Week 28: Desperately warm times call for creative measures
Ok, let's be real. Sometimes it gets really hot in the summer. And sometimes when it's really hot and humid and you don't have air conditioning in the kitchen, it becomes really hard to get motivated to do things like turn on the oven. That's what happened here. But since I had all of those carrot cake scraps from Week 27's showstopper project, I made cake balls.
And if I'm being really honest, I just don't get cake balls. It's cake that's been baked and then smoothed with a bunch of frosting onto a ball and then coated with a shell. Why do all of that extra work? Plus, they can often times be cloyingly sweet for me (not the biggest fan of frosting). But it seems like there are plenty of other people out there who do like cake balls so what the heck. Might as well give it a go. That's what this whole project is about, right?
At any rate, I made a batch of carrot cake balls with the leftover cream cheese frosting. It appears that the frosting to cake ratio is key and I went too far on the frosting side of the equation. So the insides were extremely gooey. Additionally, I had the terrible idea of tempering white chocolate when it was almost 90 degrees in the house. That becomes a challenge, to say the least. The cake balls were rather lumpy and ugly and not the best sheen. They held up the best when chilled overnight. I brought them into work and they lost their pizazz after sitting out on the counter for a few hours.
So will I make cake balls again? My initial reaction is "Meh." If someone I really liked cajoled me enough, I might give it another go if only to make the aforementioned adjustments. Or I might just make a proper cake.
And if I'm being really honest, I just don't get cake balls. It's cake that's been baked and then smoothed with a bunch of frosting onto a ball and then coated with a shell. Why do all of that extra work? Plus, they can often times be cloyingly sweet for me (not the biggest fan of frosting). But it seems like there are plenty of other people out there who do like cake balls so what the heck. Might as well give it a go. That's what this whole project is about, right?
At any rate, I made a batch of carrot cake balls with the leftover cream cheese frosting. It appears that the frosting to cake ratio is key and I went too far on the frosting side of the equation. So the insides were extremely gooey. Additionally, I had the terrible idea of tempering white chocolate when it was almost 90 degrees in the house. That becomes a challenge, to say the least. The cake balls were rather lumpy and ugly and not the best sheen. They held up the best when chilled overnight. I brought them into work and they lost their pizazz after sitting out on the counter for a few hours.
So will I make cake balls again? My initial reaction is "Meh." If someone I really liked cajoled me enough, I might give it another go if only to make the aforementioned adjustments. Or I might just make a proper cake.
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| Ill-tempered carrot cake balls |
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