I really enjoy making cake truffles! SInce everything doesn’t have to be made on the same day, it’s easy to space out over the work week. I made one cake flavor Sunday, then made the binder and rolled the balls out on Monday. I made another cake flavor Tuesday, then made ganache and rolled out balls on Wednesday. On Thursday, I coated all of them and accessorized. I normally have 30 minutes or so to spare everyday, but sometimes it’s hard to get a couple of hours together.
I was determined to make a completely vegan cake ball. I’ve never been a fan of vegan icing, so I haven’t made a vegan cupcake before. After having discovered coconut bacon, I’ve really wanted to incorporate it into something and saw my chance…a vegan Elvis cake ball. (I really don’t like the way “cake ball” sounds, but I don’t put them on a stick, so they aren’t really cake pops…)
For the uninformed an Elvis Sandwich is a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich. Bacon is optional. Apparently The King loved these…with or without the bacon. Before I quit eating meat, I made an Elvis cupcake with bacon.
Over the weekend, I made a batch of coconut bacon (delicious on a salad!) using the recipe here.
I previously used Martha Stewart’s banana cake recipe, but it contains eggs, so I Googled up one with no eggs. It turned out good, but was a little too moist…it also kind of looks like meatloaf…
For the icing, I used the whipped cream cheese icing recipe from Chow.com, but used Trader Joe’s vegan cream cheese instead of dairy cream cheese. I added peanut butter to taste, which turned out to be about 1/2 cup.
Previously when I’ve made cake pops/cake truffles/cake balls, etc. I’ve smushed the cake up with gloved hands. I was hoping to multi task, so this time, I used the KitchenAid, fitted with the dough hook. After the cake was broken up sufficiently, I enough of the icing so that the cake would stick together.
After the icing was evenly distributed, I used a portion scoop to scoop out the dough and rolled them into balls with my gloved hands. A one ounce scoop makes a 2 bite cake ball. I put these on a parchment covered cookie sheet and placed them in the freezer to get firm.
All of the commercially available candy coatings that I saw locally contained dairy products, as did all the white chocolate chips I found. I didn’t want to drive all the way to the Chocolate Man to make vegan candy coating, so I melted down some fondant I had purchased and never used.
Various websites advised not heating the fondant over 140 degrees, so I melted it slowly in a mixing bowl set over simmering water.
To coat the balls, I put them on the ends of metal skewers, then dipped into the coating. I gently shook off the excess then rolled them in the coconut bacon. I set the skewers in tea glasses until the fondant re-solidified, then carefully slid them off and placed them on a cooling rack to dry.
I think white chocolate would have tasted better than the fondant, but these were pretty tasty over all.
