Tiramisu Cake Balls

Cake Balls have become all of the rage now these days (in internet cooking terms)... I first heard about it from the fantastic Bakerella...

So for one pot luck dinner we recently had (the theme was Italian)... I put my hands up for dessert...and decided to make Tiramisu Cake Balls :) A deconstructed version of the classic Italian Tiramisu Cake

This was a fairly easy and fun process... I used a regular Tiramisu cake recipe (found on the web) and incorporated that together with the Cake Ball recipe (from Bakerella)... this is one fun (and messy) project for the whole family to do!

Tiramisu Cake Ball Ingredients
100 grams of caster sugar
1 Capriccio Nespresso capsule (or 5 grams of fresh espresso coffee powder)
40 ml Kahlua
250g mascarpone
45 grams of brown sugar
45 grams of icing sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla bean essence
Crushed oreo cookie crumbs
Whipped cream
2 unfilled sponge cakes (I just bought ready made ones from the local supermarket)

Ingredients are for Cake Balls and Cake Pop Recipes

Method:

To make the Tiramisu mixture, combine the coffee, Kahlua and brown sugar in a medium bowl. Place the mascarpone, icing sugar and vanilla in a medium bowl and stir until well combined and the mixture thickens slightly to a smooth creamy consistency. Set aside.

What do you do with the sponge cake, I hear you ask? Simply cut the sponge cake and crumble it up.

How do you crumb the sponge cake you next question?

Easy, just follow what I did below (or alternatively you can view the video from Bakerella's website)... simply take two halves of the cake and rub it together in a grinding motion, voilà! Crumbed sponge cake!!

The next step is where it starts to get messy :D

Combine the Tiramisu mixture with the crumbed cake and mix throughly. I used my hands here... and then licked each one of one by one .... (at the end of course, and then washed it before proceeding to the next step! What do you think I am??!)

Roll the mixture in little ball shapes with the palms of your hands and place on a baking sheet.

Chill in the fridge for a few hours (2-3 at least) before serving.

I served them just is, in a Martini glass, topped with whipped cream and the crumbed oreo biscuits (for that extra crunch)...

Note:

You may want to play around with the recipe (i.e. sugar and liquids) as different quality sponge cakes will require slightly different variations to the measurement... I originally started out with 80 mls of Kahlua and found that it was much too wet (Hence why, I changed it to half)... if the cake balls are too dry, it still works, if it's too wet the texture will just feel like mush.

So tell me fellow cooks, have you attempted cake balls or cake pops before? Or any other version of deconstructed cakes? Do share :)