I am making cake balls for this first time this weekend. ALL these great threads about them recently have made me want to try them. I know that there's 2 'basic' ways to make cake balls----adding BC or adding liquor/coffee creamer. I'm anticipating loving this recipe and wanting to make many more batches for the holidays so I'm wondering which tastes better? I understand that there are ENDLESS combinations but I'm wondering generally which are better. I can see that if I don't have any extra BC around, the coffee creamer route would be easier.
What do you guys think???

I want to try cake balls too and baking up an extra cake is no problem but I dread making the buttercream (hoping for a KA for Christmas). I wonder would peanut butter work? Sounds yummy to me.

Yeah that was my thing too, I ont' mind making the cake but I dread making a batch of BC just for that!

I wonder if we could use the "icing in a can" for the cake balls? I have several cans that I bought before I figured out that I need to be making "real" icing, and that might be a good way to use them up!

Laura.

Laura, I'm with you on the canned icing. I bought a buttload on sale and now I don't know what to do with it. It just rips my cakes apart when I try to ice with it. I would love to make a mounds-type cake ball with coconut cake and coconut icing dipped in chocolate.

You might want to add powdered sugar & peppermint to some of your canned frosting and pipe it in little one inch mounds, for nice little after dinner mints. When they dry you can bag them up for teachers gifts or add them to your gift baskets.

As for the cake balls I have found that ''IF YOU CAN DREAM IT YOU CAN ADD IT''!

Hope that helps.

Hmmmm.....I don't use canned icing but I was still wondering if everyone preferred BC over liquor/coffee creamer.

I think your gonna have to just give it a try....I prefer the buttercream but I am not a big fan of the tate of coffee creamer so I am a bad judge. I would definitely splash in a bit of Rum for good measure

Berta

oops! sorry,
I prefer the liquor, but the bc keeps them a lot firmer

peanut butter works really well for a binding agent! and taste great too!!
melody

try this: choc. cake, add peanut butter to hold together, freeze them and then dipp them in wiltons mint choc. sooooo goood!

What are cake balls??

I'm with maxiecakes, I like the amaretto, but I just use a little less than is called for in the Cookieman's recipe. I made some with Buttercream and I think they are too sweet. I may try melodycakes idea though with the peanut butter next time I do a chocolate cake, that sounds really good too and it wouldn't add more sweetness.

See I was wondering if making them w/BC and then dipping them in candy melts or choc would be too sweet. I think I'm over analyzing this too much

I think the buttercream makes them too sweet. That is my personal opinion, though. I haven't used the coffee creamer yet. I used amaretto several times and everyone loves those. If you've got chocolate cake why not try the peanut butter, then dip in chocolate or chocolate mint...Bet they taste like a giant peanut butter cup!!! Bet the peanut butter would be good with yellow cake too.

Mmmm, that does sound good! I think I'll try that too!
I've never been a "a little of this--and a little of that" kinda person. I'm too OCD for that! I need boundaries and direction!! Thanks again!

On the amaretto, are you just adding alcohol to cake and then rolling it into balls?

I added pb to a small batch after I was so very disappointed with the cake balls. The pb greatly improved the flavor and made it easier to form the balls.

I like the idea of using the canned frosting-not so sweet. I have a french vanilla DH cake that I was going to pitch. It tastes like they added ginger to the mix. Maybe I'll give the cakeballs another try.

I've never made them with buttercream because I also feel it would be too sweet for my taste buds.

I've always just used small bottles of Bailey's, amaretto or other flavored liquors. Godiva is good too. And yes, I just pour it in to the cake crumbles. Of course, this version is when I know only adults will be eating them.

I made some for kids only once and used leftover caramel filling I had for the binder. Very yummy.

So far my favs have been:

Chocolate cake with peanut butter chips and caramel filling.

Chocolate or vanilla cake with Bailey's and heath bits mixed inside and sprinkled on top after being dipped.

And vanilla cake with leftover strawberry cream cheese filling, dipped in white chocolate.

I can not wait to make more for the holidays! So many creations I want to try.

Ironbaker, thanks for the info! I like rum balls and kahlua balls. I'm sure I'll enjoy the cake balls w/o the buttercream.

yeah, i think adding buttercream icing is tooo sweet for my taste too. thats why i love the peanut butter and the coffee creamer.

may try the strawberry cream cheese someone mentioned. that kinda sounds good, i'll try that this week!!

melody

I have been making them using peanut butter as a binder also. It works great.

Another thing I just did was use raspberry jam as a binder. Butter cake with raspberry jam, dried blueberries added in and dipped in white chocolate. It turned out really yummy.

I'm not particularly fond of using alcohols as binders (I have too many little kids around who could get into them) and I don't like using icing. I think it detracts from the flavor of cake too much. JMO.

Lisa

Tried making the cake balls w/o the buttercream and that's MUCH better. I didn't bother dipping them as the left over DH French Vanilla was just not worth it. Adding recipe ingredients to the cake brought it from blah status to average. I will try again with a better tasting cake.

Thanks!

I have made delicious cake balls using chocolate cake and strawberry or raspvberry preserves. Italian cream ckae tops with a little butter cream and bourbon (or flavoring) is also good!!