Last Sunday we invited two sweet young women over for dinner and one was leaving Texas to return home to Utah. I asked what her favorite dessert was and she said German chocolate cake, so I baked it for her, experimenting with a devils food cake recipe for the first time.  I plan to share that recipe in the future, but for now I’m focusing on these festive cake balls that I made today using all the extra cake from Katie Larsen’s special request treat.

After dipping the cake balls in chocolate, this was the first taste. Sweet and yummy!

I have only made cake balls a few times and appreciate the mini sized treats, so dense and packed with flavor, and one is surprisingly satisfying.  Although it still tends to leave you wanting more.  I kind of like that.

Today I boxed up some of the cake balls to take to my public affairs meeting tomorrow night and put the rest on two different wooden cake stands with glass domed lids.  Have you noticed how popular wood serving trays, cake platters, bowls and more have become in the last year or two?  I’m definitely in favor of the trend and hope it lasts a long time.

My niece, Aubrey, helped one of her friends make an insane amount of cake balls a few years ago for her business.  Aubrey saw my Instagram post of my very first cake balls and recommended a nifty cake ball shaping tool that wasn’t cheap.  I bought one thinking I would be making cake balls all the time and have only used it a time or two.  I can’t remember how it works, so for these, I just used a medium sized stainless steel scoop, then froze the cake balls until dipping time.

For the dipping stage, I put water in the bottom of a medium sized pan, turned it on high heat until it started to boil.  I turned off the heat, placed the double boiler on top of the hot water (without the bottom of the double boiler touching the hot water) and stirred the chocolate until it was all melted.  Then I dipped one cake ball at a time, and placed each on a non-stick surface. I added a small chocolate dot on top of each cake ball to adhere one pecan piece for a garnish.

Our friends joined us for dinner tonight and I served cake balls plus fresh cherries for dessert.  “I don’t usually like cake balls, but these were so good,” one of them told me.  I tend to make things in spurts, so don’t be surprised when you see more.  Picasso had his blue period.  This is the beginning or continuation of my cake ball period. Maybe. I’ll keep you guessing.

Tabletop lowdown. To wrap up this exciting post (for the one or two people who may actually read it), please allow me to show off the German chocolate cake balls on my new wooden cake stand from Kirkland’s, sans the gorgeous glass dome lid.  Also in view are my cheery Kate Spade Rutherford Circle Red Lenox salad plates, atop aqua no-name HomeGoods plates made in Portugal.  The gold bling chargers are also from HomeGoods and I have enough of them for a fancy schmancy family reunion. The red stemless wine glasses are Marquis by Waterford and I {love} them. The homey aqua salt and pepper shakers are from Walmart’s Pioneer Woman collection. The plaid aqua and white napkins are from HomeGoods as well. I really should stop going there.  I always find things I want. The stack of red and white gingham melamine plates are from Pendleton.