I hope you love this cake ball recipe just in time for Valentine’s Day! These little guys sure love to have their pictures taken! From Life Over Lunch post dated Feb. 7th, 2020.

Looking for a fancy “I Love You” Valentine dessert for your special someone! Or all the special someones! Red Velvet Cake Balls look and taste amazing! But for all the “oohs” and “ahhs”, these beautiful, bite-size desserts are easier than they look.

I should maybe clarify that. If you’re really hung up on making each one of these perfectly, you may be in for a job. But what I love is that with a little extra white chocolate coating and red sprinkles, all imperfections are masked! Another trick is the mini-muffin papers. Those fancy little papers really hide any imperfections on the bottom and sides.

These are also a great treat for gifting! How cute would these look in a small box!

white frosted cake ball topped with red sprinkles in mini cupcake paper

I was inspired to create these after tasting a red velvet cupcake with mini-chocolate chips at a local restaurant. I love red velvet; but let’s be honest, more chocolate never hurt anybody! I thought that combining red velvet cake with chocolate chips was brilliant.

The basic recipe for cake balls is simple. Take a baked cake; mix it with frosting; roll into balls; cover it with a candy/frosting coat. And then enjoy!

red tray of cake balls with red sprinkles

An important thing to note is that you have to play with the cake to frosting ratio in order to achieve a workable dough. You can add more frosting as needed, but you can’t take it out! You basically want to add frosting until you can easily roll the mixture into a ball – not too sticky, not too crumbly. Which of course, since I hadn’t made cake balls in a while, I forgot with this batch. I just dumped in most of my container instead of adding a little at a time. Whoops! Oh well. They were a little harder to work with, but still tasted great!

I recommend working in small batches with this recipe. Once I’ve mixed my dough completely, I’ll roll about 16-25 and then pop them in the freezer. After I’ve melted a cup of almond bark or white chocolate coating and the cake balls have been in the freezer for at least ten minutes, I’ll take out the cake balls and using two inserted toothpicks (two is much more stable than one!) I’ll dip and roll a cake ball into the coating. Then I take it out of the white chocolate, using my toothpicks I slide it into a mini muffin paper, smooth more chocolate over my bald spot on top, and top with red candy sprinkles. Ta-dah!

And then of course I repeat the process. I reheat the candy coating as needed. And freezing the cake balls for a little bit makes them firmer for dipping and causes the coating to set up quickly which means it covers more thickly and evenly.

Red Velvet Cake Balls

Yield: 32 cake balls

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour

Red Velvet tastes even better in bite-size frosted cake balls loaded with mini chocolate chips!

Ingredients

1 9x13 unfrosted red velvet cake, cooled
1 cup miniature chocolate chips
1 15oz can of cream cheese or vanilla frosting
20oz of almond bark, vanilla bark or candy coating
Red sprinkles (optional)

Instructions

In a large bowl, crumble cake into small crumbs. Add chocolate chips. Work in frosting with your hands a little at a time. Roll into 1 ½ inch balls. Place on a baking sheet lined with wax paper. Freeze for 10 minutes.
Chop almond bark and melt in the microwave or over double boiler. Stir to completely melt coating.
Working in small batches, remove some cake balls from the freezer and dip into candy coating using two inserted toothpicks. Tilt and swirl cake ball to cover completely. Place into miniature muffin papers; remove toothpick by sliding against another toothpick. Cover hole with coating or with sprinkles. Let harden before serving.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 16 Serving Size: 2 cake balls
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 394Total Fat: 33gSaturated Fat: 10gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 21gCholesterol: 33mgSodium: 286mgCarbohydrates: 20gFiber: 5gSugar: 12gProtein: 10g