Triple Orange Cake Balls

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It was my friend Sara’s birthday today and so I decided to make her a special dessert to bring to our church gathering tonight. The thing is she is not that big on typical desserts like cakes and brownies, she mainly prefers gourmet style desserts and so I was trying to think of a way to incorporate cake balls as a gourmet dessert. My initial thought was to make lemon cake balls but lemon doesn’t go too good with chocolate and then Nick suggested orange instead and the rest is history. Lo and behold I came up with this recipe and the cake balls turned out great! Seriously they were yummier than any of my past cake balls and the touch of orange with chocolate made them quite delectable.

Ingredients:

Cake:

1 box of white cake mix prepared using the measurements from the box as follows:

As many eggs as the box calls for (my box called for 2 eggs)
As much oil as the box calls for (my box called for 1/3 cup)
The water measurement should be split into half water, half orange juice. So in my case the measurement was 1 cup water, so I used 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup of orange juice

Add 1 tbsp of orange zest and/or 1 tsp orange extract

Frosting:

2 cups powdered sugar

1 Tbsp orange zest

1 Tbsp milk

1 tsp orange extract

1 drop of yellow food coloring

1 drop of red food coloring

Chocolate:

3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 Tbsp coconut oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F for metal or glass pans, 325 for dark or coated pans. Grease sides and bottom of a 9 by 13 pan with Pam or with shortening lightly floured.

2. Mix cake ingredients together; cake mix, water, orange juice, eggs, oil, orange zest and/or orange extract. Blend until moistened and until mixture is smooth.

3. Bake for 25 minutes. Cake is done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan for at least 15 minutes.

4. To prepare the frosting, mix all the frosting ingredients together until it forms a thick paste like substance.

5. When cake is done, crumble, while warm, into a large bowl and stir in the frosting mixture until well blended.

6. Use a melon baller or your hands to form compact balls of the cake mixture. Form balls until there is no cake mixture left. Place balls in a covered pan and refrigerate overnight or stick in the freezer for 2-3 hours.

7. Before removing the balls from the cold, melt chocolate chips with coconut oil in a glass bowl in the microwave, or in double boiler, stirring often until smooth. Stirring continually until chocolate looks and feels completely smooth.

8. Remove the balls from the cold and dip the balls in the melted chocolate using a toothpick to hold them. Place them on waxed paper and feel free to use the leftover melted chocolate to drizzle on top. Place them in the refrigerator until the chocolate hardens. Remove them from fridge to serve and enjoy!