Lemon Almond Cake Balls

I do huge baking for holiday trays. It started off for my library to say thank you for all the wonderful things they do and spread to other recipients. Last year, one of the librarians had asked me about adding cake balls to the trays because she had them at one point and loved them. Not wanting to disappoint her, I went on a recipe search, and true to form, Allrecipes.com came through for me!

I love this recipe. It is so simple and uses few ingredients. The results were fantastic. I continue to get requests for these lil gems and have used multiple combinations of cake and frosting to come up with some unique finger desserts.

What I loved about this recipe that can be added is that we did a white chocolate stripe that had almond extract added. It made the recipe a bit more special!

Some of my most requested:

• Devils Food cake and Vanilla frosting rolled in either nuts or mini chocolate chips (chocolate almond bark)
• Red Velvet cake and Cream Cheese frosting (vanilla almond bark)
• German Chocolate cake and German Chocolate frosting sprinkled with chopped coconut and pecan pieces (chocolate almond bark)
• Carrot cake and Cream Cheese frosting (vanilla almond bark)
• Lemon Cake and Vanilla or Cream Cheese frosting (vanilla almond bark)
• Lemon Cake and Chocolate frosting (chocolate almond bark)

Some decorations:

• finely chopped nuts
• drizzled chocolate
• colored sugar
• cake sprinkles
• melted chocolates

It is really hard to screw these bad boys up!!

So, here we go!

Ingredients:

1 box cake mix, your desire
1 container prepared frosting, your desire
1 package almond bark, your desire
Ball decorations, see examples above

Directions:

1) Bake cake according to package directions for 9x13 pan. Allow to cool for 1 hour when finished.
2) Remove from pan to large bowl. Break cake up to very tiny crumbs.
3) Add canned frosting and stir until well blended. Place bowl in refrigerator of 1 hour
4) Remove and scoop mixture into 1 inch or larger balls (the smaller ones are better) , place the scoops on a cookie sheet and return to refrigerator for another hour.
5) Prepare a water bath for melting the almond bark by placing a pan with water, bringing it to a boil and placing another pan or large bowl over the steaming water. Place bricks of bark in pan and allow to melt. If the bark thickens, it can be thinned using small amounts of canola oil to desired consistency.
6) CAREFULLY dip the chilled balls in the warmed bark. Allow excess to drip off.
7) If desired in a second water bath, melt white chocolate chips. color with yellow food coloring and almond or lemon extract (use sparingly and add to desired taste..extract sneaks up). Drizzle with desire designs.