Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting (or Baking)

Well, well, well. I finally got around to making the dreamsicle cake balls. First off, I would just like to say that in a way, it's a good thing I have no life because these babies take up a lot of time. I actually started the process Saturday night by baking the cake mix (Betty Crocker Super Moist Golden Vanilla). I knew that the process for cake balls would be a little more time intensive than normal cake baking so I just used packaged ingredients to begin my baking journey. I just followed the directions on the box except I added in 1 teaspoon of pure orange extract to the mix before baking it. It tasted delicious. I let the cake cool for about 45 minutes before crumbling the entire cake into a bowl. I just cut the cake into large pieces and crumbled the cake in my hands until the entire cake was crumbs. Also, i'm not sure if it's the cake ball process or just special me, but cake balls are messy. Extremely messy.

Anyway, since the bowl was too small to mix the frosting with the cake, I just put half the cake into another bowl and then split the frosting up between the bowls. I tried mixing it together with a spatula but it was so sticky that I just had to dig right in with my hands. Needless to say, this is a very hands-on process (Get it? because you use your hands for everything?) Anyway! I just mixed the frosting and cake together until it was a dough-like consistency. If I do cake balls again, I probably wouldn't use the entire can of frosting. Between the super moist cake and entire can of frosting it was seriously sticky. A little TOO sticky.

Next up, I actually rolled the cake/frosting mixture into balls. It took until about the 15th ball to really get a grasp on the rolling technique. They are rather large balls but I still managed to get about 45 balls out of the mixture. Unless you're making them for a party or large get-together, I really don't see why you would need many more than that.

I then stuck them in the refrigerator overnight to help set in the ball shape and it was also 10:30 at night and was tired because I'm lame. I mean, I'm really cool and was up until about 3 in the morning the night before (I actually was) so yeah, I was really tired.

It was time to coat the cake balls the next day and I had decided to use vanilla-flavored almond bark. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Almond bark is more temperamental than a teenage girl. I would know. I was stupid and didn't read the directions on almond bark before starting this process. I had melted about 4 squares of almond bark (using a double boiler) and then I added a teaspoon of orange extract (STUPID). I didn't realize that you can't add any liquid to almond bark or it solidifies and pretty much curdles and gets kind of dry and chunky. so I tried melting a few more squares to just kind of overpower the liquid and that seemed to work for a bit but the almond bark just didnt' want to stay melted. Then it started to scorch and burn and then it turned into what looked like vomit.

Well, the whole point of this baking and blogging is to learn. I have obviously learned my lesson about almond bark and also about how to read directions first.

I haven't decided what my next treat is going to be yet but hopefully I'll have that figured out soon and hopefully it goes a lot better than the cake balls.

Also, I know most of you have no idea what I will be saying, but I find it horribly ironic that my dreamsicle cake balls were disappointing and did not go the way I expected. Just like the inspiration for them. Ah, Life. You and your sick, twisted sense of humor.

Until next time...Fire Away!

I Fail At Life

Ok, so I still have not made the cake balls and it's now July 15th. The title of this post says it all.

I was fully planning on doing the cake balls over Fourth of July weekend but was going through some personal issues. We put our almost-15-year-old dog down on July 3rd and I just wasn't in any mood to do anything, including baking. Personally it's been a rough month, but it's time to be done wallowing in self-pity. Next pity party I throw myself will include some freaking dreamsicle cake balls!

I WILL make the cake balls this weekend. I even told a couple co-workers I was going to bring some in next week so now I can't let anybody down. Not tonight though. Plans to go out and drink some diet coke! First is the gym, then diet coke and super fattening, amazing, delicious waffle fries and seasoned sour cream. I could eat that sour cream with a spoon.

Anyway, rest assured # 1 Fan...my next post will be about my cake ball experience. You WILL get your cake balls and eat them too.

Fire away!