How To Make Cake Balls, Cake Pops, and Oreo Truffles. How to use Pepperidge Farms Layer cakes to make homemade desserts

My friend Jenny wanted cake balls for her birthday this year instead of cupcakes or birthday cake. I knew there was an awesome website on how to create the yummy treats so I went to Bakerella.com and found a super easy recipe for Oreo Truffles. The treats were a huge hit and I've made them several times since.

Traditional cake balls are made by dipping a ball of mixed cake and frosting in chocolate so for my next batch I took a shortcut and used a smooshed Pepperidge Farm Layer Cake as the base for the cake balls. The results were DELICIOUS!

If you are looking for a quick and easy treat for your next party or gathering try one of these recipes for a super quick, super easy, super delicious dessert.

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To create Oreo Truffles you need:

1. 1 package of Oreo Cookies
2. 1- 8 oz. package of cream cheese
3. melting chocolate or almond bark

• Grind the Oreo cookies into a powder using a food processor or a blender. Use the entire cookie-don't remove the cream centers.
• Put the oreos into a large bowl and add the room temperature cream cheese.
• Combine the cookies and cream cheese by smooshing it together using the back of a spatula. It takes a few minutes so don't get discouraged if it seems the ingredients aren't combining.
• Shape the mixture into balls and PUT THEM INTO THE FREEZER for at least 30 minutes. If you try to coat the balls without chilling them they will fall apart and make a mess!
• Use a double boiler to melt the chocolate or almond bark. If you don't have a double boiler use a saute pan and a small sauce pan.
• Stir the chocolate constantly so that it doesn't scorch or burn.
• Pierce each ball with a tooth pick.
• Dip the balls into the chocolate, shake off the excess, and place on a tray to allow the chocolate to set.
• Remove the toothpick.

You can decorate the tops of the balls with sprinkles or cookie crumbs. You can also use colored chocolate to create themed balls.

VARIATIONS: The first batch of Oreo Truffle Balls I made I used milk chocolate and they were fabulous. This time I used white chocolate and they tasted awesome but needed to be dipped for a second time. You can also use dark chocolate.

Use the vanilla Oreos as your truffle base. For a festive Christmas treat use the seasonal peppermint Oreos and decorate them with crushed up candy canes.

Chocolate or Almond Bark?

You can use either chocolate or almond bark to coat your balls. What are the differences? Chocolate is made with cocoa butter while Almond Bark is made with vegetable oil. Both will scorch if overheated so when you are melting it keep your eye on the pan at all times. You don't need to refrigerate almond bark to get it to set-in fact refrigerating it will cause it to sweat, you need to chill chocolate to get it to harden. If you use almond bark and it is too stiff to dip the cake balls in simply add a little Crisco and it will thin.

To create super easy super delicious dessert, create cake balls use a Pepperidge Farm Layer Cake. The cakes are available in: chocolate with chocolate frosting, yellow with chocolate frosting, vanilla, lemon, coconut, and pineapple.

• Crumble the frozen cake in a large bowl. Mix the frosting and the cake together until you form a pliable batter.
• Form balls out of the batter and put them into the freezer for at least 1 hour.
• Pierce the balls with a toothpick and dip the balls into the chocolate.
• Allow the chocolate to cool until it becomes firm.

I used a coconut cake to make this batch of cake balls and they came out just great. If you want to decorate the tops of the ball sprinkle them with your desired topping while the chocolate is still wet.

There are several cake pop makers that you can purchase at Amazon.com.

• Babycakes Cake Pop Maker Kit comes with a cake pop maker, drying rack, reusable sticks, and an injection syringe. The maker is easy to use-simply fill each of the molds with cake batter, close the top, and cook. It takes a relatively short time to make each batch of twelve balls. This unit doesn't make traditional cake balls which is cake combined with frosting-it make little balls of cake that you coat with chocolate.
• Bella Cucina Cake Pops and Donut Hole Maker is another unit that produces batches of balls of cake that can be dipped in a coating. It produces 6 large balls at a time in it's nonstick baking tray. The cake ball kit comes complete with the baking unit and a recipe book that contains dozens of recipes.