Chocolate Cake Bites

Our first recipe! 

Please forgive us for any faults you find in our post, I will admit we are exceptionally new at this and most of the time really don't know what we are doing. We just make food that sounds good to us and have found that other people seem to like it, so we decided to share our concoctions with the inter-web. Let us know if we make any mistakes, but don't be mean. We've been known to put up a good fight when food is involved.

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In a recent attempt at making cupcakes Caroline and I ended up with the most sorry looking cupcakes in the world. There was no way that we could even frost them, which is the best part. But even though they looked like we had sat on them for a few hours, they tasted really good! So we decided to salvage the situation and make our first attempt at cake bites.
Here's how bad the first batch of cupcakes turned out:

Yeah. Really ugly.

So we turned them into...

Devilishly delicious chocolate cake bites that are sure to make you forget any resolutions to eat healthier, do a little dance after your first bite (like Caroline's brother, Patrick) and consume way more than you planned to.

Recipe for Chocolate Cake Bites
cake recipe adapted from mingmakescupcakes.yolasite.com
makes 100 1" cake bites

Expresso Fudge Cake:
2 cups flour
1 cup unsweetened coca
4 tsp expresso powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (two sticks) butter
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 egg
1 1/2 cup milk

Frosting and Chocolate Coating:
1 can chocolate frosting (standard size)
1/4 cup chocolate glaze (approximate and optional)
1 package chocolate candy coating

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease two 8" round pans. Mix together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy and a little lighter in color. Reduce the speed and add the egg and then the vanilla. While still on low speed, alternate adding the dry ingredients and the milk, scraping occasionally. Once thoroughly combined the mixture will look more like a mousse than any cake batter you've ever seen but just trust that it will be delicious. Pour the batter into the round pans. Bake the cakes for approximately 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes then try and pop them out of the pans. If they don't come out in one piece, mine never do, don't worry you will be demolishing them in a little.

Let the cakes cool off. Nibble on some crumbs. And when they are about room temperature, crumble the cakes into a large bowl, until the mess looks something like this:

And now I must confess, we cheated. Normally when we decide to bake something we try and make all the parts from scratch, but we we're lazy this time. We used store bought frosting, Betty Crocker's Dark Chocolate Fudge, I believe. Also to make it really fun we used a little bit of Duncan Hines Amazing Glazes.

In the big bowl add about 3/4 of the can of frosting and drizzle in some of the chocolate glaze if you decided to use it. And it is now time to get messy, you can try and use spoons but hands really work the best for mixing together the cake crumbles and frosting. If you haven't nibbled on too much before hand add the rest of the frosting and the glaze to make the mixture really moist and easy to work with. You will most likely end up with something like this:

Once you've got it thoroughly mixed, make about 1" balls and place them on a wax paper lined baking sheet. You should yield approximately 100 balls, however any time I see that on a recipe I never get even close to that amount. Refrigerate the cake balls for about two hours, or if you are short on time place them in the freezer for 20 minutes or so. Its important to make sure they are chilled so that they keep their shape and stay together when dipping them in the warm chocolate coating. 

Fast forward a bit, and it's time to coat up the cake balls and make them into the best cake bites you will ever have. Heat up the chocolate candy coating according to the directions on the box. Dip or roll each ball in the candy coating, I find using two spoons to coat the cake ball works the best for me. Once coated, place the cake bite back on to the wax paper to set up. They normally set up in about 20 minutes on their own or pop them back in the fridge for a few minutes, then they are ready to package up however you please.

The candy coating gives the cake bits a sturdy shell that makes them pretty tough for travel, and an excellent contrast to the gooey, truffle-like center of the cake and frosting. By the end you will have a big mess of chocolate and plenty of cake bites for you to munch on and give away or take into school or the office.