If you’re looking for a treat to bring your husband’s department, these simple and delicious thin blue line cake balls are sure to be a hit!
My husband doesn’t have a lot of close friends, but he has one who’s been a constant ever since they first met.
He’s always there for us. He was at our out-of-state wedding without hesitation. When the Hubs was faced with the prospect of losing his job, Paul drove four hours to where we lived at the time just to be with us. And then there’s the time he pulled our car out of a ditch after a snafu with AAA, or the time he helped us get rid of a mattress.
He’s awesome… even if A has a weird fear of him. Oh, well. It won’t be long before Uncle Paul is his favorite and Mom and Dad are old news.
Needless to say, with him now graduating from the police academy, we wanted to do something special. We saved up and bought him a nice set of handcuffs and a handcuff key both engraved with his last name, but I still wanted to do something more, because he’s been such a good friend to us.
I’d seen cake balls and cake pops before, but I’ve never made them. Or even eaten them! The prospect sounded great, though. Cake, mixed with frosting, dipped in chocolate? I don’t think you can go wrong with that.
I considered making cake pops, but I made balls instead simply because I didn’t want to have to fuss with packaging too much, but you could totally use these directions for cake pops, as well.
Thin Blue Line Cake Balls Your Officer Will Go Crazy For
Ingredients
- Chocolate cake mix
- Chocolate frosting
- Candy melts in dark chocolate and royal blue.
First, I baked the cake. Normally I add pudding to the mix when I make a cake, but I left that out because I wasn’t sure if that would make the cake balls too moist. Then I destroyed it and mixed in frosting. Side note: I also removed the edges of the cake before destroying it. You might not need to, I was just worried they wouldn’t break apart the same way and would leave lumps in the finished cake balls.
I was going to use the whole container of frosting, but luckily I looked up a recipe that said an entire can would be too much and to only use about half. I can’t remember what recipe I found that said that, but I’m glad I read it. Half the container was perfect.
After combining, the mixture was the consistency of play dough.
I chilled the dough overnight; I’m not sure if it needed that long, but with having a one-year-old, I preferred to split the labor over a couple days.
The next morning, I put the candy melts in a bowl and put that in water in the crockpot.
I turned the crockpot on high and waited… And then got impatient, took the bowl out, popped it in the microwave, and put it back. The crockpot works well for keeping the chocolate melted, but it takes some time to actually melt. The upside is if you don’t have a double boiler it’s an easy substitute you probably have on hand (and if you don’t.. well, you should!) I can’t guarantee it, but I’d guess that if you had a smaller crockpot you could put the chocolates straight in and turn it on low. If you try this, let me know how it goes.
EDIT: According to this link, the double boiler method is NOT recommended for cake balls/pops. So ignore me on this step. There are a lot of other good tips on that link though, I’d definitely check it out if you have a minute.
During the time I waited for the chocolate to melt (before I got impatient) I rolled the dough into balls. A cookie scoop would have made this way easier, but I didn’t have one, so hey. I used parchment paper to line the pan I put the balls on.
Then came the fun part: dipping!
At first, I did it by hand, then I thought they looked too messy and did it with a fork instead. Looking back, the ones I did by hand actually turned out the neatest, so I’ll do that in the future.
When I had about 12 cake balls left, I ran out of chocolate from the candy melts. I tried to use Hershey kisses, but that was a flop. Don’t get me wrong, they still tasted good, but the coating left from the Kisses was kind of soft, and combined with the super moist cake ball it was just too much. I much preferred the candy melts because the coating has a “crunch” to it.
There’s a subtle swirl in some of the chocolates and I think it’s from accidentally getting some water in the chocolate coating mixture. So, try not to do that. 🙂
Once I was finished dipping all the balls in chocolate, I melted the blue candy melts in a measuring cup and put them in a Ziploc for decorating.
My original intention was to just put one blue line across the middle of each, but I screwed that up almost immediately. But, I liked the way it looked, so I just went ahead and made lots of blue lines. This had the added benefit of making the imperfections in the chocolate coating less noticeable. Yay!
To package them, I cut the bottom off a small box and wrapped it in foil.
Then I wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap and added a note to the top.
I’m sure there’s a prettier way to wrap them, but in a pinch this totally worked.
This recipe is seriously amazing, and so versatile. We’ve done all kinds of flavors, but I think the favorites have either been these chocolate ones or lemon cake/frosting dipped in white chocolate.
These are great for a police academy graduation party, or for any time you’d like to celebrate something special with your husband or bring a treat to his department 🙂 Just be warned, if you make them for a crowd, it’ll become “your thing” and they’ll request them every time. I know from experience!
- Cake mix and necessary ingredients
- 1/2 can of frosting
- Candy melts (2 bags main color, 1/2 bag contrasting color)
- Bake cake according to directions.
- When completely cooled, crumble with a fork or use food processor.
- Mix in 1/2 can of frosting. Combine until consistency resembles dough.
- Chill dough for at least an hour or overnight.
- Roll into about 1" balls, place on parchment paper.
- Melt main color candy melts.
- Dip balls, place back on parchment paper. Let dry.
- Melt contrasting color, put in Ziploc bag. Snip corner.
- Drizzle contrasting color over the top, in as thick or thin lines as you'd like.
- Store in cool place/refrigerator in an airtight container.
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Annie says
These look super yummy! Can’t wait to try!
Leah says
Thanks! They’re so easy, too. I’m debating what flavor I’d like to try next 🙂
Jamie @ Medium Sized Family says
I never realized that you could use a crock pot as a double boiler! How handy is that? These look great.
Leah says
Yes! It’s one of my favorite tricks. I’ve used it before to make chocolate strawberries 🙂
Thank you!
Melinda Reay says
Great job for Paul. I’m sure he’s very ready to move positions at the sheriff’s department. Great idea for the engraving on the handcuffs and key….. Mark has handcuffs that he loves but a key might be cool!
Leah says
Definitely! We bought them at handcuffwarehouse.com. We got the aluminum superlite cuffs and key, both engraved, for $53 or so. They have awesome prices… J always buys from there!
SoCal Tina says
I love this decorating ideas! I bake for my husband’s department (graveyard shift) about every six weeks and am constantly looking for a new idea or two. He works out of HQ so everyone working when he is can come get some goodies!
I bought the small crock used to keep dips warm and it works perfectly to keep the chocolate melted and it’s nice and deep to give you room to fully submerge goodies. The deal was a mail in rebate which made each crock $4.99 each when all was said and done so I bought several! I still had to first melt the chocolate in the microwave.
I’ve made several different flavors of cake balls. I’m going to be making spice cake mixed with cream cheese frosting for my Halloween edition of goodies for my hubby’s brothers and sisters in blue!
Leah says
That’s so awesome! And what a great deal on the crock pots 🙂
Those sound absolutely delicious. Then again, I don’t know if you can necessarily go wrong with cake balls!
Stacey says
Hi Leah, what an awesome idea, as I was reading this I was thinking this chick sounds exactly like me- making a mistake but making the most of a situation, also I love the idea of two day planned meals as well (strictly for convenience ????) I am also a Leo wife with a 1 1/2 year old. Thank you for sharing this idea!
Best,
Stacey