SugiAi: Farm Animal Cake Balls: Little Pigs

So I know we swore that we would never ever do another cake pop again, but these aren't cake pops, they're cake balls! For some reason these were so much easier to do than the pops especially after we found a really awesome video on how to dip smooth and perfect cake balls. The video can be found here and you should definitely watch it if you want perfectly smooth cake balls. The technique used in the video doesn't require anything fancy, just stuff you already have at home! Since these went over so well, you can be expecting a lot more fun cake balls in the future.

We did three different animals and each animal was a different cake, so we'll be spreading this out into three posts. All the balls were dipped in candy melts and their facial features were made out of homemade marshmallow fondant. This was our first time using actual candy melts, which are really great, but we still had to thin them out by adding a tablespoon of melted shortening to two bags of melts. We made the mistake of using gel food coloring to color on the eyes and little details. The gel never dried and now we know that we need to use powder food coloring mixed with alcohol!

These pigs had a chocolate cake interior and if you've never made cake pops or balls before you should check out Bakerella. Her method of making the insides is the one we like the best. By mixing the cake with frosting you end up with a really moist inside. The chocolate cake recipe I used is from www.blogchef.net, which you should check out. He has some really great recipes!

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

1 ¾ cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
¾ cup baking cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
¾ cup boiling water

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease two 9” round baking pans. In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, cocoa, baking power, baking soda and salt. Add eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and oil. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water with a spatula or spoon. Evenly pour batter into both baking pans.
Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to fully cool.

Chocolate Frosting

I didn't do anything fancy for the frosting. If you want you can use a store bought frosting. I melted half a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and creamed it with 1 stick (1/2 cup) softened butter. Then I slowly added powdered sugar until I got the consistency and flavor that I was looking for.

Close up of a pig. They all looked like this.

The pigs inside of the barn that Ai constructed.

While I was baking the cakes, Ai crafted an awesome barn out of a red science poster board. She wrapped the outside with red wrapping paper and attached a bow to seal the barn. Her birthday was the other day so the barn was a cute and fun way for her to bring it into work.

The shelves were made out of the extra parts of the board and lots of hot glue. They were really sturdy and held up well. Ai made cute little name cards for the cakes!