Christmas Treats

.... I am backlogged. I am just going to work from the current ones and work back. It seems much easier that way. So this time my sister and I decided to make treats to bring to coworkers and friends. Lets see whats inside! (Oh, and I'm also trying out the left alignment, but I'm not liking it too much) .

Surprise Cake balls!!

First, I'll start off with the red velvet cake. Red velvet seems like a lot of work and with so little time we decided to go with the box. Luckily we found that Duncan Hines has a boxed red velvet cake. Hooray! It was much easier than using the Betty Crocker version with red food coloring. For the frosting we used a simple cream cheese frosting.

I was having difficulty making equally sized balls. We usually make them much smaller so we were trying to decide on size.

These are the balls dipped in chocolate with three snowflakes on top. We used the red aluminum foil to wrap them in.

All wrapped up and ready to go!

Next, we have this rich chocolate cake we found on http://inncuisine.com/decadent-desserts/have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too-recipe-deep-dark-chocolate-cake/
This cake was extremely good with the frosting all by itself. That's why we kept some as cake, but we still made plenty of balls.

This time we put one snowflake on each ball. Aren't they cute?

The chocolate balls were wrapped in sliver.

Time for some pumpkin balls.

Pumpkin Cake Recipe:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups canned or fresh pumpkin puree

Directions:

1. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan with vegetable spray and dust with all purpose flour. Tap out excess.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves in medium bowl and set aside.
4. In another bowl combine eggs, oil, and sugar and beat until smooth, approximately 1 minute. Add pumpkin puree and mix again.
5. Add dry ingredients 1 cup at a time and mix until blended, smooth and lump free.
6. Pour into baking pan.
7. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35-45 minutes or until pick comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Cinnamon Frosting:

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 2 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• water as needed

Directions:

1. Beat cream cheese and butter until creamy.
2. Add confectioner's sugar 1/2 cup at a time.
3. Add vanilla and cinnamon.
4. If the frosting is stiff add a tsp of water at a time until you get a nice consistency.

To make the balls we broke up the cake in the food processor and mixed in the cream cheese frosting. Then, from there you can roll in to balls.

The line up (This time the balls were more uniform in size)

We dipped these first in chocolate and then half way in white chocolate.

Of course we needed gold wrapping for these balls.