Peanut Butter Cake Truffles

I was perusing the internet for various food sites and I came across a new trend in baking...cake balls. Or cake truffles, as they are also called. This seems to be something that is up and coming in the baking industry. One website I checked out sells 6 for $18.

What are cake balls? First you bake a cake, let it cool slightly and then crumble into small pieces. Pour in the desired frosting and mix well. After a brief stint in the refrigerator, form the cake/frosting mixture into balls and freeze two hours to overnight. They are then dipped in chocolate coating like a truffle and allowed to set. And voila! The other option is to use lollipop sticks to make cake lollipops.

I came up with several flavor combinations that I wanted to try out, but I only got a chance to try out one...yellow cake with peanut butter frosting coated with milk chocolate. This worked out really well. I was afraid there would be some logistical problems, like the amount of frosting to add or how large to make the balls, but it really went smoothly. I chose to use a small melon baller to get a consistent size by combining two scoops for each ball. This size seems to have a good cake to chocolate ratio. It is a lot bigger than a bite-sized treat, but if I went smaller, then there would be lots more chocolate than cake.

According to several places online, these will last for several days when stored in an airtight container at room temperature. It is best not to store them in the refrigerator because the chocolate will start to sweat.

I started with a 9x13" cake and one recipe of frosting. This resulted in just over 50 cake truffles. So while they take more work than a cake or cupcakes, the yield is fairly high. I will continue to pursue this track and see where it takes me. I have lots of other flavor combinations that I would like to try. Hopefully other people will like them, I will start sharing some of my peanut butter cake truffles starting tomorrow.