Cake Bites

This weekend I'm off to a friend's house for her hen weekend. Since I'm bridesmaid-ing I wanted to make something fun to take along. I didn't fancy hauling tins of cupcakes on the train as I just know they'll arrive looking a mess, but I thought Bakerella's cake balls would be perfect. They're bite sized little cakes and come in various incarnations - there's no end to her creativity and skill in making these. I decided to start with some simple chocolate coated chocolate ones.

The original recipe obviously calls for red velvet cake mix, but alas it's not available in England so I've substituted a devil's food cake mix. I've turned up my nose at cake mixes for so long now like a snob, but it's a pleasure to lob it in a bowl with eggs, oil and water, mix it briefly and be finished. Behold my detailed list of ingredients:


The recipe also says use 'chocolate bark' to melt for the coating. What is chocolate bark? How is it different to 'normal' chocolate? I got in a right pickle trying to do the chocolate dipping phase so perhaps this chocolate bark has something in it that makes the consistency a little easier for dipping...?

So, the process goes a little like this...
1. You make the cake according to instructions on the box
2. Let it cool, and then crumble into very fine crumbs in a bowl
3. Add your frosting to the bowl and mix throughly until it's very well combined. The recipe calls for a whole tub of frosting but I found I only used about three quarters
4. Roll into bite size balls
5. Chill in the fridge
6. Melt your chocolate and coat the little balls in this, laying them on baking parchment to set.

They look messy but cute and - I had to sample one for quality control you see - taste delicious!


UPDATE:
The finished article, dark chocolate and milk chocolate - some decorated with cyrstalised rose petals, some with pink chocolate. Ok, well nobody's going to mistake them as something from a French confiserie I grant you, but they've got a certain homemade charm to them.