Chocolate Cake Truffles (photo by Melissa Dettloff)

I like to call them Chocolate Cake Truffles for fancier occasions, but when I’m speaking in the vernacular “cake balls” will do. The “truffle” terminology, however, actually explains better what these precious balls of joy really taste like. A rich, dense, cake center, with a deep, dark, and equally rich, chocolate coating. I made these as my wedding gift for bride/groom friends to serve at their wedding reception, and they were such a hit, I thought I’d share the process with you.

In a bizarre, round-about way, these cake truffles actually fit with my Vegan MoFo theme, Veganizing Martha’s Muffin, since the first time I ever heard the term “cake balls” was when I was getting a haircut and my stylist was telling me about seeing them “on Martha Stewart or somewhere.”

During a search, I ended up on a cute, non-vegan, cake-y kind of website, that helped me figure out the basic principles of the “cake ball”. However, the site’s methods include using a boxed cake mix and canned frosting. And the total regular and vegan snob that I am, just wouldn’t have anything to do with that. So I went all scratch-vegan on those balls and created my own classy, sassy, sophisticated cake truffle.

Because the method occurs in three distinct steps, I will post the method in three separate posts. It’ll make your life easier. And I’m not just saying that to up my Vegan MoFo posting obligation. Heh-heh.

Cake Truffles – Step One – The Cake
You can use any of your favorite cake recipes, in any flavor you’d like. The beauty of this concept is that you can mix and match your cake-y truffle inside with whatever frosting and outer coating flavors you’d like. Play! And see what happens.

I used a basic chocolate cake. I purposefully chose a recipe that resulted in an understated chocolate flavor, which became important later, after Step Two.

Chocolate Cake (adapted from Passionate Vegetarian by Crescent Dragonwagon)

Cooking spray or oil to grease cake pan
2 c. sugar
2/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
3 c. unbleached white all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 c. water
1/2 c. mild oil (corn or canola)
2 Tbsp. cider vinegar, white vinegar, or lemon juice
1 Tbsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Generously grease/spray 9″ x 13″ cake pan. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together into a large bowl. In a 4-cup glass measuring cup, combine the water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Stir well. Pour the water mixture into the cocoa-flour mixture, whisking vigorously for a couple of minutes, until smooth and free of lumps. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and whack it on the counter a couple of times to release any air bubbles. Bake until the edges of the cake pull away from the pan sides slightly and the cake tests clean with a toothpick, about 30-35 minutes.

For Cake Truffles, allow cake to cool completely.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 11:04 pm and is filed under Baking, Desserts, Vegan MoFo 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.