The Freshman Cook: May 2010

I have a friend, JD, who had major surgery two weeks ago. He has to get false teeth, so all of his teeth were pulled. Big Ouch!!  So what can he eat? Not much! But I came up with a little something he can eat, when he feels like it.

I used the cake ball recipe from Bakerella.com. The link is here:http://www.bakerella.com/. It is a fantastic site with beautiful pictures and the cutest ideas ever! I have made the cake balls several times, and I will post about the ones I made at a later date. But, when I realized that JD needed something he could eat without using his teeth, I thought about soft cake and pudding and then the cake balls.

So this is what I came up with:

For this recipe you need a baked cake, icing, and pudding. I used a chocolate cake that I had in the freezer. It was left over from a friends birthday cake. It was a deep dark chocolate, so I thought that a banana pudding might go well with that. I used a white buttercream frosting. You can used canned frosting if you like. I mixed the banana pudding per the instructions on the box. You could make the pudding from scratch if you like. (We will do that in a future post.) Next, I made the buttercream frosting. I used the recipe from the Wilton website.http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Buttercream-Icing Here is the recipe: 

  • 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine softened
  • 1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
  • 4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar (approximately 1 lb.)
  • 2 tablespoons milk

Makes: About 3 cups of icing

In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.

For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored 2 weeks. Rewhip before using.

Next, I followed the cake balls directions. I tore the cake into little pieces and put it into a bowl, and then I mixed in some buttercream frosting. You have to do this with your hands! I’m pretty sure it is required!! It is a lot easier with plastic gloves, and faster too. You will not use all your icing from the buttercream icing recipe. You need it to be a soft consistency, but not mushy.

Next, put your chocolate/icing mix in the bottom of a bowl. I made this for one person, and I wanted him to have plenty, so I used a big bowl. This would look really nice in a sundae glass or a big round goblet so you could serve individual servings.

We are just going to layer from the bottom on up. Next, add a layer of pudding.

Just keep building your layers, taking turns using the cake ball mixture and the pudding.

Build to the top of your bowl.

I stopped building my bowl at this point, because I had to transport it all the way across town. If I hadn’t been transporting it I would have added whipped cream to the top.

Also, if this hadn’t been designed for JD, and his teeth problem, I would have added shaved chocolate to the top of the whipped cream. But, I could have sprinkled chocolate on top of  whipped cream for him.

There are so many variations we can do with this recipe. Let’s talk about them in future posts.

Have a great weekend!

Any questions? Email me. I would love to hear from you!

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