I’m so excited to share these cake balls with you – I made them a few weeks ago just for fun but they’ve been patiently sitting in my Sweet Tooth photo folder waiting for February to come along with all things red and chocolate. I had them in my fridge for a few days and every time I opened the door I would squeal with excitement – they are just so cute! And really, really tasty – red velvet cake balls double dipped in red and chocolate candy coating. A real chocolate covered strawberry is almost as good as it gets, but this brings the concept to a ridiculously delicious new level. Plus, a chocolate covered strawberry can border on being a healthier dessert choice, and we’ll have none of that around here, especially around Valentine’s Day!
I chose to use red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting for the cake balls because of the color, but as I was making these I was thinking how using strawberry cake with chocolate frosting would have been really true-to-form and the resulting color would probably be appropriate too. The cake balls were formed into triangle/strawberry shapes, dipped completely in red candy coating, allowed to dry, dipped again in chocolate, and then decorated with swirls of white chocolate. The “leaves” are made from green-dyed fondant and I just made the petal shapes by hand and pinched a little stem out of each. I decided to add some seeds with a black food marker and really loved the overall effect. I’m telling you, if you’re looking for a dessert to wow your Valentine, I would start shopping for the ingredients right now – it takes some love to make these, but that makes the results even more special!
Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake Balls
Yield: 30 strawberries
Ingredients:
1 box red velvet cake mix
1/4 cup canned cream cheese frosting
1 bag red candy coating
1 bag chocolate candy coating
1/2 bag white chocolate candy coating
Green fondant (homemade recipe found here)
Black food marker
Directions:
Bake red velvet cake in a 9×13″ pan according to package instructions. Let cool and crumble cake with your fingers completely into a large bowl.
Mix in the frosting to the crumbs using a rubber spatula or your fingers.
Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and start forming triangular/strawberry shapes out of the cake ball mixture. You may need to wash your hands a few times in between if the cake mixture is sticking too much.
Once all the strawberries are formed, place them in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.
While the cake balls are chilling, roll out the green fondant and make leaf shapes with stems.
Melt the red candy coating in a deep, microwave-safe bowl or Pyrex measuring cup in 30 second intervals. Make sure not to overheat the candy – if there are still a few solid pieces of candy, just mix furiously until everything is melted rather than microwaving for another round. If the candy seems thick, add a tbsp of vegetable oil to make it more runny.
Remove 3 or 4 cake balls out of the fridge at a time and begin submerging them completely in the melted red candy coating. I used a spoon to drop them in, then a fork to gently lift them and shake off the excess by tapping the handle of the fork on the edge of the bowl. Transfer dipped cake ball to another parchment paper-lined sheet and use a toothpick to scrape away any excess candy around the edges if possible. Make sure to attach the green leaves/stem while the red candy coating is still wet.
Let the red candy coating dry completely, then melt the chocolate in a similar fashion.
Dip the cake balls in chocolate about 3/4 of the way, and place back on the parchment paper-lined sheet to dry.
Melt the white chocolate in a pastry bag and cut a small opening to drizzle on each strawberry.
If you desire, go back with a black food marker and draw seeds on the red coating.
Return cake balls to refrigerate until ready to serve.
OMG!! These are so darn cute! I love them. I’ll head over and vote for you. Good luck!
These are so adorable… and convincing!!! I find cake balls to be so labor-intensive that I rarely make them. One lazy weekend, maybe I’ll take a stab at these beauties!
This totally caught me off gaurd as I thought it was yet another recipe for chocolate covered strawberries. So cute and they looks delicious! I cant wait to make these
These look amazing! I made cake balls for the first time over Christmas and I loved every minute of it. Can’t wait to give these a try soon for Valentine’s.
p.s. The link for homemade fondant isn’t there. Thanks!
Erica — January 31st, 2012 @ 9:19 pm
Thanks for the heads up about the fondant – I just added it! Good luck making these, you won’t regret it :)
You’re so creative! These are adorable!
Those are fantastic! I really like theat you made them look like real strawberries.
Darling, darling, darling! I am definitely going to give these a try!
OMG these are SO cute!! :)
They look amazing! Yummi!
they look so cute . Love them. :)
These are ridiculously cute! Love it! :)
Love! Those are so adorable.
You are a friggen master. SO CUTE. And they look crazy delicious.
Those are amazing! So cute. And super creative. Love them. :)
Confused about what to gift to your loved ones on Valentines Day?? I think gifting a chocolate will be good this time: For delivery any where in india for customised photo chocolates Contact Chocolate Hut:9246217112 (or) info@ChocolateHut.in
These are so cute! I wanted to let you know that I linked to this post on my blog post “21 Delicious Desserts for Your Valentine”.
I voted for your tooth cupcake. Good luck!!
Stacey
http://iwanttomakethis.com/
These are so cute! I bet doing a strawberry cake would be awesome too!
These are SO FUN! What a great idea!
These are so cute! I used the strawberry cake/chocolate icing, and they turned out great! A lot of hard work to cut out all the leaves, but totally worth it. Also, for some people, it may be worth it to buy fondant. Using the homemade recipe takes a lot of work and time (at least it did for me), and you have a LOT of leftover fondant. Only dye about 1/3 of the fondant green so you can reuse it later.
That’s a wise answer to a tricky qusoiten