the stick. If making truffles ***, gently pull the cake truffle off the stick and place in a small candy wrapper. Chill in the fridge or freezer until ready to serve. Enjoy!
Notes
* You can buy styrofoam blocks (recommended), but I used an egg carton in a pinch – note that you have to balance the cake pops to avoid tipping the carton over
** The double boiler keeps your candy warm as you work with it (vs having it cool too quickly). Microwaving can burn your candy melts as well.
*** I started with cake pops but switched to truffles for sake of transport/space (I ran out of egg carton space). Also, I was running low on candy coating – you also don’t have to fully coat the bottom in truffles and they still look good!