Works for Me Wednesday: When life hands you lemons, make: Cake Balls

On Friday night I made a peanut butter pound cake for Nan's birthday. Well, it was a bit of a fiasco and you can read about it in the previous post. While the outside of the cake was too hard, the inside was perfect. I hated to throw it away (I mean there were a lot of ingredients in there...5 eggs, a cup of butter...). I remembered reading some posts awhile back on "Cake Ball" and thought maybe this would be an option. I got on the internet and did a Google search for, you guessed it, "Cake Balls". There were several sites, so I browsed a few to get an idea of what I needed to do. It seemed simple enough though would be a bit time consuming. I had hoped to make these Saturday night for a bake sale on Sunday but when I realized how long they need to chill and then freeze I decided to wait. I cut around the outside edges and crumbled up the inside of the cake and put it in ziploc bags in the fridge. Yesterday I decided to make my cake balls. The recipes I found called for: one cake mix (made according to package directions), on container of frosting, melting chocolate. My cake was homemade and I didn't have a container of frosting so I made a batch of homemade Peanut Butter frosting (equivalent to about 2 c.)

This was what my cake looked like when I took it out of the fridge and into the bowl. It wasn't quite crumbly enough so I decided to use the dry container for my blender.

I blended it on the very low setting and it crumbled perfectly.

This looked more like the crumbs in the pictures online.

Frosting: Once again I realized that on my blog post for the peanut butter pound cake, I left out a few ingredients...ugghhh...changed again.

Once I made the frosting I mixed it in with the crumbs. I started with a spoon, but then just used my hands. Depending on the consistency you want the balls to be will depend on how much frosting you will use. I did not want mine "mushy" but did add about 2 c. of frosting. Just play it by ear. Make it into a ball and then chill. I put mine in the freezer for 15 minutes, but think next time I'll put it in the fridge (I felt like the outside was getting too hard, but you don't want it too soft or you will not be able to roll it into balls).

Once you take them out of the fridge or freezer roll into 1 1/2" size balls (I just made whatever size I felt like). Place the balls on a cookie sheet and freeze for 6 hours. You can add popsicle sticks (the round kind you find on suckers). Place them in the balls before freezing.

Once the balls are frozen, melt your chocolate. Dip each ball in chocolate and set on wax paper to harden. I sure was messy! I don't do this often and so don't have a great system down, but that's okay, it was fun.

The finished product! There are so many ideas out there. I was just in a hurry. But you can decorate with sprinkles, candies, etc... The inside of the cake. My family loved them because they weren't quite as sweet as Peanut butter balls (the kind we make at Christmas). What a great way to use up leftover cake. Here are some links to some other sites with great ideas for these wonderful treats. The Kitchen Hub Pages Bakerella With Joy UNquenchable,