Its that time of year when you start to see nice big beautiful strawberries in the stores here in NY. By June we should be in the midst of picking season. I had a couple of quarts of strawberries and wanted to do something with them. I also happened to have just received some milk and dark dipping chocolate as well as some white drizzling chocolate from Chocoley.com. I did an awful lot of chocolate dipping in the last two weeks!
A few years ago I made these Strawberry Cupcakes that are made with fresh strawberry puree and the frosting I made also had fresh strawberry puree in it. I loved the strawberry fresh flavor in that cake and thought that it would be the perfect recipe to use to make Strawberry Cake Bonbons. I certainly was not wrong! My brother Phil and his fiancee Pam had the opportunity to try these and my brother complimented me on them as he took his 2nd one from the box. At work a co-worker emailed me to tell me how good they were!
I dipped my strawberry cake bonbons in the milk chocolate and then I decided to dip some of the huge beautiful strawberries in the dark chocolate. When I finished with the strawberries, I realized I was not done! I had more chocolate. I had kettle chips in the pantry. Dark chocolate meet crunchy salty kettle chip. That my friends is a match made in heaven!
Remember the Kahlua Cupcakes I made for SRC? They were filled cupcakes so I had some of the cake that I scooped out that I used to mix with some of the frosting and just another splash of Kahlua 🙂 Dipped these in some of the milk chocolate also. Oh. My. Goodness. Talk about amazing! Chocolate and Kahlua are just meant to work together!
I received product from Chocoley.com to try for my own personal use. All opinions stated in this post are my own.
Strawberry Cake Bonbons
Author:
Ingredients
- Cake:
- 1-¼ cups sliced strawberries
- 2-¼ cups flour
- 2-¼ teaspoons baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 1-½ cups granulated sugar
- ½ cup butter, softened
- 2 large eggs
- 2 large egg whites
- 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice, then pour milk into measure to make 1 cup
- ¼ teaspoon red food coloring
- Cooking spray
- Frosting:
- ⅓ cup (3 ounces) ⅓-less-fat cream cheese
- ½ cup butter, softened
- 1 tablespoons Grand Marnier (orange-flavored liqueur)
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ cup strawberry puree
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- To prepare cake, place sliced strawberries in a food processor; process until smooth.
- Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups and level with a knife.
- Combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
- In a large sized bowl, beat sugar and ½ cup butter; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in egg whites. Add flour mixture and lemon juice/milk mixture to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Add pureed strawberries and food coloring (if desired); beat just until blended.
- Spray 9x13 baking pan with cooking spray and pour cake batter in pan. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely on wire racks.
- To prepare frosting, place cream cheese, butter, and liqueur in a medium bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until blended. Gradually add powdered sugar, and beat just until blended.
- To make the bonbons, you will crumble the cake into a large bowl. Add 1 cup of frosting to the crumbled cake and stir to combine. Because this cake is so moist and dense you will not need a lot of frosting to bet it to come together. If you feel you need more, add more.
- To make my life easier and less messy, I used my small cookie scoop to make perfectly shaped bonbons. If you don't have a scoop, you can shape 1 tablespoon sized balls with your hands. Place in freezer to firm - at least 1 hour.
- Dipping the bonbons:
- I found that this chocolate was pretty amazing to work with. The most desirable method of melting this chocolate is in a double boiler and that is what I went with. Once the chocolate started to melt I just gave it a stir and it quickly melted down into a smooth chocolate ready to dip. It is that easy. I loved working with with this product! I have dipped chocolate in the past that just was too thick and hard to make the end product pretty no matter that I followed the instructions for melting. Not so with Chocoley! When I received my dipping chocolate, there was included with the product helpful tips on how to use the chocolate. They highly recommend that you do not microwave their product although there are instructions on how to do so if that is how you want to do it. They also suggest using a heating pad covered with a towel to keep your chocolate warm while dipping. While I did not need to do this myself, it is a terrific idea!
- To dip your bonbons, place cake ball in the chocolate, flip to coat then pick up (I have a chocolate dipping tool but you can use a fork) and slightly tap the edge of your tool on the pan to allow excess chocolate to run off.
- Place chocolate coated bonbons on a foil lined cookie sheet. These are ok to freeze until ready to eat. I had mine in the freezer about a week and half prior to serving them. To serve, remove from freezer and allow to sit at least 30 minutes before serving. These are good frozen, but better when thawed!
- I noticed some moisture on my bonbons but that was because I did freeze them, but once these came to room temperature the moisture dissipated.
Sarah Bates
What a gorgeous treat, Shelby! I should make these for my sons graduation party!
Michele @ Flavor Mosaic
These look awesome. What yummy treats!
Pam
Shelby!!!!! Those are so beautiful, what a fantastic spring treat.