Cake Truffles Surrounded by Mini-Cupcakes (size perspective)

Cake Truffles – Step Two – The Balls

Step 2.1 – Make Vegan Frosting (see below)
Step 2.2 – Crumble cooled cake into large bowl
Step 2.3 – Add 1-2 cups vegan frosting to crumbled cake and combine thoroughly until sticky
Step 2.4 – Form balls
Step 2.5 – Chill in refrigerator or freezer

Step 2.1 – Make Vegan Frosting
While your cake is cooling completely, begin Step Two by making 1-2 cups worth of vegan buttercream frosting. As with the cake, you can use any of your favorite frosting recipes, in any flavor you’d like. Mixing and matching flavors is part of the fun!

Since I was creating treats for a formal occasion, I kept my balls simple: chocolate cake (see Step One) and vanilla buttercream frosting (see below).

Vegan Buttercream Frosting (from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero)

Makes 2 cups worth (I halved the original recipe)
1/4 c. nonhydrogenated shortening
1/4 c. vegan butter (Earth Balance)
1 3/4 c. confectioner’s sugar, sifted if clumpy
3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 c. non-dairy milk or creamer

Beat the shortening and vegan butter together until well-combined and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat for about 3 more minutes. Add the vanilla and milk or creamer, beat for another 5-7 minutes until fluffy.

Step 2.2 – Crumble completely-cooled cake into large bowl.

Step 2.3 – Add 1-2 cups vegan frosting to crumbled cake and combine thoroughly until sticky. Using your fingers works best.
(For one of my 9×13 cakes, I used 2 cups frosting, for the other, I used 1 cup frosting. Both ways worked just fine.)

Step 2.4 – Form balls
Your balls can range in size from about a quarter diameter to golf ball size. It’s your preference and discretion. Mine were about quarter-sized and I was able to create 100 balls from one 9×13 cake.

Step 2.5 – Chill in refrigerator or freezer
Put balls into an air-tight container and chill.
Fridge chill time = 4 hours or more
Freezer chill time = 2 hours or more
The balls freeze nicely. I made mine in batches one week in advance of the wedding and froze them. They were perfect the day of and nicely-chilled balls makes for easy chocolate coating later (Step Three on the way).

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 12:09 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.