<center>Cake Truffles!</center>
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Every year I like to drive myself to the brink of a nervous breakdown by crafting all manner of delectable goodies for those I am more than fond of. Giving gifts that I have crafted in my kitchen is a thing that I love, and I am just jesting about the psychological failure part. A little bit.
Anyway, today after I finished teaching math, I needed to finish up a batch of my cake truffles. Aside from the fact that they taste pretty darn good and are easy to make, there is one aspect to crafting cake truffles that has me returning to making them year after year, the crumbling of the cake part.
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In order to craft cake truffles, one must start with a perfectly good 9X13 cake. I usually bake the cake for my truffles the night before I actually put them together. Today, I plopped that cake onto the counter and dove into my favorite part of cake truffle composition, the crumbling of the cake. Most of you know that I am somewhat of an infant on the inside, and there is just something magical about crumbling up an entire cake. I don't know why, but I feel like I am about four years old and tracing letters into shaving cream or something as I crumble up the cake. It's sooo therapeutic!
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Once the cake is crumbled, it is time to add a binding agent. Some people use frosting for this step, others use coffee creamer, which honestly sounds like fun. I, however, use half and half with an extract mixed in for my cake truffle binder. Today's offering was pure almond extract, I love the flavor of almond extract in baked goods, a fact of which is easily noticeable as I keep a massive bottle of the stuff in my cupboard. Hooray for restaurant supply stores!
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When one mixes up cake truffles, it is important to not over add the binder. You want a non-gooey, non-chewy truffle. It needs to be combined and together but not so saturated that it's un-truffle-like. This state of truffleness is attainable with practice, I tend to use between 1/3 and almost 1/2 cup of my binding extract laden milk to achieve proper truffle rolling cake ball state.
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The rolling of the actual truffles appeals to my whimsical nature too. I grab out a tablespoon and proceed to rolling truffles like a cake boss. During this step confection vultures usually start to swoop into my work space. It's rather annoying, but I tend to toss them a bit or two. This time one of the vultures offered to help take pictures of the process and dip the truffles with me. This bit of assistance made the whole process pieces of cake!
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Next up comes the dipping phase. Now, I am usually pressed for time and a touch on the lazy side, so I use chocolate chips and shortening for my cake truffle coating. If I was extra awesome I could use actual chocolate and grapeseed oil for the coating, but today was not a day for awesomeness. And I am pretty sure that somewhere there is a rule that Christmas treats do not have to be healthy!
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White chocolate chips and shortening were quickly melted in my microwave, and faster than you can say irradiated toe socks did my Squeaky-child and I have the cake truffles dipped and sprinkled. Because nothing shows affection like a little red dye No. 2.
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And there you have it my friends, a quick and relatively easy little bit of confectionary affection! I hope that if you try them that you enjoy them as much as we all do!
>Cake Truffles
>
>1 9X13 cake baked and cooled- I used a white cake mix
>1/2 cup 1/2 and 1/2
>2 teaspoons almond extract
>1 12 ounce package white chocolate chips
>2 Tablespoons vegetable shortening
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>Crumble cake into a large mixing bowl.
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>Add 1/2 of the 1/2 and 1/2/extract to the crumbs and mix until you can just form the cake crumbles into balls, adding 1/2 and 1/2 as needed to achieve the right consistency. You don't want your cake truffles to be chewy or gooey, so don't over mix or over add the milk part!
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>Roll cake mixture into tablespoon size balls,
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>Melt white chocolate chips and shortening in a microwave or in a double boiler on the stove. I dip the truffles into the chocolate with a fork, but my daughter likes to use a bamboo skewer to do the job. Whatever way you get the task done to your satisfaction is the way to go.
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>To finish the truffles you can add sprinkles, frosting garnish, or roll the truffles in a flavored *dust*. Use your imagination and have fun!!
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<center>*And as not always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's used on occasion Canon Rebel digital camera.*</center>
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