Chocolate Cakeballs

1. Make Cake

2, Cool Cake for many hours/overnight.  Crumble into fine crumbs in a bowl and chill.

3. Make Frosting mix with cake

4. Chill for ~2-3 days

5. Make cake balls

6. Freeze overnight

7.  Make candy  coating, dip and decorate

Chocolate Cake Recipe (The cake is very good too!)

makes two 9-inch round cakes or three 8-inch round cakes

2 cups white sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans, or three 8-inch round baking pans. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large mixer bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer for 2 minutes. Mix in boiling water - the batter will be quite thin. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes on a wire rack, then tap the cakes out of the pans. Cool completely before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 cups confectioner's sugar4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon milk (or more, as necessary)

1. Whip the cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and milk together until smooth. 

Candy Coating:1 cup Chocolate Chips
1-2 Tablespoons Coconut butter/oil


METHOD FOR MAKING CAKE BALLS:

Directions:

Bake the cake and let it cool completely on a rack. This is a very moist cake, which is ideal for this recipe. It's best to let it cool overnight at least. When it is completely cool, break the cake into a large bowl. Crumble it with forks or your fingers until it is in fine crumbs.

In a separate bowl, whip the cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and milk together until smooth. 

Pour into the cake crumbs and mix with a spoon. Then continue mixing with your fingers, kneading and mixing until fully incorporated into the cake. Check to see if it will roll into a ball. It should: this makes a very malleable, easy-to-handle cake mixture. But if it needs a little extra moisture, add milk a spoonful at a time.

When the mix is completely done, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm. You can leave the 

mix refrigerated for several days at this point. I left mine in the fridge for about two days before 

making the balls. 

How to make the balls

Prepare two large baking sheets by covering with wax paper or parchment. Take a bit of the cake mixture and roll it into a smooth ball. If you want to use the lollipop sticks, stick one into the end of each ball, pointing upward, as you put the ball back down on the sheet.  Repeat until you've used up all the  mixture. As each sheet fills up, put it in the freezer so that the balls harden.

How to decorate the balls

Melt 1 cup  chocolate chips over a warm water bath and add 1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons of coconut butter or coconut oil. Take 3-4 cake balls at a time out of the freezer, place ball on baking sheet or parchment paper and spoon melted chocolate over each cake ball and then let the chocolate harden.  If you're adding sprinkles then add them quickly before the chocolate hardens.  
Other cake ball recipes recommend dipping the cake balls into the chocolate but this was way too messy for me so i came up with this method.  It still looks good and I think it's less intense of an experience this way.  Cake balls are rich no matter what but I prefer less candy coating.