paul has had a few morning tea type events recently, one for staff & a kids class party, so i thought the previously spied red velvet cake balls (the precursor to the oh-so-cool cake pops) would be an interesting & festive option....
i was kind of right....
i started with this recipe for red velvet cake... oh my goodness it uses a WHOLE BOTTLE of red food colouring!!!
and almost no flavouring. ??! it tastes to me not unlike generic pancake with no topping...??
there is a hint of vanilla & 2T of cocoa, which i can only hazard is just to add the depth of colour rather than having a pink velvet cake...??
then i mixed it with the required amount of cream cheese icing, which honestly seemed like too much, cos they were pretty gooey (starting to see a trend here?!), and as much as i love cream cheese icing, it tasted like a slightly odd combo..
but hey.. i mixed it up & started making little balls, which paul tells me are about the size of an unshelled macadamia (ie with shell on), because i had read that smaller ones hold together better... instead of the 50-60 it supposedly yields using the box mix + 16oz of icing (and remembering that i used 16oz of icing & it seemed too much) i got around 140. umm...
so we started the task of dipping them in white chocolate... note for future: do cake pop version, the built in stick would really help, especially not having to take it out.. we used all kinds of combos of spoons & skewers...
and gave up after 111 balls. a little after midnight.
once chilled they were pretty enough.. the white chocolate with bright red filling was particularly impressive...
but.. ummm.... perhaps it is some kind of ginormous culinary cultural difference between us and the US.. but geez the flavour was spectacularly unspectacular, to the point of being Rather Dull, with touches of Kinda Weird, and the texture seems to vary between Meh and Ugh depending on who you ask.
Doh.
so yeah, spectacular failure.
so if you are thinking of doing these this xmas, don't. Or at least choose your favourite cake, and favourite icing, so at least they taste good, add *just* enough icing to hold it together, no more, and definitely do the cake pop version both for ease of dipping & cos they're cuter.
however, mysteriously, lexi & eli really like these cake balls, so they aren't ALL going to waste...
i was kind of right....
i started with this recipe for red velvet cake... oh my goodness it uses a WHOLE BOTTLE of red food colouring!!!
and almost no flavouring. ??! it tastes to me not unlike generic pancake with no topping...??there is a hint of vanilla & 2T of cocoa, which i can only hazard is just to add the depth of colour rather than having a pink velvet cake...??
then i mixed it with the required amount of cream cheese icing, which honestly seemed like too much, cos they were pretty gooey (starting to see a trend here?!), and as much as i love cream cheese icing, it tasted like a slightly odd combo..
but hey.. i mixed it up & started making little balls, which paul tells me are about the size of an unshelled macadamia (ie with shell on), because i had read that smaller ones hold together better... instead of the 50-60 it supposedly yields using the box mix + 16oz of icing (and remembering that i used 16oz of icing & it seemed too much) i got around 140. umm...
so we started the task of dipping them in white chocolate... note for future: do cake pop version, the built in stick would really help, especially not having to take it out.. we used all kinds of combos of spoons & skewers...and gave up after 111 balls. a little after midnight.
once chilled they were pretty enough.. the white chocolate with bright red filling was particularly impressive...
but.. ummm.... perhaps it is some kind of ginormous culinary cultural difference between us and the US.. but geez the flavour was spectacularly unspectacular, to the point of being Rather Dull, with touches of Kinda Weird, and the texture seems to vary between Meh and Ugh depending on who you ask.Doh.
so yeah, spectacular failure.
so if you are thinking of doing these this xmas, don't. Or at least choose your favourite cake, and favourite icing, so at least they taste good, add *just* enough icing to hold it together, no more, and definitely do the cake pop version both for ease of dipping & cos they're cuter.
however, mysteriously, lexi & eli really like these cake balls, so they aren't ALL going to waste...
4 comments:
I bet they are just perfectly suited to preschooler palates!
Those look YUMMY!
I've always been dubious of those, largely because I'm *sure* I read a review of Red Velvet cake somewhere (a couple years ago now) that said it was vastly overrated as a cake 'flavour'.
I am very tempted to do some with a different flavour though.
ha yeah gypsy - half way between bland & weird!
look scan be verrrry deceiving neak!
yeah margo i think they'd be good if you chose a yummy cake to begin with :D
Post a Comment