Review: Cake Balls by Dede Wilson

You’re probably familiar with cake pops, due to the work of Bakerella and her popular confection on sticks. Now, a cake ball is just like a cake pop, sans stick. And I think I prefer them that way.

There’s a bit more work involved in creating cake balls and pops than in cupcake making, since you’re baking the cake, cooling it, breaking it down into crumb, and then reconstituting it into bite-sized balls with a binder and final coating. It’s not difficult, but you’ll want to set aside enough time (or break it into multiple days), and having a good resource for recipes makes things much easier.

Enter by Dede Wilson. The books begins with a great upfront section that walks you through Dede’s techniques, preferred ingredients and equipment. If you take the time to read through her process, you are guaranteed to make perfect cake balls (granted you follow your recipes correctly!)

I like that she provides the baker with a wide assortment of bases, ranging from yellow and chocolate cake to brownies. From there, she provides a variety of binder recipes and finishes up with some coatings. I even learned that frosting isn’t your only option for binding; you can use jam, ganache, even liqueur!

Following this section, the reader is greeted by a variety of cake all recipes, many with gorgeous photos accompanying them. Dede has a recipe for everyone, and it seems easy enough to customize them even moreso to your liking (something I do a lot).

My only complaint is the book’s binding (picky, I know). The book is spiral bound with a perfect cardboard binding surrounding it. The spiral binding roughed up some of the pages, and also makes it sometimes difficult to turn the pages, but that’s certainly forgivable, given that you have so many recipes to play with.

Check back later in the week to see what kind of wild and booze-infused cake balls I came up with using Wilson’s book.

Disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher. However, my opinions are my own.